Thinking

Medical science can save lives, but should it do so at the cost of quality of life?

Thales may have known the famous theorem perhaps as much as half a century before Pythagoras.

If you had perfect foreknowledge of the blessings and tragedies that will come in your life, would you make the same choices anyway?

What if you are the only person in the world who can think?

Utopia is like a John Lennon song but with golden toilets.

Some neurology experiments — such as growing miniature human brains and reanimating the brains of dead pigs — are getting weird. It’s time to discuss ethics.

Tips from neuroscience and psychology can make you an expert thinker.

If something is “true,” it needs to be shown to work in the real world.

Your life is far more arbitrary than you might think.

The ancient Greeks were obsessed with geometry, which may have formed the basis of their philosophical cosmology.

Most schools use a semester system, but a new study suggests that they should switch to quarters.

The wise, the old, and the experienced matter to a full and happy life.

Apart from divine authority, is there an ethical basis for right and wrong?

A virtuous diet isn’t strictly vegan.

As a form of civil disobedience, hacking can help make the world a better place.

It could lead to a massive uptake in those previously hesitant.

Life is governed by unspoken rules. How do you know you’re following them correctly?

Milgram’s experiment is rightly famous, but does it show what we think it does?

When does a healthy desire for wealth morph into greed? And how can we stop it?

Why saying, “I don’t know,” might be the best thing you can do.

Science has not yet reached a consensus on the nature of consciousness.

Pythagoras may have believed that the entire cosmos was constructed out of right triangles.

Is the physical universe independent from us, or is it created by our minds, as suggested by scientist Robert Lanza?

Being an intellectual is not really how it is depicted in popular culture.

Diogenes was no doubt odd, but Cynicism might just help our overcrowded lives.

A famous thought experiment from the 1970s is more relevant today than ever before.

Truth might be hard to find, but we can take steps to eliminate common cognitive biases.

Seek pleasure and avoid pain. Why make it more complicated?

What’s the difference between brainwashing and rehabilitation?

This spring, a U.S. and Chinese team announced that it had successfully grown, for the first time, embryos that included both human and monkey cells.