Category: philosophy
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Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
The First Law of Fanfiction states that every change which strengthens the protagonists requires a corresponding worsening of their challenges. […] stories are about conflict; a hero too strong for their conflict is no longer in tense, heart-pounding difficulty. […] The Rationalist Fanfiction Principle states that rationality is not magic; being rational does not require magical potential or royal bloodlines…
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Understanding Wisdom
In a review of Stephen Hall’s Wisdom, Bookslut’s Jessa Crispin asks ‘Can we understand wisdom?’ and looks at the evidence for and against. Wisdom is not the same as knowledge, and so it seems odd it has attracted the attention of science. There is such a thing as “wisdom studies” now, and in his book…
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Facebook’s ‘Like’ and Conspicuous Consumption
Wondering why we freely and often make our tastes public (specifically, our brand preferences through Facebook’s ‘Like’ mechanism), Nicolas Baumard discusses how we purchase goods to display our good taste: In a way, Facebook can be seen as a handy device to send a lot of very precise signals about your opinion and your values!…
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On Being Wrong: Estimating Our Beliefs
Following the forced retirement of Helen Thomas following her controversial comments on Israel and Palestine, Felix Salmon discusses how being wrong–and more importantly, the willingness to be wrong–is an admirable trait that should be applauded. In discussing this, Salmon points to a conversation between Tyler Cowen and Wil Wilkinson, where Cowen proposes: Take whatever your…
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Ira Glass on Being Wrong and Manufacturing Inspiration
Discussing how many great stories “hinge on people being wrong”, Kathryn Schulz interviews This American Life host Ira Glass on the benefits of being wrong. I feel like being wrong is really important to doing decent work. To do any kind of creative work well, you have to run at stuff knowing that it’s usually…
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Fooled by Pseudoscience: A Philosophy of Science
The “huge quantities of data” collected on the subject show that the principal reason people are deceived by pseudoscientific claims and alternative therapies is not intellectual ability, but personal experience: a bad personal experience with mainstream medicine is the overwhelming reason, regardless of medical training. That’s from Ben Goldacre in an interview for The Philosophers’ Magazine…
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Askers, Guessers and the ‘Disease to Please’
Saying No to seemingly unreasonable requests and unwanted invitations is easy for some and a gruelling mental challenge for others. This disparity between responses can be explained by looking at the behavioural differences between Askers and Guessers: In Ask culture, people grow up believing they can ask for anything–a favour, a pay rise–fully realising the…
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Faith in Probability
Following the publishing of his first book–Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives—David Eagleman is interviewed about religion and his beliefs, providing a refreshingly new and… empirical… take on religious faith, atheism and agnosticism. Every time you go into a book store, you find a lot of books written with certainty – you find the atheist…
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Marriage as Scope Creep
Even though married life was progressing well and all involved were happy, Elizabeth Weil decided to actively apply herself to “the project of being a spouse” and to document the process. Weil’s article is slow to start but becomes an absorbing inquiry in to what it means to be married. I’ve never really believed that…
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The Case for Redemption
In light of the recall into custody of Jon Venables–one of the ten-year-old boys who horrifically murdered the two-year-old James Bulger in Manchester, 1993–Brian Masters deliberates on the possibility of absolution for a heinous crime committed in one’s childhood. But I do know that [Jon Venables] cannot be the warped and skewed child who shared in…