On the use and abuse of thought experiments.
More on Steven Pinker.
What did Bertrand Russell mean when he said, "Do not feel absolutely certain of anything"?
An influencer seems more interested in being well-known, being "influential", than in being motivated by a thirst for the truth.
"The negation of a [scientific] theory is not a new theory."
On how Zen and Buddhism are not anti-intellectual, but non-intellectual. Big diff there.
On what we do with the discovery that we're not things, but processes.
If past, present, and future are all unknowable, what's left? (And why frame things that way?)
On why the problem is not belief or the absence of same.
Belief or nonbelief isn't absolutely correlated with good behavior; it's all in how you use it.
"My problems are bigger than yours" is always a bad argument.
I don't think SF authors have an obligation to be scientific authorities, but I do think they have an obligation to be scientifically literate.
"...the doctrine that the genius must be in advance of his time is almost wholly false and vicious..."
Sure, maybe Zen is "irrational", but who's complaining?
I'll tell me what to really think.
Anders Breivik’s Inexplicable Crime - The New Yorker I do not believe that Breivik himself has anything to teach us. I believe that his life is a coincidence of unfortunate circumstances, and what he did was such an anomaly that...
"...smart people, lacking any sort of compelling real world data, are great at debating and rationalizing bad decisions."
You could be the change, or you could just hold your breath and wait for it.
On creative work presenting itself as science for the sake of legitimacy.
Breeding monsters, and all that.
Why does it always come down to having to choose between science and art, between Shakespeare or the bomb?
On the communal enjoyment of entertainment and the 'paradox of choice'.
If looking to SF for a vision of the future is a bad idea, can we at least say which SF we're talking about?
The smarter the machine, the more likely we are to cozzen up to it.
The mysticism of the future by way of technology is no improvement over the mysticisms of the past.