This is the track I posted samples of a few weeks ago. Release date isn't until August 29th, but pre-release feedback is good - thanks releasepromo DJ's!

On a totally unrelated note, I just read an essay by Freeman Dyson that contains a paragraph that perfectly sums up a particular aspect of my philosophy, but expresses it much more eloquently and succinctly than I ever could myself (isn't it great when you stumble across something like that?). So here it is:

The biosphere is the most complicated of all the things we humans have to deal with. The science of planetary ecology is still young and undeveloped. It is not surprising that honest and well-informed experts can disagree about facts. But beyond the disagreement about facts, there is another deeper disagreement about values. The disagreement about values may be described in an over-simplified way as a disagreement between naturalists and humanists. Naturalists believe that nature knows best. For them the highest value is to respect the natural order of things. Any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil. Excessive burning of fossil fuels is evil. Changing nature’s desert, either the Sahara desert or the ocean desert, into a managed ecosystem where giraffes or tunafish may flourish, is likewise evil. Nature knows best, and anything we do to improve upon Nature will only bring trouble.

The humanist ethic begins with the belief that humans are an essential part of nature. Through human minds the biosphere has acquired the capacity to steer its own evolution, and now we are in charge. Humans have the right and the duty to reconstruct nature so that humans and biosphere can both survive and prosper. For humanists, the highest value is harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. The greatest evils are poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment, disease and hunger, all the conditions that deprive people of opportunities and limit their freedoms. The humanist ethic accepts an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a small price to pay, if world-wide industrial development can alleviate the miseries of the poorer half of humanity. The humanist ethic accepts our responsibility to guide the evolution of the planet.

I like Dyson's definition of a Humanist. I'm definitely not a Naturalist, and I'd even go so far as to say that I agree with Werner Herzog in that Nature is often quite cruel and heartless and totally indifferent to the human condition (if we were going to imagine a personality for Nature). The full essay is here. I think that essay bumped Dyson up my own top living philosopher's chart:

1. Daniel Dennett (Santa Claus is still #1)
2. Freeman Dyson
3. Ken Wilber (moving up because of his more or less successful integration of Darwinian evolutionary theory into his four quadrant Theory of Everything in his most recent book Integral Spirituality, before he seemed to present an almost Teilhardian notion of progress)
4. Richard Dawkins (moving down, because of his shrill and unhelpful campaign against organized religion - still he coined "meme" so is permanently in Top 5)
5. Christopher Hitchens (moving up, just as against religion as Dawkins, but is much more entertaining)

Post your own favorite track or philosopher in the comments!