Social Philosophy

by Dawn Heffernan OAM

Manningham U3A

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Things to Read     (Links are underlined)

The Aboriginal response to the Voice Referendum To Prime Minister and every Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Commonwealth Parliament

 

What Oppenheimer the film gets wrong about Oppenheimer the man

 

What Is Metabolic Rift?

 

Wikipedia on     Marxism

Read also from Critique of Political Economy    Marxism

 

The Age of Reason, also known as the Enlightenment.

 

From The Spectator
    Cracking consciousness: how do our minds really work?

 

Yuval Noah Harari    From Gaza to Iran, the Netanyahu Government Is Endangering Israel's Survival

 

The Conversation
    How do Russia's reasons for war stack up?   An expert on 'just war' explains

 

Ross Gittings' rather good article on Adam Smith
    Why people can be much nicer than economists assume

 

Spurious Correlations   some very amusing graphs

 

CRISPR:    Philip Ball     After the Nobel      What next for Crispr gene-editing therapies?

 

Australia's Energy Crisis
If you favour renewable energy but have not done the maths read   The Pitchforks are Coming

 

OUPblog:    Oxford University Press 
The Turing test is not about AI: it is about our tendency to project humanity onto things

COVID-19 and pollution: double standards, quadruple bias

The Black Death :     how did the world's deadliest pandemic change society?

Adam Smith:    download a copytight free copy of his famous book 
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations           here
You may then move it to your Kindle reader - if you've got one!

 

The Conversation:    Is humanity doomed because we can't plan for the long term? 
          Three experts discuss

 

The Conversation:    Francis Fukuyama    The End of History

 

Aeon:    Biologists balk at any talk of 'goals' or 'intentions' - but a bold new research agenda has put agency back on the table  
          Life with purpose

 

Anthropologist Wade Davis on    how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era 
          The Unraveling of America

 

James Rachels     Democracy and Its Crisis    
The Philosophical Life:   Cultural Relativism: A Seductive Yet Disturbing Theory  The thoughts of James Rachels

 

From Aeon:    Alan Jern     Effective altruism is logical, but too unnatural to catch on

 

The Conversation:    on Free Will     Will I or won't I? Scientists still haven't figured out free will, but they're having fun trying

 

Adam Smith:   An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of   The Wealth of Nations

 

Rene Descartes     Descartes and the Discovery of the Mind-Body Problem

 

Paul Davies     What is life?

 

Is Consciousness Part of the Fabric of the Universe?

 

John H. Evans takes us down    The slippery slope of the Human Gene Editing

 

The most powerful Gene Editing tool is CRISPR
The 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry went to two young ladies who invented    CRISPR
TED talk by Nobel winner   Jennifer Doudna

TED talk by Ellen Jorgensen    What you need to know about CRISPR

TED talk by Jennifer Doudna   (2023)   CRISPR's Next Advance Is Bigger Than You Think

bozeman science.com presents   What is CRISPR?

The Big Think    Jennifer Doudna, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, & more    CRISPR: Can we control it?

 

 

From the Oxford University Press blog    The Turing test is not about AI: it is about our tendency to project humanity onto things. The Conversation     Shutterstock In Victoria, whether you get an ICU bed could depend on the hospital.

 

Jim Gordon
Global population to peak at 2064 before heading into ‘inexorable’ decline

Jim Gordon's     The Chinese are leaving us in the dust

An Aeon article:     The ungoverned globe   The end of the liberal order would unleash chaos; its continuanceunconstrained economic suffering. What to do?

 

An Aeon article does a demolition job on Edward de Bono:     Rethinkng Lateral Thinking

 

A good Aeon article:     Why so many Physicist are wrong about free wiil

 

How a    Stimulus Package   works.

 

Judy Ryan found ths article:     How the Coronavirus Pandemic puts moral philosophy to the test

 

Peter Cook's Power Point presentation:     The Happiness Report

 

Camilla Cavendish tells us we may be wrong to assume older people cannot learn as well as younger ones.
Train your brain: How to keep your mind young.

 

From The Conversation:    Fake News.

 

Michael Howard, our resident acturary, gave us a paper on Artificial Intelligence in which he made several references to an article by McKinsey:      An executive's guide to AI
It is a pdf file but should download if you click on the above link.

 

From The Conversation:    All about juries, why do we actually need them, can they get it wrong?
Or, if you would prefer it as a printable Word document click
Here.

