Joel Achenbach attended today’s summit.
Category Archives: Philosophy
When God Goes Away
…superstition takes his place. Including things like the climate-change religion.
I think it was Chesterton who said that when people cease believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe anything. This is why, despite my own lack of belief, I think that attacks on organized religion by the Left (as engaged in by people like Dawkins and Dennett) can be disastrous. Like death, God serves a useful societal purpose, if not for every individual, whether He exists or not.
Self-Driving Cars
Why they must be programmed to kill.
Planetary Protection
This whole debate assumes that the only purpose of space exploration is science. But if we want to settle space, we have to accept the fact that we are going to “contaminate” it with earthly life.
Journeys Through Time And Space
There’s a new, free downloadable anthology out. Looks potentially interesting.
Philosophy
Can it be justified in a time of crisis? An hilarious SSRN abstract.
[Update a while later]
Sorry, missing link has been added.
Curiosity
Andy Weir says to send it to check out the water.
I’m pretty sure that would violate current planetary-protection protocols.
[Late-afternoon update]
Keith Cowing has a review of the movie up now.
Functional Mechanical Gears
This is pretty cool. Of course, the Intelligent Designers will have a field day with it.
Uploading Your Mind
An interesting article on both the physical and philosophical difficulties involved.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Related, and sad: A young neuroscientist’s bet on cryonics.
The Politics Of Star Trek
When he told me he was doing this a few weeks ago, I was tempted to think that Tim Sandefur had too much time on his hands, but it’s actually an interesting essay.
[Saturday-morning update]
Megan Geuss binge watched the whole series in order for the first time. It’s an interesting take.
[Bumped]