Content tagged "philosophy"
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Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
As a physicist, Alan Lightman has always held a scientific view of the world. As a teenager experimenting in his own laboratory, he was impressed by the logic and materiality of a universe governed by a small number of disembodied forces and laws that decree all things in the world are material and impermanent. But one summer evening, while looking at the stars from a small boat at sea, Lightman was overcome by the overwhelming sensation that he was merging with something larger than himself–a grand and eternal unity, a hint of something absolute and immaterial. Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine is Lightman’s exploration of these seemingly contradictory impulses.
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Video, podcast, and summary: “Ultimate Truths: Comparing Science and the Humanities”
James Carroll, Rebecca Goldstein, Alan Lightman, and Robert Weinberg talk with Seth Mnookin on “the differences and similarities in the kinds of knowledge available through inquiry in the sciences and humanities.”
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Interview with an Octopus
The case of the octopus is a valuable opportunity to consider how we as humans go about observing animal behavior. The contentious debate over whether to apply human terms like personality to animals may ultimately tell us more about the nature of humans as observers than the animals themselves.
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Playing with Good and Evil: Videogames and Moral Philosophy
The videogame medium is capable of modeling and critiquing elements of moral philosophy in a unique manner
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Defining Reality: Definitions and the Politics of Meaning
In “Defining Reality”, Schiappa shows the act of defining to be a specialized and learned behavior, and therefore one that can be studied and improved.
