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Tag Archives: reactive

Reactive software and the outer world

At Scala Matsuri a few weeks ago (incidentally, an excellent conference), I was fortunate to be able to attend Jonas Bonér’s impassioned talk about resilience and reactive software. His theme: “without resilience, nothing else matters”. At the core of it is a certain way of thinking about the ways that complex systems fail. Importantly, complex […]

Posted 12 February 2016 † Johan § Bioinformatics § Computer science § Philosophy § Software development ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , ,

The struggle over consciousness

One of the major themes of Western philosophy since Plato is the elevation and near-deification of consciousness. Conscious thought and reflection have been prized above all else. Suspicion has been directed towards everything that is dark, murky, instinctive, unclear, unreasonable. Spirit has been emphasised above body. Christianity and its penal mechanisms was in no small […]

Posted 15 October 2014 † Johan § Philosophy ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , ,

Science and non-repeatable events

Scientific method is fundamentally concerned with repeatable events. The phenomena that science captures most easily may be described using the following formula: once conditions A have been established, if B is done, then C happens.  This kind of science is a science of reactions, of the reactive. But what about a science of the active? Is […]

Posted 29 May 2014 † Johan § Bioinformatics § Computer science § Philosophy ‡ Comments (5) ° Also tagged: , , , ,

Values 2: Human reason is reactive

Previously I wrote about Nietzsche’s assertion that philosophers must create values, and a distinction between scholars, scientists and philosophers was made. The focus now shifts to the faculty of reason and its contrast with another mode of thinking. Reason can be understood as man’s ability to think according to precise rules. Logic is one such […]

Posted 27 January 2011 † johan § Philosophy ‡ Comments (2) ° Also tagged: , , , , , ,