Philosophy

Philosophy

Examine life’s biggest questions, from ethics to existence, with curiosity and critical thinking.

Illustration of large, mechanical tripod machines with glowing eyes detecting life as they shoot a beam of light at a smoking building, causing sparks and destruction.
The emergence of life in the universe is as certain as the emergence of matter, gravity, and the stars. Life is the universe developing a memory, and our chemical detection system could find it.
John Templeton Foundation
Evolutionary psychology could explain those otherworldly feelings.
free will
There are two conceptions of free will: "straight" and "mixed."
enlightenment
A second Enlightenment would have a far bigger task: Saving civilization itself.
transhumanism
Proponents of transhumanism make big promises, such as a future in which we upload our minds into a supercomputer. But there is a fatal flaw in this argument: reductionism.
quantum communication
Quantum communication offers a surer path to sending an interstellar message, as well as receiving one. But can we do it?
Ideas often taken for granted in the United States and Europe about what it means to be a person are, quite simply, not shared with other cultures.
time dilation
We live in a four-dimensional Universe, where matter and energy curve the fabric of spacetime. But time sure is different from space!
It’s not a huge leap to imagine we could target the biological processes that mediate our behaviours.
More than 20% Americans live in a state with access to a medically assisted death.
Livestock now outweighs wild mammals and birds ten-fold.
alien contact
The psychology of alien contact largely revolves around the concept of "otherness." We need to learn to be comfortable around strange things.
philosophy of star wars
In the philosophy of Star Wars, the Sith are evil because they surrender to passion. But is a life of total rationality a “good” life?
first jobs
"Politics is weird. It’s the only business in the world in which you take a really, really important position, and you give it to someone with no qualifications." —Tony Blair
futurama
The fictitious 31st-century world portrayed by the series is actually quite a bit like our own in the 21st century.
In the wake of the pandemic, the crystal industry boomed, with customers hoping the stones might relieve a little anxiety.
laugh at a funeral
We often laugh at inappropriate things, but not when we are emotionally invested. Laughter cannot be serious. So, can we ever laugh at death?
When you're a genius, how do you make ends meet?