Where does motivation come from?
The cult of reason did not prove to be as popular as the Catholicism it displaced. We should not be surprised. Unlike religion, rationality cannot tell us how to live. Reason gives us no reasons to act.
ReadTag: Reason & rationality
Should you keep your options open?
In the physical sciences, a plethora of theories is often a sign of weakness, an admission that we haven’t yet worked out which is right. In ethical and political thinking, however, I suspect there is no such thing as one, all-encompassing true theory. Different models describe different aspects of the world but none captures them all.
ReadSuper excited
I say ‘very’ rather than ‘super’. I think mountains are awesome but simply having the right money for my waiter is not. I don’t think I’m amazing: I don’t even believe I should think that. In sunny Silicon Valley, this moderate British scepticism makes me feel churlish and cynical. It certainly has no place at Googleplex in Mountain View, California, where I found myself recently, among 250 ‘thought leaders’ – researchers, writers, educators, artists, policymakers, investors – gathered for the Sci Foo ‘unconference’…
ReadWhat’s the problem with anger?
The more a machine is designed to look as though it’s trying to help, the more angry we get with it when it lets us down.
ReadWhere should we draw the line?
There may be clear moral lines, but also a need to cross them. Paradoxical though it may sound, something may still be wrong even when it becomes right to do it.
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