What pet elephants teach us about the stock market. — Re-Assembling Reality #26a. By Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer Models are ubiquitous in science: Epidemiologists make models of viruses spreading. Physicists make models of electrons moving through metals. Neurologists make models of brain activity. Engineers make models of building structures. If the models are any good, they tell us…

If your brain was lying to you, how could you tell? Re-Assembling Reality #23d. by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer In Essays #23a and #23b we discussed ways of obtaining information about the universe. In Essay #23c we discussed ways of putting the information we obtain together to draw…

Do we build theories, or weave them? Re-Assembling Reality #23c, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer In Essays #23a and #23b we looked at how we get information: the raw stuff from which ideas and theories are made. But, regardless of how we got it, a collection of unconnected…

When knowledge is faithful. Re-Assembling Reality #23b, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer The information we have about the world does not come to us by one single mechanism. We saw in Essay #23a that we can learn about the world by reason, and we can learn about the…

Science as a virtuous practice Re-Assembling Reality #28, by David A. Palmer and Mike Brownnutt This has been a long journey. In the early essays, we put up mind maps of what we might have wanted science to be like (#5). We said that, on the Enlightenment View, the objectivity…

When knowledge is reasonable or sensible. Re-Assembling Reality #23a, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer In previous essays, we have considered truth, and what makes something true (#10, #11, #13, #14); we have considered reality, and what makes something real (#15, #16, #17a, #17b, #17c, #17); we have considered…

What does the question even mean? — Re-Assembling Reality #15, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer Can you prove that God exists? This question crops up regularly in discussions connecting science and religion. From the dichotomies of two-list-ism (Re-Assembling Reality #1) — beloved by Enlightenment thought and never quite shaken since — it is easy to…

And, quite possibly, being less than all sorts of realist. Re-Assembling Reality #17f, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer We have stirred the pot and faced the difficulties we have with talking about reality. Having used our intuition to guide us in classifying what is real (Re-Assembling Reality #15)…

Considering epistemic realism. Re-Assembling Reality #17b, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer What are the causal connections between my brain and the universe? And in which direction does that causality flow? Ontological realism (discussed in Re-Assembling Reality #17a) decoupled the universe from my brain, in as much as it…