 

The Social Contract and Philosophy
Or, if you would prefer it as a printable Word document click
Here.

 

Judith Brett's new book:    From secret ballot to democracy sausage
Or, if you would prefer it as a printable Word document click
Here.

 

A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it's bad for you.

 

Summary of some of the main reasons for the belief in the existence of a God.

 

 

 

 

Return to the    Menu

 

Videos to Watch:    (Links are underlined)

Korczyk's Class
The Buisness Cycle

Keynesian Economics Concepts Explained

Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand Theory

and another on the same subject

Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand Theory

The Belt and Road; As the West Slumbers, China Advances

Artificial Intellegence

An  Alan Turing  original paper   The Imitation Game

The "Godfather of AI"    Geoffrey Hinton   late of Google, warns of   The "Existential Threat" of AI

Yoval Noah Harari  on   AI and the future of humanity

Sam Harris  TED talk   Can we build AI without losing control over it?

Toby Welsh  on   Advanced AI - are we repeating the mistakes of the past?

Sky News Australia interviews 'free-thinking' artificial intelligence

Crash Course Philosophy from Square Space
Divine Command Theory

Kant     Categorical Imperatives

Utilitarianism

John Mearsheimer on  The liberal international order

Population collapse

Peter Zeihan  Things are beyond terminal   The Old World Order Is About To Collapse

Jorden Peterson   Population Collapse Is Coming

Jennifer D. SciubbaThe Truth About Human Population Decline

John Pilger  on Ukraine and Assange   This is a war of propaganda

Kerry O'Brien     Our vote is precious

Post Election Media Watch     Anthony Albanese becomes Australia's 31st Prime Minister following a turbulent 6-week campaign. We dissect the media's coverage and behaviour, and whether it swayed the final result.

Konstantin Kisin     Speech to world leaders at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Conference 2023

Jack Matlock   Former U.S. Ambassador to USSR:

A video   Ukraine Crisis Stems Directly from Post-Cold War Push to Expand NATO

An essay   Jack Matlock Corrects the Record on American Foreign Policy

Kenya's Ambassador to the UN - Martin Kimani's speech on
     The Ukraine - Russia Crisis

Ian Bremmer     Ukraine and World Order

The Shorter Version     The Longer Version
Steven Koonin
The Limitations of Climate Change Models

Hot or Not: Steven Koonin Questions Conventional Climate Science and Methodology

Prof Brian Schmidt     at the National Press Club     December 2023

Ayn Rand

Interviews
The Mike Wallace Interview with Ayn Rand

James Day Interviews Ayn Rand

What Is Capitalism?

Books and Book Reviews
Atlas Shrugged: Book Review

The Book Club: Atlas Shrugged    Ayn Rand with Eric Daniels

Why Atlas Shrugged changes lives

The Book Club: The Fountainhead    Ayn Rand with Andy Puzder

Al Gore     How to make radical climate action the new normal

Why Socrates Hated Democracy

John Stuart Mill :   An Introduction (On Liberty, Utilitarianism, The Subjection of Women)

Thomas Hobbes :   Social Contract

John Locke :   Social Contract Theory

John Rawls :   The Problem With Human Rights

Sir Geoffrey Nice :   Human Rights, Philosophy and History

Slime mold    A Brainless Blob that Seems Smart

Bishop Robert Barron   Ideas Have Consequences:
     The Philosophers Who Shaped 2020   Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault.

Leiden University -    The Philosophy of the Humanities

1.1   Introduction to logic

1.2   Induction and background theories

1.3   Where reasoning goes wrong

1.4   Karl Popper and the logic of falsification

2.1   Thomas Kuhn, normal science

2.2   Thomas Kuhn, scientific revolutions

2.3   Thomas Kuhn, incommensurability and progress

Utilitarianism

Jeffrey Sachs
U.S. Policy & "West's False Narrative" Stoking Tensions with Russia, China

What JFK tried to do before his assassination

On the mainstream media and support of US views

John Mearsheimer    The West is responsible

David Harvey    How NATO Motivated Russia's Ukraine Invasion

Nuclear submarines

Stan Grant:   interviewing Victor Gao    Nuclear subs for Australia

Kevin Rudd     New submarine plan could leave Australia 'strategically naked for 20 years'

Discussion:   three religious leaders    THE RULES OF THE GAME: Just War Doctrine

TED talk:   Stephanie Kelton     The big myth of government deficits

TED talk:   A Logic Puzzle     Why do we believe things that aren't true?

