Alva Noë
Alva Noë is a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos and Culture. He is writer and a philosopher who works on the nature of mind and human experience.
Noë received his PhD from Harvard in 1995 and is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a member of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Center for New Media. He previously was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has been philosopher-in-residence with The Forsythe Company and has recently begun a performative-lecture collaboration with Deborah Hay. Noë is a 2012 recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship.
He is the author of Action in Perception (MIT Press, 2004); Out of Our Heads (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2009); and most recently, Varieties of Presence (Harvard University Press, 2012). He is now at work on a book about art and human nature.
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Alva Noë reflects on a new study claiming that the fact that human communication requires the ability to correct misunderstanding in real time has led to a cross-cultural convergence on shared words.
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A new book makes a strong case for the claim that animals have rich mental lives, says Alva Noë, but falters on the idea that when it comes to knowing what others think and feel, we can only guess.
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This week, a flurry of talk on Twitter and other social media led Mets infielder Wilmer Flores to break down in tears on the field; Alva Noë suggests we let it be a cautionary tale.
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If robots pose a danger, it's because, like cars, cranes and jackhammers, they're heavy machinery operating outside the performance specifications of flesh and blood human beings, says Alva Noë.
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There is something downright terrifying about the new Pixar movie's nihilistic conception of ourselves as zombie puppets living in a confabulated universe, says commentator Alva Noë.
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Philosopher Alva Noë explores ideas in a new book that suggests consciousness and self is best looked at by combining insight from Western science, Indian philosophy and contemplative practices.
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The end of the World Series allows us to revisit baseball's experiment with instant replay. Commentator Alva Noë argues it has been a success — because it makes the game not more fair but more fun.
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Atheism and science face a real challenge: To frame an account of science, or nature, that leaves room for meaning. Atheists have pinned their flag to Mr. Spock's mast. But they need Captain Kirk.
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What makes some middle-aged men and women act like children at the baseball park? Commentator Alva Noë wonders about that distinct attitude of love and longing that we call "being a fan."
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Commentator Alva Noë takes in the Jeff Koons retrospective at the Whitney and says it's an impressive display of this hyper-successful, visionary artist's work. But that's not all he says.