Philosophy & Ethics

If A Program Can't Understand Truth- Ethics Of Artificial Intelligence Babies

This is a commonly used argument, indeed often taken for granted. We can simulate physics on a computer. So, the argument goes, what is to stop us eventually simulating your whole body including your brain? And if so, is it not just a matter of time, and ...

Article - Robert Walker - Jan 31 2019 - 1:35pm

Britain’s Forgotten World War I Civilian Internment Camps

Knockaloe Camp. Stefan Manz By Stefan Manz, Aston University The German-Jewish painter and writer Paul Cohen-Portheim had spent a peaceful summer in 1914 visiting friends in Devon and enjoying the beautiful south-west coast. But his idyllic holiday came t ...

Article - The Conversation - Nov 15 2014 - 9:30am

Hard Of Thinking: If You're Bad At Logic, Logically You Would Never Know

You might never know that you're hard of thinking. Robin Zebrowski/Flickr, CC BY-NC By Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol and Richard Pancost, University of Bristol It is an unfortunate paradox: if you’re bad at something, you probably also l ...

Article - The Conversation - Nov 16 2014 - 12:30pm

Doctors Without Visas: Should Medical Schools Accept Illegal Immigrants?

You can be a doctor without becoming an American citizen, people move here all of the time and go to medical school. They just do it legally. The US president has used an executive order to grant amnesty to an unknown number of illegal aliens currently re ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 4 2014 - 11:20am

Research Gone Awry: When Prestige Becomes The Prize

It's the research that counts. Shutterstock By Ottoline Leyser, University of Cambridge ...

Article - The Conversation - Dec 4 2014 - 11:49am

Jerks Are Penalized Even When They Have Good Ideas

You don't have to be a jerk to get the right thing done but sometimes out-of-the-box thinking requires some angry evangelism. Yet even legendary jerks like Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison knew you can't use the belligerence strategy too often or th ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 8 2014 - 4:30pm

Enlightenment Finding Eternity In The Now

“Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Jan 23 2015 - 9:37pm

Stoicism: Ancient Wisdom For The Modern World

Marcus Aurelius. By Robert S. Colter, University of Wyoming ...

Article - The Conversation - Jan 2 2015 - 4:18pm

Why I Have The Right To Be Pissed Off By The Paris Terrorist Attack, And Maybe You Do Not

The terrorist attack of two days ago in Paris to the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo left most of us hit hard by the blow to freedom of the press and freedom of thought, which are among that core set of rights on which we have built our society and which ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Jan 9 2015 - 12:15pm

In Praise Of Agnosticism

Theist, gnostic, agnostic and atheist. What is the difference? Link: ben-kay.com By Mark Beeson, University of Western Australia Getting on for 14 billion years ago the universe suddenly sprang into life. I can’t actually do the math, as they say, but I’m ...

Article - The Conversation - Jan 10 2015 - 1:30pm