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Daniel Dennett Has Died

Daniel Dennett (1942-2024) died a few weeks ago. The first book of his I remember reading was The Mind’s I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul, a collection of essays he edited with Douglas Hofstadter. But his works that most influenced me were: Continue reading Daniel Dennett Has Died

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Should Education Lead To Unhappiness?

In the waiting room at the doctor’s office this morning I was reading Bertrand Russell’s 1930 classic, The Conquest of Happiness, a book I first read almost 50 years ago. (I’m still old school, I take a book to the doctor’s since I don’t have a smart phone!) Continue reading Should Education Lead To Unhappiness?

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Don't CEO's Care About Their Grandchildren?

Posted at 3 Quarks Daily FEB 5, 2024 By BARRY GOLDMAN Reprinted with permission. Reading about corporate greed and depredation over the past few years, I keep getting stuck on the same question: Don’t these people have grandchildren?  Continue reading Don’t CEO’s Care About Their Grandchildren?

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Is Game-Playing the Highest Ideal of Human Existence?

by John Danaher Bernard Suits’s The Grasshopper is an odd book. Part philosophical dialogue, part playful allegory, it is most famous for its philosophical analysis of games. In a sharp rebuff to Wittgenstein — who thought that games had no essence — Suits suggests that games do have an essence. Continue reading Is Game-Playing the Highest Ideal of Human Existence?

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A Shuffled A Deck Of Cards: The Order Has Never Appeared Before

This article originally appeared in 3 Quarks Daily,  by JONATHAN KUJAWA When you well shuffle a deck of cards the resulting order has never appeared before in all of history! Amazing but true. This is just another example of how our intuition misleads us. Continue reading A Shuffled A Deck Of Cards: The Order Has Never Appeared Before

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The Weirdness of the World: Schwitzgebel

I have recently been made aware of a new book, The Weirdness of the World, by the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel. Continue reading The Weirdness of the World: Schwitzgebel

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Is Philosophy Good For You?

I had a recent conversation with someone who is reading my book Short Essays on Life, Death, Meaning, and the Far Future. He told me that he was now enthusiastic about reading more philosophy. But this got me thinking. How much should you philosophize? Is philosophy dangerous? Does philosophizing make your life go better? If I had to do it all over would I have spent so much of my life thinking…

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Best Foods To Help Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

I’ve read extensively about the relationship between diet and ASD. The bottom line is that a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is beneficial for autistic children (as it is for all of us). Continue reading Best Foods To Help Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

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My First Semester Teaching

In the fall of 1987 I taught my first college classes—two sections of ethics at a major midwestern university. I admit to being scared of speaking in front of 40 students who weren’t much younger than me. Continue reading My First Semester Teaching

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How The Past Pervades The Present

Responding to a recent post, Chris Crawford offered a beautiful image of how our lives might be meaningful despite our deaths. He writes, Continue reading How The Past Pervades The Present

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On Dying and Grieving and Judgment

by Marie Snyder (Reprinted with author’s permission.) My dad passed away this week. He was older than the hills: 93 and a half years old. I’m not sad about his passing; he lived a long and fulfilling life. But I am troubled by how he went, and our expectations around grief. At his 90th birthday party, he was jovially talking with old friends and extended family. He lived a quiet life with his…

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Should I Choose To Live Forever? A Debate

I have just been made aware of a new book, Should I Choose To Live Forever? A Debate The book is a debate between the philosophers Stephen Case–who answers the question in the negative, and John Martin Fischer—who answers in the affirmative. The book also includes a Foreword by Lord Martin Rees, the current Astronomer Royal of the United Kingdom. Continue reading Should I Choose To Live Forever?…

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Should we be grateful for death?

by John Danaher Most people think death is bad. They approach it with a degree of trepidation, possibly even denial. The prospect is particularly acute for someone who does not believe in an afterlife. Could such a person ever view death as a gift, something for which they should be grateful? That’s the intriguing question asked by Mikel Burley in his article “Atheism and the Gift of Death”. I…

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The ethics of human extinction

I recently finished reading Emile Torres‘ essay in Aeon magazine, “The ethics of human extinction,” a topic I have thought and written about much over the years. Continue reading The ethics of human extinction

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More On "Is The World Better Than Ever?"

By Anton Alterman [Note. This is a follow-up essay to my many recent posts about human progress.] Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times publishes a column at the end of every year with the same idea as Pinker’s book … and a lot of the same data points.  Continue reading More On “Is The World Better Than Ever?”

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Eternalism & Free Will

In the common-sense view of time, called presentism,  each of the four instants of time in the snapshot above exist one after another and only the present exists. The main problem with presentism is that it conflicts with the theory of relativity. Continue reading Eternalism & Free Will

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A Final Note On The Existence of Free Will

Over the past few weeks, I’ve read quite a bit about free will in the hope of expanding on the position I elucidated in a previous post. What I’ve discovered along the way is a stronger commitment to Continue reading A Final Note On The Existence of Free Will

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