If it isn’t in another category, it is here.
Easily lies the head that would wear a crown: why political falsehoods maintain their efficacy There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs from others of the faculty, that he ought to have but a short memory, which is necessary, according to the various occasions he meets with every hour of differing from himself, [...]
How can we reintegrate knowledge in a simple and useful way? Forty years ago, a leading designer reflects on the challenges created by divisions in higher education. From the article: Unfortunately, universities today are becoming discontinuity headquarters, with each department avoiding communication with the others and with the rest of the world. Used as it [...]
Caring for the soul: where psychiatry and religion meet. Religion and science collaborate in order to help the spiritually afflicted, and thereby challenge the doctrinal conventions of each. From the editorial: Is it possible to be a sophisticated psychiatrist and believe that evil spirits are, however seldom, assailing humans? Most of my scientific colleagues and [...]
Identity and Difference: can we become part of another society without losing ourselves? A man who gives himself to be a possession of aliens leads a Yahoo life, having bartered his soul to a brute-master. He is not of them. He may stand against them, persuade himself of a mission, batter and twist them into something which [...]
Thinking, feeling, reading: how not just what you read, but how you read, affects your soul and self. From the article: Recent research also revealed that “deep reading”—defined as reading that is slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity—is distinctive from light reading—little more than the decoding of words. Deep reading [...]
Thought, language, and knowledge: does our use of language shape our view of things, and rationality? What could be more obvious than that people carry over the way they comprehend things through statements onto the structure of things themselves? Yet this opinion, seemingly critical but in reality rash, has first to explain how the carry-over of the [...]
Natural empathy and artificial intelligence: the CEO of Microsoft calls for a greater appreciation of the human condition as computational technology becomes more sophisticated. From the editorial: At a developer conference earlier this year, I shared our approach to A.I. First, we want to build intelligence that augments human abilities and experiences. Ultimately, it’s not going [...]
Against Reading: why life is better spent doing other things. Ferreus. Hi, Procopius. What are you up to? Procopius. Hello, Ferreus. I’m just catching up on my reading. Ferreus. What magazine is that? Procopius. The Economist. It’s a bit stilted, but it helps me understand world affairs. Ferreus. I looked at it once. It was [...]
Liberal arts needed in the tech world: why having a facility for languages, of all sorts, enhances the richness of software development. From the editorial: Most liberal arts degrees encourage a well-rounded curriculum that can give students exposure to programming alongside the humanities. Philosophy, literature, art, history and language give students a thorough understanding of how [...]
Egyptian knowledge, health, and piety: Herodotus, the Greek "Father of History," remarks on Egyptian learning and character. The Egyptians who live in the cultivated parts of the country, by their practice of keeping records of the past, have made themselves the most learned any nation of which I have had experience. I will describe some of [...]
