Blog of Sal

Ever had a song stuck in your head? When you listen to music you're interpreting sound waves in your brain. Turn the sound waves off to find the energy in the music transposed, and still functioning in your mind... The name No Sound Mind has been around since I was a 20 year old bohemian musician living in a basement apartment in Montreal. I used black electrical tape to spell out the words NO SOUND STUDIOS above my bedroom door. My first digital recording ( Fjord EP ) was produced there. I soon after returned to university to study philosophy, and developed fragments of my own answers to traditional problems like Determinism vs. Free Will, What is God? What is the mind? Why are we here? And so on. I also discovered Functionalism , a theory I consider provides our truest picture of the nature of the mind. It proposes that while the brain is home to thoughts and impulses, the mind is the  configuration of the brain . In other words, the mind is a non-physic...

A few years ago I came up with an idea that's helped me make better decisions in my life. It's a simple question that I ask myself when I come to a crossroads. Which path will cause me to feel less regret in the future? Only a few hundred years ago a philosopher could be tortured or put to death for works of prophecy. In fact I'd say that until the information age, any careful considerations of the future were considered by most to be either heathenism, mysticism or quackery. Nowadays we have super-sophisticated software and statistical modelling resources, as well as a much richer understanding of the events of our history than ever before. We have become a culture far more capable of thinking ahead. Every single one of us is in on this advancement, as it relates not to our physiology, but our shared informational resources. We're learning new ways to look at the world through the contemplation of a more sophisticated picture of how events inter-relate over ti...