Good and evil do not fundamentally exist. They are abstractions we use to facilitate discussions about effective and ineffective strategies of social and economic behaviour.

If I have something that others want, I must respond to each other in one of the following ways:

1. Trade with the other, so that I get something I want in exchange for what the ( Read more... )

Reading about the power of corporations, special interest groups, governments, social movements, churches and the like, it can be easy to forget that power does not rest in these abstract entities, but in individuals. No group has one will. Each group has many wills, and these wills all act to different ends. The individuals of a group do not ( Read more... )

Possibly because so little natural language research is done in the context of real computational applications, it is not universally accepted that a language model must be able to both parse and generate utterances. When you think about programming a system which includes both parsing and generation modules, however, there is a strong incentive ( Read more... )

About a month back, Scientific American reminded me of the multiverse concept. And reports of Hawking's new book have brought the concept before the public eye. Here is the idea, in brief ( Read more... )

From the perspective of a man, every romantic relationship with a woman begins with a lie ( Read more... )

It is often said that the government of today is borrowing from the taxpayers of the future. This is misleading. Products and services do not travel through time. If there is an unfair surplus of something in one place, now, it is because there is somewhere else an unfair dearth, now. When I borrow money from you, I spend that money and you don ( Read more... )

Since becoming aware of the field of psychology, I have avoided studying it. I have given many excuses over the years for doing so, but the temerity of my protest suggests that the source of my avoidance runs deep ( Read more... )

I happened to see a concert by a rather well-known baroque orchestra tonight. They are an unusually lively bunch, and the concert reminded me of an impression that I'd had previously at similar events ( Read more... )

I recently moved from a concrete, metal and glass tower to a nearly century-old wood and brick house downtown. I lost air-conditioning, I lost an enviably short commute to work, I lost a reasonable view and a room that didn't smell of its own accord ( Read more... )

Recently I've been reflecting on how much I dislike all elements of masculinity in my personality. This is hardly a new element of my thinking, but it may have been intensifying over time. I have nothing against being a man physically. I like my body, and I like how it functions. I do, however, dislike a great many things about my personality ( Read more... )