David Spurrett

@doctorspurt.bsky.social

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Philosopher, working on evolution of mechanisms of action selection, and their situated subversion. https://philpeople.org/profiles/david-spurrett

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David Spurrett

My paper on conspiratorial beliefs is now online: 'How conspiratorial beliefs spread, and how real conspiracies are covered up' #OpenAccess One of my motivations for writing this paper was to take the existence of real conspiracies seriously. Abstract 👇 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

How conspiratorial beliefs spread, and how real conspiracies are covered upwww.tandfonline.com Recent research on conspiracy theories (in philosophy and elsewhere) has tended to focus on beliefs that seem (from a ‘mainstream’ perspective) outlandish and patently false: QAnon, Covid-19 vaccin...

After a wildly busy 6 weeks, I finally had a morning where I 'worked' on 'my book' again. Feels good. (And some useful thinking and talking has happened in between, even if no writing.)

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Hey does anyone know where Mills makes his “professional philosophy is like the Antarctic: a hostile white space with a few dark figures struggling across it” quip please? I know he does it more than once; I can’t find it in any of his published books; I would like to cite it accurately. #philsky

Frontiers clearly just don't care about quality. I have no qualifications in nutrition, and no history of publishing on it. No obstacle to 'leading' a 'research topic', though.

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David Spurrett

A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution reports that the frequency and magnitude of extreme wildfires appear to have doubled over the past 20 years, and the six most extreme years for these events have occurred since 2017. go.nature.com/3RFYBPW 🧪

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David Spurrett

I cannot believe I’m watching news stories about G7 leaders approving a $50bn *loan* to Ukraine, followed straight up by one about Musk must demanding a $56bn pay packet. What a world. How can a single drug-addled edge-lord sex-pest be deserving of such a sum? He’s done nothing but act the arsehole.

I just had considerable fun writing a short discussion of Mr Twit's sabotage of Mrs Twit's walking stick (in Roald Dahl's 'The Twits') in relation to Merleau-Ponty on incorporation into the body schema. I'm guessing that today is all downhill from here.

I just finished Terrence Deacon (2011) Incomplete Nature. This is way better than I expected anything about 'emergence' to be. But slow going - by the time I finished I'd also read all eight "Slow Horses" books as light relief.

The draft of "Engines of Hostility" just passed the emotional 60,000 words mark. (I'm expecting it to go up to 100k in the shade, and then be edited down, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, to a less digressive and defensive text of around 80k.)

Eric Cartman.

What voice should OpenAI use now that ScarJo’s is off-limits? Wrong answers only.

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David Spurrett

New to Bluesky? Research, teach, or study #philosophy? Save or pin the feed below to access philosophy posts from across Bluesky! 🦋 (Top tip: enable Settings > Following Feed Preferences > Show Posts from My Feeds to include posts from your favourite feeds directly in your timeline!)

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Truly we live in a goldum age.

Love what google is up to these days

Apple: We cannot allow a racist bullshit artist robot gap!

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Awful news: 'Prof Timmis blamed high inflation, stagnant domestic student fees and the downtown in international recruitment as major factors.' - over and over we are seeing universities cut jobs and courses because of problems that have been directly, knowingly, & deliberately caused by government.

Bad news from my alma mater www.cambrian-news.co.uk/news/union-w...

Union warns up to 200 jobs will be axed at Aberystwyth Universitywww.cambrian-news.co.uk Up to 200 jobs are at risk at Aberystwyth University after its new Vice-Chancellor unveiled a ‘transformation programme’ that unions warn would “reduce staff by an unprecedented amount” in a bid to ba...

Truly we live in a goldum age.

Love what google is up to these days

Yaaay. One of those mornings where it takes an hour to fix a single paragraph (which I'm still not particularly happy with). #booklife

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David Spurrett

UK! My book—Herald of a Restless World. How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People— is now available for pre-order! Please share with your Bergsonian and Bergson-curious friends! www.waterstones.com/book/herald-...

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Oh god this one hurts dailynous.com/2024/04/19/d...

Daniel Dennett (1942-2024) - Daily Nousdailynous.com Daniel Dennett, professor emeritus of philosophy at Tufts University, well-known for his work in philosophy of mind and a wide range of other philosophical areas, has died. Professor Dennett wrote extensively about issues related to philosophy of mind and cognitive science, especially consciousness. He is also recognized as having made significant contributions to the concept

Why on earth don't mobile phones, as a standard thing, show you the local time of the number you are about to call (based on country dial code)? [Occasioned by a friend getting almost no sleep because of happy birthday calls from around the world at all hours.]

Truly, we live in a golden age.

I'm trying to squeeze another 2000 words out of a paper that was a struggle (a few months back) to get down to 10k words. It hurts.

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David Spurrett

Was thinking of posting about Ideology and Utopia but didn’t want to be accused of Mannheimsplaining.

What philosophy book titles seem to you to fit what musical genre or artist? "Beyond Good and Evil" has a definite metal vibe. And "In the Space of Reasons" could work as prog rock. Others?

I'm giving this solo book-writing malarkey a try. Seems like it's going to take a while. Sadly the title "Whose Mind is it Anyway?" (which would be perfect) is already taken, by a self-help book (which this isn't going to be).

Finally got to see "All of us Strangers". Now I'm trying to figure out when I can watch it again.

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David Spurrett

not writing is a very important part of the writing process

about to make a quesadilla (doing journalism)

A reminder about the upcoming "Scaffolding Bad: Varieties of Situated Cognitive Harm" collection in Topoi. Deadline is 31 May. I'm co-editing with Giovanna Colombetti and John Sutton. link.springer.com/collections/...

Scaffolding Bad: Varieties of Situated Cognitive Harmlink.springer.com Paper submissions are invited for the special issue/collection of Topoi on Scaffolding Bad: Varieties of Situated Cognitive Harm. The special issue aims to ...

Are there any remotely plausible university simulator games out there? (There are for other stuff, like cities and flying planes...)

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David Spurrett

"union leaders said that Times managers had questioned employees about their involvement in an affinity group for employees of Middle Eastern and North African heritage and...demanded copies of private text-message conversations between colleagues" grim www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/...

New York Times union blasts leak investigation over Israel storieswww.washingtonpost.com The Guild accused the New York Times of targeting employees in a leak probe after a story about newsroom questions surrounding a report on Hamas sexual violence.