Boys locker room be like:

'Let me go on very briefly.. so that I stop' :D

Wolpert shows the worst attitude a scientist can have: arrogance

I wish someone posted the whole debate. One of youtube's pearls right here.

I'm watching these videos and my urge to slap this Lewis Welport in the face only increases. This ridiculous rejection of philosophy ultimately makes him a bad scientist. I understand when scientists reject continental thought for how it goes pointlessly obscure sometimes, but to get to this point where you're so stuck inside the scientific experimental method that you can't even understand a spirituous analogy is pitiful.

love the ambient breathing noises

Welport implicitly said that there are no absolutes. Isn't that an absolute statement?

Did Wolpert basically come out as an old fashioned Essentialist? We need the full debate.

Lewis Wolpert sounds like a right fundamentalist, seems intent on closing down discusion.

Zizek: Let me propose to you a paradoxical statement.

As usual, Zizek is a genius alien within dumb biologists and a poor bad-english-speaking cute Floros

For a Zizek-o-phile like myself this has been very illuminating in that the video allows one to see Zizek as part of a diaspora of points of view, and - more interestingly - how he is related and relates to the polarities around the table. In terms of ( his book ) The Parallax View he is truly taking up the place of ( get ready for Australian colloquialisms ) the ' shit fight' between culture and science.

There is only one absolute truth. And that truth is I am that I am. Everything else can change and is subjective. But the simple awareness that is consciousness is universal. Every person on this planet can differ from the next in some way, but what does not differ from person to the next the experience of oneself. We all share that. And I believe all life is conscious meaning that in some way everything that is living is experiencing something on some level. Humans however have the capacity to be aware of this experience and while it is likely that most animals may not be self-conscious, they are experiencing consciousness none the less. We'll never be able to understand another species experience of consciousness but it is evident that there is something there that IS reacting and experiencing the external world. In order for life to exist I believe consciousness, not as we experience it ourselves, but in it's rudimentary form, must be present. This is speculation however and based on my experience the only absolute truth that I know of is that I AM. I know nothing else for certain.

"absolute is the fear of death - and then you create a god"

@

you know it's fucked up, when an intervention from žižek makes the whole scene NOT a monty python scene. aka all these grey heads except žižek look like they are running a comedy skit.

allan janik had a wonderful point about the mystery of ourselves. That the world offers no sure, practical answers like it does for time, aids and such. That the mysteries of our selves is a personal relationship with form.

"nobody searches for the absolute" OH YOU WOLPERT are you really so dishonest?

On the question of the absolute, people generally think in absolutes or conceptual thought that looks to the whole (gestalt theory for example). This is evident in our perceptions of other people, countries, nations, celebrities and so on, and to some extent nature and the world (for those people interested enough to think about it). People will continue to do this, but it's an open question if people have or will ever find absolutes. For me the process of change is the only absolute.

I do think they have difficulties with the concept. I really would like to get intouch with one of them to explane it.