Stephen C. Meyer   Senior Fellow and Director for the Center for Science and Culture in the Discovery Institute puts     The case for Intelligent Design

Ideas and Society:   La Trobe University webinar:
Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull     The Challenge of China

Visualizing Herd Immunity (with 500 Mousetraps!

The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy

C P Snow

Two Cultures

Building sand castles in Namibia with Brian Cox

Wave/Particle Duality

Dr Quantum's cartoon version   The Double Slit Experiment.

Far better,   see

Jim Al-Khalili: Having fun and hamming it up:  The Double Slit Experiment   at the Royal Instition, London.

Jim Al-Khalili

Energy and Entropy

The Story of Information  Order and Disorder

Richard Dawkins
TED Talk     Why the universe seems so strange.

Richard explains      NeoDarwinism

Denis Noble
Why Dawkins is wrong     better title would be
Why Darwin would not have been a neoDarwinist?
Steven Pinker
Enlightenment now

The Blank Slate

The book launch:      The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

The aftermath:      Human nature and the blank slate

Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds

Anti-Essentialism:    Wittgenstein's Notion of Family Resemblebce

Critical Thinking:    Necessary & Sufficient Conditions

In conversation with:   Bertrand Russell   (1952)

Alan Turing

Alan Turing - Celebrating the life of a genius:     

The Turing Test:     Can a computer pass for a human?    by Alex Gendler

Listen to     The Science Show   devoted to Turing

Bletchley Park Tour

Read about the film based on Turing's time at Bletchley Park     The Imitation Game

Yoval Noah Harari
AI and the future of humanity

Nationalism vs. globalism: the new political divide

Why fascism is so tempting -- and how your data could power it

The war in Ukraine could change everything

What explains the rise of humans?

The World after Covid

On BBC's Hard Talk:    The legacy of Covid-19

Michael Sandel and Yuval Noah Harari in conversation

A short question posed by   Michael Sandel   What becomes of democracy

Talks at Google:

New Religions of the 21st Century   2015

21 Lessons for the 21st Century   2018

Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis
Tony Heyes     A radio interview     Our Plastic Brains

David Eagleman

TED talk    Can we create new senses for humans?    in which he makes reference to the pioneering work of        Paul Bach-y-Rita
also reference to Peter Meijer's    The VOICe

David Eagleman:The Harvard Science Book Talk:    Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain.

David Eagleman asks    Brain over mind?.

David Eagleman does a brilliant job addressing the question   God vs No God

Alvin Plantinga
   Science & Religion: Where the Conflict Really Lies

Norman Doidge
     Conversations That Matter:      The power of the brain

Andre Vermeulen
     TED talk:      How neuroplasticity helps us shape who we become

Sandrine Thuret
     TED talk:      Neurogenesis: You can grow new brain cells.

The Butterfly Effect

Chaos: The Science of the Butterfly Effect

Is the Butterfly Effect Real?

Emergence - How Stupid Things Become Smart Together

 

Psychology Issues & Debates:      Holism and Reductionism

 

Holism & Reductionism

 

Natural sequence farming: How Peter Andrews rejuvenates drought-struck land

 

Sir David Attenborough   address to the United Nations Security Council  Climate and Security   23 February 2021

 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Farewell Address ; A Warning On The Military-Industrial Complex   January 17, 1961
and in spit of  Dwight Eisenhower's Warning:  Military Industrial Complex's Growing Budget (2014)

And in 2022
Colonel Richard Black   Points out that the UK/USA have 900 military bases world wide whereas Russia and China have just 35.    The Illusion of Russian and Chinese Aggression Around the World

Rousseau   State of Nature - A Philosophical Glimpse

 

Locke   State of Nature & the New World | Philosophy Tube

 

Hugh Mackay   Communities in Control 2018

 

Estoril Conferences    We live in a blended world

 

Hannah Critchlow   on Free Will    The Science of Fate   Somewhat spoilt by her tendency to laugh at her own jokes.

 

PoliticalTheory
John Locke   and read Locke's    Influence on the Declaration of Independence

Adam Smith    but also see    The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

John Maynard Keynes

John Rawels

Friedrich Hayek

 

Political Philosophy
Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France

 

A C Grayling
The Challenge of Cultural Relativism    a brilliant talk in praise of representative democracy.

