Philosophy
-
I was saddend to learn Melvin Bragg retired from In Our Time. Whilst I understand some listener’s complaints, especially in recent years, of Bragg’s performance, I considered him essential to making the programme as legendary as it is. A show spanning decades with the same host will naturally have its ebb and flows. As with
-
Over the past week I was reading something that reminded me of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, particularly the Kantian problem of a priori and a posteriori knowledge. At its core, the Kantian problem can be framed around the claim that mathematics and logic are based on synthetic a priori judgments – statements that are
-
The great Richard Feynman once said (Caltech commencement address in 1974): “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool”. What Feynman is speaking to here is the tendency toward self-deceit – to think, even implicitly, that one knows absolutely, and for one to believe
-
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews To some, or perhaps to many, it may seem a radical idea: idleness. But for the great British logician, mathematician, and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell, idleness is seen as a historically rooted concept which ties
-
I prefer a world where Twitter is not so important. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Twitter. It has some fantastic communities. When I use the app, it’s primarily to check for fun maths posts, science news, history papers, or cool new archaeological finds. I also enjoy some of the technical F1 discussions, or the
-
The late Steven Weinberg had a wonderful comment about life and the human condition in his book, The First Three Minutes: ‘The more the universe seems comprehensible,’ he wrote, ‘the more it also seems pointless.’ I’m sympathetic with his view about the god-of-the-gaps. Truth be told, I consider myself agnostic; I don’t know for certain
-
I’ve been short on time this week finishing some calculations and working on a paper, prior to receiving my second Covid jab. But the other afternoon I thoroughly enjoyed this article. It’s on the Galilean challenge and its reformulation, wherein discussion unfolds on why there is an emerging distinction between the internalised system of knowledge
-
Outside of science, one of my favourite things to study as a hobby is history. I also deeply enjoy and appreciate philosophy. One thing I’ve learned in my time studying history and philosophy is that, when judged alongside the human character (insofar that we may establish such a generalisation), democracy is a system that perhaps
-
Beth and I frequently talk about how we miss the North Sea. We lived on the coast and I think it is our nature that we both prefer its unique countryside. But now that we’re living in East Midlands, landlocked and busy at university, we haven’t been back for a couple of years. So for
-
Some time ago I wrote a post on human evolution and civilisation. It was one of my first contributions to my general reading blog. But I feel it is worth thinking about this morning, as, generally, this is what I tend remind myself of at Christmas: our immaturity as a species. Instead of fanciful tales
Dialogues at still points 