-
Recent Comments
Huenemann on Justin E. H. Smith, “Gar… Daniel Bialkowski on Justin E. H. Smith, “Gar… Alex on 3QD: Don’t be so su… Wyrd Smythe on Mad-Dog Everettianism, probabi… Huenemann on Twilight of the idols of good…
Category Archives: 3QD essays
3QD: Why materialism is false
Materialism is the view that everything that exists is made of matter. What’s matter? It’s hard to say with both precision and completeness, but it can’t be far off to think of matter as whatever can engage causally with the … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays
1 Comment
3QD: Protective Living Communities
By 2025, protective living communities (PLCs) had started to form. The earliest PLCs, such as New Promise and New New Babylon, based themselves on rationalist doctrines: decisions informed by best available science, and either utilitarian ethics or Rawlsian principles of … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays, Uncategorized
Leave a comment
3QD: What’s in your beetle box?
…But the problem with sense data is that they don’t exist. Here are a couple of reasons for being suspicious of them. First, there isn’t any empirical evidence of them whatsoever, apart from our thinking that they exist. (This is … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays
Leave a comment
3QD: Living in Bubbles
A crisis, by definition, has dramatic effects. It changes how we behave, where wealth goes, what policies we enact, and what we hope. But it also can bring into higher relief features of our lives that have not changed, but … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays
2 Comments
3QD: Freedom and determinism – what we can learn from the failures of two pretty good arguments
The “Consequence Argument” is a powerful argument for the conclusion that, if determinism is true, then we have no control over what we do or will do. The argument is straightforward and simple (as given in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays, Uncategorized
Leave a comment
3QD: Our very own annus mirabilis
This isn’t the first time universities have shut down from fear of pestilence. In 1665, “it pleased the Almighty God in his just severity to visit this towne of Cambridge with the plague of pestilence”, and Cambridge University was closed. … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays, Historical episodes
Leave a comment
3QD: Thoughts on Killing a Dog
Last week we had our dog put down. It was time. She was getting old and facing some serious neurological difficulties. The tipping point was a pair of severe seizures in the middle of the night, spaced about a minute … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays
Leave a comment
3QD: Reflections on It-ing and Thou-ing
We find ourselves always in the middle of an experience. But it’s what we do next – how we characterize the experience – that lays down a host of important and almost subterranean conditions. Am I sitting in a chair, … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays
1 Comment
Back to 3QuarksDaily
After a bit of a break, I’m going to resume contributing monthly essays at 3QuarksDaily. The first essay is now up, alongside the fascinating essays, poems, and insights from the other contributors. How To Be Kind “There’s only one rule … Continue reading
The 3QD experience
I’ve contributed essays to the aggregator site 3quarksdaily.com for two years, and have just decided to bring that relationship to a close. Nothing went wrong – no falling out, no throwing of lamps, no screaming fits of “I just don’t love you … Continue reading
Experiencing the moment
David Hume, that most sly student of human experience, declared he couldn’t find himself anywhere. As he gazed inward, he came across sensations, feelings, passions, and moods, but he had never come across aself in the way one might come … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays, Kant and/or Hume
2 Comments
The Cyborg of Practical Wisdom
The biggest struggle my fellow modern-day cyborgs and I face is to create a virtual reality that connects more wholesomely with the human part of our nature. The artificial reality we currently plug into is a Terry Gilliam nightmare. Too … Continue reading
Hypatia of Alexandria: or, a primer on platonic love
Plato, as we know, told tales of an abstract realm beyond the senses, a realm beyond the dim and dark cave we call “the world.” It was a realm of forms, first glimpsed through the discipline of mathematics, and more … Continue reading
Posted in 3QD essays, Historical episodes
Leave a comment
Everything is meaningless – but that’s okay
What would it be for life to have a “meaning”? What does it mean when people say life is meaningful? I’m not sure, so let’s start with smaller, more obviously meaningful things. Better yet, let’s start with some meaningless things. When … Continue reading
