Table Tennis (and the Meaning of Life) I was watching the Olympics a few months ago and made a point of checking out the table tennis. I used to play a lot as a teenager—we had a table at home and my brother also played. Naturally, I was pretty good at it (the best in […]
Atheism and Moral Realism So-called moral realism is the doctrine that morality is mind-independent. In particular, it is independent of judgments, attitudes, legislative acts, or emotions. It is therefore incompatible with divine command theories or human approval theories: the good is not what God commands and not what humans approve of. Moore’s theory of the […]
The Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses; As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but […]
God: A Dialogue A: There’s this guy I read about: he’s like really big, much bigger than anyone else, and he’s incredibly knowledgeable, much more than any Jeopardy player you’ve ever seen, and he’s also extremely powerful, more than all the world leaders put together. B: Really, is he a good guy? A: Oh yes, […]
My Favorite People A disadvantage of knowing great people is that you miss them when they are gone. This is a list of people I’ve known, living and dead, that stand out in my mind for one reason or another. I could easily write an essay about each of them detailing our friendship. I will […]
Life Forms as Synthetic Wholes It is a common idea that animal bodies (also plant bodies) are synthetic wholes consisting of separate organs. There are about a dozen of these in the mammalian body, depending on how you count. Each is different from the others but they work together to compose a functioning body. They […]
Scientific Philosophy Is philosophy a scientific subject? I don’t mean barroom bromides (“My philosophy is live and let live”); I mean academic philosophy. Here I intend to include the usual subject areas including ethics and aesthetics. The best way to answer this question is to ask what the word “science” is taken to contrast with. […]
Lies, Lies, and More Lies I usually avoid commenting on politics, but every rule has its exceptions. I have been watching a lot of politics on TV, especially Abby Philip’s nightly program on CNN. She is an exemplary presenter: deeply intelligent, amazingly well-informed, and invariably polite (also lovely to look at—that quizzical smile). She always […]
Digestion, Learning, and Dreams The word “digestion” (or “digest”) is apt to suggest to modern ears the process by which food is converted to bodily tissue. But it also has another meaning: the process by which information received by the senses is converted into knowledge—as in “That’s a lot (of information) to digest”. The dictionary […]
Defining Time Can time be defined? Einstein and Bergson had an argument about this: Einstein claimed to define time by clocks (“time pieces”), i.e., by physical objects of a certain type; Bergson preferred to define time by means of consciousness of time (“subjective duration”). Time exists by virtue of clocks, natural and artificial, for Einstein; […]