Knowledge, Truth and Wisdom    at the University of Lincoln.

The Origins and Future of Humanism    at the Wheeler Centre.

Humanism

In converstion with Lawrence Krauss

For the Good of the World

With Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins

Why Science and Religion Think Differently

Is Consciousness an Illusion?

The Social Contract     Thomas Hobbes and John Locke

 

A mesmerising video showing        The top ten car producing counties from 1950 to 2019

 

Jordan Peterson   on    Hitler Bathed Even More Than You Think

 

TED talk:    Iyad Rahwan asks   What moral decisions should driverless cars make?

 

Van Jones discribes an alarming prospect:    What if a US presidential candidate refuses to concede after an election?

 

The Philosophical Life:   Cultural Relativism: A Seductive Yet Disturbing Theory  The thoughts of James Rachels.     But to read the man himself, read....
James Rachels    The Challenge of Cultural Relativism
David Hume:   A short video

 

Peter Singer  TED talk:    The why and how of effective altruism

 

Determining Causality:     A Review of the Bradford Hill Criteria

 

Psychology Issues & Debates:      Holism and Reductionism

 

Nicolas Perony:   TED talk   Complexity Theory

 

Buzz Feed:     209 Seconds That Will Make You Question Your Entire Existence

 

Closer To Truth :    Robert Lawrence Kuhn asks the questions:
What is Philosophy of Science?

Simon Blackbourne:   What is Causation?

Lothar Schafer:   Does Consciousness Cause the Cosmos?

Are Brain and Mind the Same Thing?

Sir Roger Penrose:   Is Mathematics Invented or Discovered?

Sir Roger Penrose
Why Explore Cosmos and Consciousness? Quantum mechanics and consciousness

His Orch OR theory of consciousness.  His   Mind-Bending Theory of Reality

Daniel C. Dennett:   Do Persons Have Souls?

A debate     Daniel Dennett VS Robert Sapolsky
     Do We Have Freewill?

John Searle:   Philosophy of Free Will

John Searle and others:   How do Language and Consciousness Relate?

Arguing God from Consciousness

Michael Shermer    Fallacies in Proving God Exists

What is Causation?

Does Information Create the Cosmos?

Is the Universe fine-tuned for life and mind?

Does a Fine-Tuned Universe Lead to God?

Can Many Religions All Be True?

Can God and Science mix?

What can science say about God?

What's beyond Physics?

Sean Carroll:   Philosophy of Physics and Cosmology

Paul Davies:   What is the Origin of the Laws of Nature?

Paul Davies:   Does Consciousness Lead to God?

George Ellis:   What really exists?

David Chalmers :   What are Observers?.

Paul Davies:
Where do the laws of physics come from?

What are the laws of physics?

Michio Kaku
The Universe in a Nutshell

There are 2 types of god. Only one is within the boundary of science.

Francis Collins    makes the distinction between deism and theism    Is religion a threat to science?

John Searle

TED talk:    Our shared condition - Consciousness

TEDXCERN:    Consciousness & the Brain

David Chalmers
TED talk:    How do you explain consciousness?

David Chalmers :    Why is Emergence Significant?

David Chalmers :    On Emergence

The role of the observer!  Thomas Young's Double Slit experiment
Jim Al-Khalili: Having fun and hamming it up:  The Double Slit Experiment   at the Royal Instition, London.

Dr Quantum's   cartoon version:  The Double Slit Experiment

Richard Feynman:   One of the 20th Century's greatest Physicists discusse   Ways of Thinking and the Cosmological Reality

James Randi

TED talk:    Homeopathy, quackery and fraud

Exposes the    Peter Popoff Ministries

Jeff Rosen TED talk:    Germany: Low Crime, Clean Prisons   Lessons for America.

 

Anil Seth TED talk:    Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality

 

DNA:   We are all cousins, take    the DNA Journey  alternatively watch    the Monty Python Version

 

Rachel Carson:   "Silent Spring"  Four short videos
American experience          Documentary

DDT          Cancer Risk

Larry Brilliant:
TED Prize wish:    Help stop the next pandemic

TED May 2020:    A global pandemic calls for global solutions

Tom Wessels:   TED Talk:   Simply Complex Systems

 

John Stuart Mill -    On Liberty

 

Sacha Baron Cohen
Accepts the   Anti-Defamation League (ADL) International Leadership Award5

Talks a lot of sense on the    decline of democracy and the negative impact of Facebook.

