Category Archives: 3QD essays

Learning from Hume; or, Hume and Particle Physics

Posted on August 5, 2015 by

Philosophy students are typically taught the wrong lesson from the great Scottish skeptic David Hume. The standard story goes something like this. British empiricists like Locke and Berkeley wanted to connect everything we know to what we experience through the … Continue reading →

Posted in 3QD essays, Historical episodes, Kant and/or Hume | 1 Comment

On appreciating systems

Posted on July 6, 2015 by

How wonderful it would be to be a systematic thinker! One marvels at the Aristotles, the Aquinases, the Descarteses, the Kants, and the Hegels and the Marxes (well, the Karl Marxes anyway), the Freuds – those who know how to … Continue reading →

Posted in 3QD essays, Kant and/or Hume | 2 Comments

How not to be afraid of death

Posted on June 8, 2015 by

Set aside any belief in an afterlife, even the vaguely hopeful “I’ll return to the energy of the universe” sort of view. The realization that your run of life is finite is troubling. At first, when we begin to think … Continue reading →

Posted in 3QD essays, Meanings of life / death / social & moral stuff | 2 Comments

London, 1641

Posted on May 11, 2015 by

“Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” – Daniel 12:4 London was an exciting place to be in 1641. The political uncertainty was both thrilling and terrifying: many Puritans, convinced that their suspected crypto-catholic king, Charles … Continue reading →

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The Fermi Paradox, Mass Effect, and Transhumanism

Posted on April 13, 2015 by

The Fermi Paradox The story is that sometime in the early 1950s, four physicists were walking to lunch and discussing flying saucers. The place was Los Alamos, and the lunch group included Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, Emil Konopinski, and Herbert … Continue reading →

Posted in 3QD essays, Machines / gadgets / technology / games | Leave a comment

On Birthdays

Posted on March 16, 2015 by

“A genius is a god under whose protection each person lives from the moment of his birth.” This is the opinion of Censorinus, a Roman rhetorician of the third century CE. Censorinus tells us that our birthday celebrations are not … Continue reading →

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Overcoming Babel

Posted on February 16, 2015 by

We all seek to capture the world with a net of language. Yet it is in the nature of nets to capture some things and let others slip away, and that goes for languages too. Our words turn experiences into … Continue reading →

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