Tag Archives: philosophy
Question: Is Free Will Free?
I’ve read Scientific American for over xx years. Long enough to remember when it was a hard read for a 13 year old. SciAm has become a lot more accessible over the years and so it should. I also remember … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropology, Mind
Tagged economics, environment, free will, intellect, philosophy, Sam Harris, social sciences
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Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
History has a short shelf life, I am more and more aware. A good friend is a fan of Newt Gingrich who brought the federal government to its knees in 1995. He doesn’t remember the history, only the current press. “In response … Continue reading
Posted in Poli/Econ
Tagged Alienation, bill of rights, philosophy, Poli/Econ, Santayana, social sciences, war
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Laissez-Faire Shrugged – Atlas Wept
When I was in junior high I read a lot. I read books I didn’t understand (Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death) because I thought there might be a secret key to knowledge inside. I sucked at baseball and had … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Poli/Econ
Tagged Al Lewis, antagonism, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, books, conservatism, culture, economics, education, intellect, liberalism, literature, objectivism, philosophy, Poli/Econ, republican
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Sam Harris: Psychedelia, Ethics, and More
Drugs and the Meaning of Life It’s been many, many years since I first tried peyote by the side of a mirror-still river outside of Laredo, TX. In 1962 peyote was legal in the US and could be bought at … Continue reading
Posted in Mind
Tagged altered states, art, cosmic, culture, entheogen, ethics, intellect, language, love, lsd, meditation, mescaline, mushrooms, Peyote, philosophy, psillocybin, psychedelic, psychology, Sam Harris, san pedro, science, social sciences, Spirituality, transcendence, William James
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Free Will and Determinism
Experimental philosophy opens new avenues into old questions, March 17, 2011 Philosophers have argued for centuries, millennia actually, about whether our lives are guided by our own free will or are predetermined as the result of a continuous chain of … Continue reading
Anthropologists Behaving Badly: ‘Secrets of the Tribe’
Yanomami Anthropologists Behaving Badly: Jose Padilha’s ‘Secrets of the Tribe’ Does Some Digging of Its Own by Shari Kizirian In the first moments of José Padilha’s Secrets of the Tribe, about the anthropologists who study the Yanomami, we learn exactly what … Continue reading
Posted in Anthropology
Tagged anthropology, Brazil, Chagnon, cultural survival, indigenous, philosophy, Poli/Econ, sex, Venezuela, Yanomami
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Love: Agápe, Eros, Philia, Comunitas
Agápe, Eros, Philia, Comunitas I thought I would be able to resist doing a post on St Valentine’s Day but a correspondent from Brazil, Clara, thought I ought to know something about the way I feel – sometimes. Of course, … Continue reading
What is American Exceptionalism?
What is Special about Americans? Semantics and its applied subdiscipline, “spinning,” the craft of recasting a statement to changing its meaning is in popular political use today. We use “exceptionalism” to set us (Americans) apart and above other societies in … Continue reading
Posted in Language, Poli/Econ
Tagged culture, economics, education, exceptionalism, neocolonialism, philosophy, Poli/Econ, standard of living
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