Rowan Atkinson -    On Free Speech

 

Rob Brydon reveals popular Shakespeare phrases in everyday use    You're quoting Shakespeare.

 

Richard Wolff on:
The Rise and Fall of the USSR

China's Economic Record and Strategy

3 kinds of Socialism

Record Homelessness Defies US "Solutions"

Graham Allison:    TED Talk   Is war between China and the US inevitable?.

 

Yuval Noah Harari on BBC's Hard Talk:    The legacy of Covid-19.

 

The science behind    The Butterfly Effect.

 

What is    Natural Selection.

Derek Muller     from      Veritasium

Everyone should watch this, it is so interesting because it is counter intuative:    The Baysian Trap.

Everything That Happens Has Already Been Determined.

The Real Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars.

John Cleese in serious mode gives us an insight into   Extremism.

 

Tim Minchin's    Address to the University of Western Australia   on being awarded the Honourary Degree of Doctor of Letters.

 

A young student asks    Why America is the greatest country in the world  and gets a brilliant answer, but not the answer she expected.

 

A long and rather disturbing film about the delusion of Green Energy    Planet of tbe Humans    not a "feel good" but an important film.

 

Noam Chomsky  &  Lawrence Krauss:   discuss   An Origins Project Dialogue: Part 1.

Noam Chomsky  &  Lawrence Krauss:   discuss   An Origins Project Dialogue: Part 2.

 

Noam Chomsky
Manufacturing Consent

Manufacturing Consent ~ the longer version

 

Putin, Ukraine, China, and Nuclear War     Lex Fridman asks stupid questions but Chomsky shines through.
Gérard Araud, former French ambassador:
US 'rules-based order' means Western domination, violating international law

Ukraine has revealed a New World Order/b>

Cambridge Conversations:    Responding to the medical challenges of COVID-19    the film of a Cambridge Alumni Webinar; April, 2020.

 

Nick Hanauer's TED talk    The dirty secret of capitalism -- and a new way forward

 

Ray Monk: an   Intro to the Philosophy of Mathematics.

 

Bryan Magee      Author of The Story of Philosophy
on An Introduction to Philosophy    with   Isaiah Berlin

on The Great Philosophers

on Medieval Philosophy    with   Anthony Kenny

on Contemporary Philosophy    with   David Balcarras

on Philosophy of language    with   John Searle

on Philosophy and Politics    with   Ronald Dworkin

on The Frankfurt School    with   Herbert Marcuse

on Philosophy and Literature    with   Iris Murdoch

on Philosophy of Science    with   Hilary Putnam

on Socrates & Plato's Philosophy    with   Myles Burnyeat

on Aristotle    with   Martha Nussbaum

on René Descartes    with   Bernard Williams

on Spinoza & Leibniz    with   Anthony Quinton

on Locke & Berkeley    with   Michael Ayers

on David Hume    with   John Passmore

on Immanuel Kant    with   Geoffrey Warnock

on Schopenhauer    with   Frederick Copleston

on Friedrich Nietzsche    with   J P Stern

on Hegel and Marx    with   Peter Singer

on Ludwig Wittgenstein    with   John Searle

on Frege, Russell, & Modern Logic    with   A J Ayer

on Rawls vs Nozick    with   Ronald Dworkin

on Heidegger and Existentialism    with   William Barret

in conversation with   Noam Chomsky

A very elderly Bryan Magee on Karl Popper

Robert Nozick:    Anarchy, State, & Utopia.

 

The Mathmatics of    Tipping Points    by Thomas Bury.

 

What is   a Complex System ?

 

The Dunning-Kruger Effect - Cognitive Bias -    Why Incompetent People Think They Are Competent.
An extreme example   Dunning-Kruger Effect example.

The "Dunning-Kruger Song" from    The Incompetence Opera.

 

Best use of renewable energy and technology by Japan    Tokyo Olympics 2020.

 

How nature gets its rhythms:    Feedback loops.

 

Technological Determinism

 

James Lovelock
An introduction to James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis:    Daisy World.

An interview with    James Lovelock    the creator of the Gaia Hypothesis.

