Some recent ideas for titles and/or slogans:
Information Evolution! What evolves is information. This refers to what genes and memes have in common, and the idea that maybe evolution would be better understood if information was put at the centre, being all that evolves, while genes and memes are just sub-classes, information evolving in particular contexts.
Consciousness, Philosophy's Blindspot Or The Philosopher's, or The Philosophers'. Analytic philosophy, the sort that dominates the English-speaking university philosophy departments, has a serious problem understanding consciousness, and that's my main intellectual interest. Consciousness, that is, and exploiting the gap in the market for writing about it that results from philosophy's problem. This has just become the current working title for my book, reflecting my renewed realisation that this is as much about analytic philosophy as consciousness. I've known for a long time that I need to cop an attitude, to optimise the marketing of my ideas, and this currently looks like the one to cop: aren't analytic philosophers silly! Of course few people know what "analytic" means there, so we might say academic philosophers, or Western ones, or whatever. Such details can be left for later.
Relativistic Consciousness This one is much more vague and speculative than the others. To explain it properly would mean pasting in bits of the book, and I'm not going to bother. No point, as this is just for myself, at the moment (though I'm obviously writing with the possibility of eventual publication in mind). It needed recording, though, and I'm still vacillating over an ideas database and/or mind mapping software for such records, which is the raison d'etre of this blog.
Regarding the Philosopher's Blindspot, the context of the renewed realisation was work on an article for the Journal of Consciousness Studies, and attempts to communicate with academics working in related fields (Susan Blackmore, Luciano Floridi, Patrick Grim) about my ideas. Sue, in particular, responded very positively but in very general terms, being too busy to actually consider what I wrote. She has a great excuse, but not one anyone would envy, in particular family problems. The others say they will have a look at my stuff when they have the time, though Patrick also said I should remind him if I haven't heard from him in three weeks. Anyway, having had similar responses from others in the past, I'm getting a bit tired of it all. If anyone suggests that I'm copping an attitude about philosophers due to personal feelings of rejection and frustration then I'll have to say, yes, that's part of it, but there's a lot more to it than that. And it will all be in the book! As for that article, I'm presently unsure whether I'll pursue that or not. I probably will do some more work on it, but maybe not much. My feeling at the moment is that the only ideas that will stand alone to the extent of constituting a proper journal article are relatively trivial: the formal stance and intentionality as use. Though the latter isn't that trivial. Or at all, even. Which is why I need to work on it some more, and maybe get a publication out of it yet.
