the Open Habitat project

Exclusive Screening of Skeptic Magazine’s James Randi Interview

The Skeptic Magazine and the Open Habitat project invite you to an exclusive Second Life premier screening of The Skeptic Magazine interview with James Randi on 01 August at 13:00 PDT (21:00 GMT)

Filmed on 20th April 2008, the day after his presentation to a sell-out, 500-strong audience for the Evening with James Randi and Friends, this footage was filmed exclusively for The Skeptic Magazine.

The link below will take you to a teaser of the full 52 minute interview, which will be released to coincide with the re-launch issue of The Skeptic Magazine in early August – we are also streaming this teaser in world at Open Habitat, so drop by anytime.

The video is a 2 minute snippet from the start of an interview with James Randi, a long-standing supporter of the magazine and of scepticism in the UK generally, so it seems only fitting to re-launch Britain’s foremost and longest-running sceptical magazine alongside this interview. Randi also conducted an interview for the first ever issue of the magazine, back in 1987.

Hope to see you there!

Trailer Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bbAyaLq4mQ

Delphi Discussion on Self Awareness & Perceptual Illusions.

Most of our orbs have psychological tests. A new one examines perceptual illusions that all of us experience everyday. As an aspect of self-awareness, explore optical illusions as a metaphor for broader illusions of perception, belief and memory.

Join us for a quick start discussion about optical and other illusions of perception on 24 July 2009 at 6PM PDT and on Sunday 26 July 2009 at 6pm for a full discussion.

Moderated by Reflection Freenote at discussion area:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Open%20Habitat/200/184/63

        In this note I describe the phenomenon, and list some of the questions we can take up.   

        Mental states, such as belief, are said to be ‘intentional’.  That is, they are “of” or “about” or “directed upon” some object or objects.  For example, Fred’s belief that spiders make fine pets is (on the face of it) about spiders.  Alice’s belief that Fred should return Alice’s stockings is (apparently) about Fred and a pair of stockings.  When someone believes something or hopes or fears or desires something, she represents objects in a certain way, as having certain characteristics.   Intentional objects are represented objects.      

Read the rest of this entry »