Suzanne Simard     TED talk       How trees talk to each other

 

Jerad Diamond's TED talk    Why do societies Collapse?    With lessons from the Norse of Iron Age Greenland, deforested Easter Island and present-day Montana.

 

Donald Hoffman's TED talk    Do we see reality as it is?.

 

Vilayanur Ramachandran
TED talk    Three clues to understanding your brain   in which he introduces us to    Bouba and Kiki.

TED talk    The neurons that shaped our civilization.

How can life experiences and environmental factors modify behaviour across generations?
Terence Pang from the Florey Institute explores the theme of    epigenetic inheritance

 

Factfulness
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think is a 2018 book by Swedish statistician Hans Rosling with his son Ola Rosling and daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Ronnlund.
This formed part of Dawn's questionnaire on which we all did so badly!
Michael Howard has read the book and distilled the essence into a   Power Point presentaion.
but see
How not to be ignorant about the world

and
The mindset of factfulness
Barry Schwartz   TED talk     What role does luck play in your life?.

 

George Monbiot
TED talk     The new political story that could change everything

 

Bill Gates
TED talk     The next outbreak? We're not ready
Michael Sandel
TED talk   Why we shouldn't trust markets with our civic life.

TED talk   The tyranny of merit.

The full Michael Sandel's   Harvard Justice Course.
To see a lecture Full Screen: select the lecture, click on the down arrow at the bottom right hand corner of the screen, wait for the reload.
Now click on the box image at the bottom right hand corner of the new screen.

if, however you wish to see the cartoon version of these lectures click     here

The first lecture in the series deals with the Trolly Problem     The Moral side of Murder

Arguing Affirmative Action

Whats Fair? Equality, affirmative action, and meritocracy

Michael Sandel on    A New Politics of Hope    at the    Royal Society of Arts    in London, December 2018.
This is different from his student lectures, quite chnellging but well worth the effort.

Michael Sandel on    the values of being a human being

Michael Sandel on    Utilitarianism: the Trolly Problem

Michael Sandel on    Imanual Kant 1

Michael Sandel on    Imanual Kant 2

Malcolm Roberts puts
        Carbon Dioxide in perspective   and, yes, he totally misses the point!
One should now read the Oxford University Press Blog entitled
Why urgent action is needed to avoid centuries of global warming

Also, watch Professor David Karoly on Q&A answering the question   Can You Please Explain Global Warming?

 

Ronald Reagan    in 1964, putting forward the Republican argument
      "A Time for Choosing"

 

Matt Walker's TED talk   
         "Sleep is your superpower"

 

Yuval Noah Harari asks the question    What explains the rise of humans?

 

Life of Privilege Explained in a    Muslim woman claim   all Muslims are portrayed badly .

 

Taking the lid off renewable energy
Renewables for donestic use
TED Talk:      Why renewables can't save the planet by Michael Shellenberger.
and Tony's Power Point presentation   How many solar panels do you need?
Renewables for base load use
Tony's Power Point presentation   Renewables for Base Load
Or simply watch the emebedded videos
What's wrong with wind and solar.
All true, except for his concluding remarks.
Much better we learn from Kirk Sorensen.
Kirk Sorensen on Thorium reactors:    LFTRs in 5 minutes.

and    LFTR vs nuclear waste   - Plutonium, americium, curium etc. (the transuranics) can be fissioned, that is, comsumed.

And finally Tony's    Noddy's guide to Fission and Fusion

How to lose weight     The Physics of Fat:    Tony's    Power Point presentation.

       and Rubin Meerman's    Ockham's Razor Program    that inspired it.

 

Carole Cadwalladr asks, "Are free and fair elections a thing of the past"? in her TED talk:   Facebook's role in Brexit.

 

Rabbi Lord Johnathan Sacks on    Understanding Antisemitism.

 

A sensible and thoughtful discussion:
Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, David Wolpe and Bradley Artson Shavit ask  
Is there an afterlife?.

 

 

 

 

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Audio links for us to Listen:    (Links are underlined)

 

The Science Show special   Sir John Eccles

The Philosopher's Zone   An Atheist's God - The Paradox of Spinoza

The COVID Conversation from   The NewDaily

Facing up to the   ethical challenges of who survives, and who keeps their jobs,    Dr Simon Longstaff - Executive Director of    The Ethics Centre  - says there are no easy answers, or certainties, when looking to do the right thing.

