manifesto of the game The game is a consistent causal system. In the beginning you know nothing else, but you know that for sure. The game can be trusted because it cannot speak in order to lie. The game trusts you because you can always leave it if you do not want to be…

Flash Philosophy 5 — Getting Stranded on the Moral Highway Flash philosophy is like a Junior Mint — it makes a great little philosophy snack, but it’s unsatisfying unless you eat a whole bunch of them. That’s a terrible metaphor. Let me try again. Flash philosophy is like a house…

In the last article, we decided on a concept of knowledge that, though admittedly a little weird, is really pretty simple. Knowledge is physical change in our bodies and brains caused by physical changes in the world. The world outside ourselves is only accessible indirectly, through our senses (that is…

A lot of reality is like water to a fish — we have trouble thinking about it because there’s nothing obvious to contrast it with. It’s sort of everywhere and nowhere. One useful way I’ve found to think about things like that is to try to imagine them being different…

So at the end of the last post, we threw down some radical notions: PHILOSOPHY IS CONCEPTS ABOUT HOW THINGS WORK DOING PHILOSOPHY IS MAKING CLEAR HOW OUR CONCEPTS WORK Radical was probably overstating it. But most people would tell you that philosophy is about metaphysics and ontology and ethics…

I’ve been writing about Philosophy and thinking about how to communicate philosophical ideas for a long time, and I think I’ve finally figured out what I was doing wrong. In short, I was being too long. There is a complex web of ideas that justifies this realization, but I am…

After the white supremacist rally this weekend in Charlottesville, VA., Sam Harris had this to say on Twitter: Why would Harris feel it was important to condemn identity politics as a whole at this particular time? And why would he call something “detestable” without hinting at any reason why…

My Friend Brian — 03 My friend Brian sometimes likes to grab a hot drink. This usually does not go too well. The proximate cause of it not going well is second-degree burns. …

My Friend Brian — 02 Every Sunday morning, my friend Brian sits down in his study with a homemade cappuccino and the latest edition of the New Yorker. Seeing as how my friend Brian is himself a New Yorker, this is a perfectly natural activity to do of a Sunday. And seeing as how most…