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Evolutionary Explanation of Schizophrenia: Living Among Strangers (Podcast with Riadh Abed)
The modern environment—whether it’s the social environment or other aspects such as the kind of the foods we eat—differs from the original human environment, that of hunter-gatherers. This was the environment in which human traits evolved, and humans lived in for most...
What is Evolutionary Psychiatry? (Podcast with Riadh Abed)
Dear listeners, welcome to another episode of the Real Science Podcast. In this episode, we are interviewing Dr. Riadh Abed, a specialist in evolutionary psychiatry. Welcome, Dr. Riadh. We begin the interview by asking you about your work and a brief introduction...
Psychotherapy: How We Confront Psychological Suffering Through Science
Another book by Real Sciences in Arabic Psychotherapy: How We Confront Psychological Suffering Through Science by Omar Meriwani with contribution of other authors and translators from Real Sciences. The book explains the methodologies of psychotherapy and their...
Hamza Tzortzis: A Gateway to Dialogue or a Web of Fallacies?
On Stefano Bigliardi’s Reading of Hamza Tzortzis’s "The Divine Reality" Hamza Tzortzis is a British Islamic preacher active in discussions between atheism and religion, particularly Islam. His book, The Divine Reality: God, Islam and the Mirage of Atheism, presents...
The reality of selves – Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained
It might be an unpleasant idea, but if you spit in a cup, can you re-drink your saliva? It seems like once something leaves your body, It’s no longer part of you, similar to hair or nails. This explains how we get our sense of self. Similarly, our bodies are home to...
Qualia Disqualified – Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained
In Chapter 12, Dennett addresses the concept of qualia—the way we subjectively experience things. Many philosophers argue that colours, for instance, are merely mental constructs rather than real properties of objects. Some argue that certain main features, like red,...
Dismantling the witness protection program – Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained
In Chapter 11, Dennett starts investigating the implications of the multiple drafts model, revisiting the reporting problem introduced in the previous chapter. Chapter 11 is called "dismantling the witness protection program". Titled "Dismantling the Witness...
Reporting Our Thoughts: Dennett vs. Folk Psychology – Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained
After discussing speech production, Dennett shifts his focus to reporting and expressing our thoughts. The problem with reporting is that it could undo the parallel models that Dennett worked to prove in previous chapters. Multiple drafts, or collaborative demons,...
The architecture of the human mind – Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained”
The architecture of the human mind is the topic of chapter nine. The lack of a single way to understand the human mind is the first issue that Dennett discusses at the beginning of the chapter. What modules form the human mind? How hard-wired are they? Jerry Fodor...
Dilemma of speech production – Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained”
“How words do things with us?” is the title of chapter eight. It starts with the idea of how the virtual machines inside us are organised and how they could have a "virtual captain" of the crew, but not elevate the captain to have dictatorial power. Dennett starts...
Evolution of consciousness – Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained”
Dennett begins his discussion of the evolution of consciousness by introducing the Baldwin Effect, which explains the impact of learned behaviour on evolution. This adaptation hastens evolution for an organism, giving it an advantage over hard-wired cousins of the...
Review of Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion”.
The first thing that could be said about the book is it is one of the most important books written about moral psychology. Jonathan Haidt is the author; he is a social psychologist and one of the leaders of moral psychology. Haidt presents the idea that he mainly...
Modelling History as a Dynamical System Chaos and Self-Similarity
By: Rashid Alawadhi Contributor: Omar Meriwani (عربي) ‘History repeats itself’, a phrase we so often hear and recognize to be self-evident. After all, history is brimming with examples of historical recurrence. Empires rose and fell, wars erupted, cultural revolutions...
Stefano Bigliardi: New Religious Movements, Islam and science, and other topics
Who is Stefano Bigliardi? This is a new episode of Real Sciences podcast and in this episode we are welcoming professor Stefano Bigliardi. He is a professor of philosophy in Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. He is interested in research about Islam and...
Language and the brain – Language and the Mind
Can we now say that no single part of the brain that is specific for language? What are the main parts, and what are the other functions that they serve? This vision is, of course, adopted by Elizabeth Bates, which you mentioned multiple times. This will help someone...