Ourfamed Nobel Laureate    Peter Doherty  talks about    why we will get a vaccine and what happens if we don't.   He teases apart why our immune system so often lets us down and explains some of the complicating factors of a virus that he says isn't so mysterious. He also lets fly with what's making him angry.

 

Prof Roger Short tells Robyn Williams of his surprise on learning about   
The God Gene.
A brilliant raconteur, one of the very best Science Shows:   The full Roger Short Interview.   Almost an hour but every minute a gem.

 

 

 

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PowerPoints:    (Links are underlined)
Dan Rabinovici   presents    Stoicism
Related links:
From the Conversation    Want to be happy? Then live like a Stoic for a week

From Modern Stoicism    Stoic Week

==========
Dan Rabinovici   presents    Democracy in Retreat
Related links:
From the Israeli daily Haaretz
Yoval Noah Harari    This Is Definitely a Coup

Yoval Noah Harari    Netanyahu's Next Power Grab Is Coming

And one can draw parallels with    Viktor Orban's    Illiberal Hungary
Dan Rabinovici   presents    Soren Kierkegaard
Tony Heyes  presents   The Philosophy of Science
Our Changing View of Reality: A Scientific Perspective

 

 

 

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Videos to make us Giggle:    (Links are underlined)

Moments of Wonder      Philomena Cunk
On Philosophy

On Greek Statues

On Time

 

The Two Ronnies  not Philosophy but considered to be the best of British humour    Four Candles

 

Orson Wells   advocates tyranny and corruption over brotherly love and democracy and uses Italy and Switzerland as examples. In the role of Harry Lime from      The Third Man (1949).

 

Michael Cain     You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!

 

Peter Sellers   does a wonderful   Michael Cain impersonation - 1970

 

Tom and Jerry:     Russia vs Ukraine and NATO

 

Yes, Prime Minister:
Salami Tactics and Nuclear Deterrent

Sir Humphrey explains   The Church of England

The Prime Minister explains    Who reads the papers

Sir Humphrey Appleby explains   Why Britain Joined the European Union.

Crane Operator's competence test in Germany

 

Walter Matthau    telling Johnny Carson about   ordering breakfast  during his stay in hospital in 1982.

 

American bedside table

 

Two opera singers

 

New laws for the pronuciaion of English words      Stay Sane and Carry On

 

Funny student at exam hall

 

The British Royal Family is Indian

 

Boris cleaning chair     with commentary by Sir David Attenborough

 

Scottish Haka

 

Birds can Dance

 

Venn diagram Career Choice Analysis

 

Mr. Bean   
Salvation Army Carols

 

Dame Edna   
In the Royal Box

 

New York, New York   
NYC Bids Adieu To Donald Trump (In Song)

 

Tom Thumb presents a most unusual  
TEDx talk

 

Sound of Silence Lockdown Parody  
The Sound of Sirens

 

Guy Noble and West Australian Symphony Orchestra give us a 2020 version of  
H.M.S. Pinsfore

 

Alfred Hitchcock presents   
THE TRUMP VIRUS.

 

its all in the telling. The incomparable David Niven tells Parky  
The Prawn Joke.

 

Parky (1971) is amused by   
Muhammad Ali.

 

Not for the straight-laced
A young Billy Connolly makes his first appearance on Parkinson in 1975. He tells    The Wife Joke   which shocked Parky and the BBC but establish Connolly as unforgetable.
Monty Python
The Philosophers' Football Match.

The surviving members of Monty Python at their reunion concert at the O2 Arena sing    The Philosophers' Song.

Daniel Emmet sings   Nessun Dorma...alla Corona.

 

Dave Allen
Wrong side of the bed.

First day at school.

Religious jokes.

Donald Trump and Idi Amin    Two peas in a pod.

 

Tom Rush   
Searching for my glasses.

 

Roan Atkinson as   
Toby the Devil.

 

Important information about   
the consumption of Tequila.

 

Melbourne humour on tbe subject of   
Coronavirus: Flatten The Curve.

 

Tom Lehrer explains that he   
Got it from Agnes.

 

Tony Hancock    
The Blood Donor

 

Pam Ayres
They should have asked my husband.
And her accent: rural Berkshire/Oxfordshire.

A Poem About Physical Exercise

The Dinner Party

Pam Ayres In Her Own Words

Sheldon debunks    Astrology.

 

Mitchell and Webb in:    The Homeopathic A&E Department.

