Yale

I did happen to be in New Haven Friday evening and very much enjoyed your talk with Paul Bloom. I did have a question which I didn't manage to get in. If I heard you correctly, the mind's experience is irreduceable to the firing of neurons in the brain. You also classified yourself as a skeptical agnostic. That would appear, to me, to be a contradiction. If I haven't gotten this all wrong, how would one reconcile this difference? Please set me straight, one way or the other. Thanks.

I love the way this guy, Jonah Lehrer, has so much time on his hands, and so much funding from somehwere that he can afford to search through all the daily publications for us, contradict himself all over the shop and look like a pre-teen man-child. He reminds me of a Dorian Gray, and I wonder where his picture is. If he isn't dying inside somehwere from the shame of his odd type guru-fame, then he is just provoking reaction using his fashionable means, contacts, and education. His subject-matter is everywhere and I have just wasted an hour looking for something more insightful than what I found ten years ago. I have found nothing but pretentious name-dropping and article-quoting. I'd be surprised if Jonah ever responded directly to anyone away from a live public platform, because he can't rely on the kindness of strangers in comfortable audotoriums in which he is on the stage and limited by time, scope, the escape of a light touch of humour, and the many other questions from adoring fans. I would just ask him who he thinks he is. These mind-scientists must be the biggest egotists yet: bigger than politicians, bankers, pop-stars. OMG.