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A Lunch BIT from The Neural Basis of Free Will by Peter Ulric Tse

March 21, 2014

Throughout history, the nature of free will has been a hot topic of examination and debate in both philosophy and the sciences. In his book The Neural Basis of Free Will, Peter Tse examines the unanswered questions of free will from a neuroscience perspective. As opposed to philosophers who reason the problem through logic, Tse proposes that we listen to what neurons have to say. Using recent neurophysiological research, Tse presents what the New York Journal of Books called “a groundbreaking new paradigm about how the mind works.”

A Lunch BIT from Architecture Depends by Jeremy Till

March 20, 2014

Jeremy Till wrote Architecture Depends to defend the thesis that architecture….depends. On a lot of things. On random, contingent events and unstable factors that architects have tried to ignore in the past in an effort to preserve their discipline as a pure, autonomous field that exists in a tower above the (literal) city.

Disaster Robotics

Today we have Dr. Robin Murphy, author of Disaster Robotics, weighing in on the use of robotics in tragic disasters such as the missing Malaysian Airlines jet and Air France Flight AF447.

A Composer’s Guide to Game Music

March 17, 2014

Today Winifred Phillips, author of A Composer’s Guide to Game Music, guest blogs about her new book.

A Lunch BIT from Artificial Love by Paul Shepheard

March 16, 2014

Artificial Love, Paul Shepheard’s highly original book about architecture and machines, was published in 2003 and received much critical acclaim. Liz Bailey provided this wonderful assessment of the book in The Architect’s Journal:

A Lunch BIT from Perplexities of Consciousness by Eric Schwitzgebel

March 15, 2014

​​​​​​​Early in Perplexities of Consciousness, Eric Schwitzgebel asks a wonderful and deceptively simple question: Do you dream in color or black and white? Think about it for a second before you answer. OK, which is it? And how can you be certain? And if you think you’re sure, consider that prior to the advent of color television, most people reported dreaming in black and white. After it became commonplace, well, you can probably guess what happened. Now how sure are you?

Five Minutes with Mark Balaguer

March 14, 2014

Mark Balaguer, author of the newly released book Free Will from the Essential Knowledge series, answers a few questions on this timeless subject.

A Lunch BIT from Borges and Memory by Rodrigo Quian Quiroga

March 13, 2014

Imagine the astonishment felt by neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga when he found a fantastically precise interpretation of his research findings in a story written by the great Argentinian fabulist Jorge Luis Borges fifty years earlier. In this BIT, Quian Quiroga explores real-life cases that recall Borges’s fictional “Funes the Memorious,” investigating a man who couldn’t forget, and another who could not form new memories.

A Lunch BIT from The Digital Rights Movement by Hector Postigo

March 12, 2014

​​​​​​​What began as an assertion of consumer rights to digital content has become something broader: a movement concerned not just with consumers and gadgets but with cultural ownership. In this excerpt from Origins of the Digital Rights Movement: The White Paper and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: A BIT of The Digital Rights Movement, Hector Postigo examines the evolution of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, showing that citizens’ concerns were largely ignored in the policy process.

A Lunch BIT from Democracy Despite Itself by Danny Oppenheimer and Mike Edwards

March 9, 2014

On March 6th several news outlets broke the news that the House of Representatives approved one billion dollars in loan guarantees to the embattled country of Ukraine, drawing grumbles from the general population.