 

Peter Cook & Dudley Moore:    At the art gallery.

 

Jay Lafferty explains    Brexit.

 

What has the European Commission on Human Rights ever done for us    Sir Patrick Stewart explains
while from The Life of Brian  John Cleese asks:  
What have the Romans ever done for us?

 

Northerner terrifies Londoners by    saying "Hello".

 

An amusing example of the philosophical problem of self    Trigger's Broom.

 

Joe Lycett's Parking Ticket Story:    "doth butter no parsnips".

 

Laurel and Hardy    Let's twist again.

 

Just beautiful: Stjpan Hauser & an orchestra of young people play    Nessun dorma

 

 

 

 

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Karl Popper:    (Links are underlined)

A German language film with subtitles:
A doctrine against doctrinaires: the enduring radical modesty of Karl Popper.

 

Read Karl Popper's   
Darwin Lecture - 1977.

Or hear the audio of Popper's presentation    Here.

 

Finally some of the "odds and sods"which have interested the class::    (Links are underlined)

Three young tenors:     NOT the sons of the famous three tenors    but they do sing rather well.

 

Don McLean's tribute to Vincent Van-Gogh:    
Vincent: AKA Starry, Starry Night

 

Virtual Tours
Sainte Chapelle Paris

Sistine Chapel Rome

 

And a cartoon sent to me by Lisbeth Wilks

Escher

-----------

 

Another interesting optical illusion   
Crazy Circle Illusion

 

Some drawings by Roger Penrose

Penrose

 

Believe it or not but the blue lines ARE parallel

illusion

 

 

 

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Useful Links:    (Links are underlined)

 

OpenAI   is a non-profit research company that aims to develop and direct artificial intelligence (AI) in ways that benefit humanity as a whole. The company was founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Sign in for free and ask the chatbot questions HERE.  You will be amazed.

 

Australian National University    Library of Resources   ANU TV

 

They vote for you   put in your Post Code and see   How your MP voted

 

Oxford University Press    Blog

 

Become a    Citizen Scientist
Folding@home is a project focused on disease research. The problems we're solving require so many computer calculations. Yyou could help us find the cures!
The Folding@home software runs while you do other things. While you keep going with your everyday activities, your computer will be working to help us find cures for diseases such as cancer, ALS, Parkinson's etc.
Download    Folding At Home  and get started!

 

The Royal Institution (UK)
YouTube Channel. a huge number of splendid videos many to do with the brain.

Also the famous    Christmas Lectures  in which eminent scientists present their field of study to a young audience.

Try      Radio Garden     every green dot is a radio station!

 

If you are interested in a scientific view of Comlimentary or Alternative Medicine, and a host of otber things, visit :  The James Randi Foundation.

 

Find more medical good sense here:   Friends of Science in Medicine.

 

If you have grandchildren or young friends who are looking for a different party idea, how about a Cosmology Party.   Look at:   Stones, Bones and Stars
The children will get to handle crystals, a meteorite, dinosaur teeth and to see rock from the moon.

 

 

 

 

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Notes for Tutors/Lecturers:    (Links are underlined)

It is possibleto stream these links live to the class but it is frought. It is much better to download the link to your own computer prior to your presentation.

The best download software I have found is    Airy   It is available for use both on PCs and the Apple Mac.

 

Hybrid Zooming

Small Meeting Hybrid Tech Setup

Large Meeting Hybrid Tech Setup

Going Hybrid: Buying Guide

 

Inviting Guest Speakers

To enable guest speakers to find their way to Manningham U3A copy the following URL and paste it into an email...

www.SonicPathfinder.org/U3A/Visit.html

To see the URL for yourself go to HERE

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Any comments or suggestions, if you spot any spelling mistakes or if you find a link that no longer works, please contact Tony Heyes by email:     Tony.Heyes@physics.org

 

For parsimonious reasons I have tacked this web page on to my existing web site.
The address of this page is
SonicPathfinder.org/U3A/SocialPhilosophy
but this is hard to remember.

It is better that you go to

www.sonicpathfinder.org
and follow the links starting with the link in the cyan box very near the top of the page.

 

HOWEVER: Manningham U3A has a   New Web Page  and a link to this page - and other Class Posts - can be found at the top.
Return to the    Menu

 

 

This web page has been written by Tony Heyes
of Perceptual Alternatives

 


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