Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy -- and our own self-awareness.
For many, living a moral life is synonymous with living a religious life. Just as educated students of mathematics, chemistry and politics know that 1=1, water=H2O, and Barack Obama=US president, so, too, do religiously educated people know that religion=morality.
As simple and pleasing as this relationship may seem, it has at least three possible interpretations.
First, if religion represents the source of moral understanding, then those lacking a religious education are morally lost, adrift in a sea of sinful temptation. Those with a religious education not only chart a steady course, guided by the cliched moral compass but they know why some actions are morally virtuous and others are morally abhorrent.
Second, perhaps everyone has a standard engine for working out what is morally right or wrong but those with a religious background have extra accessories that refine our actions, fuelling altruism and fending off harms to others.
Third, while religion certainly does provide moral inspiration, not all of its recommendations are morally laudatory. Though we can all applaud those religions that teach compassion, forgiveness and genuine altruism, we can also express disgust and moral outrage at those religions that promote ethnic cleansing, often by praising those willing to commit suicide for the good of the religious "team".
None of my comments so far are meant to be divisive with respect to the meaning and sense of community that many derive from religion. Where I intend to be divisive is with respect to the argument that religion, and moral education more generally, represent the only — or perhaps even the ultimate — source of moral reasoning. If anything, moral education is often motivated by self-interest, to do what's best for those within a moral community, preaching singularity, not plurality. Blame nurture, not nature, for our moral atrocities against humanity. And blame educated partiality more generally, as this allows us to lump into one category all those who fail to acknowledge our shared humanity and fail to use secular reasoning to practise compassion.
If religion is not the source of our moral insights — and moral education has the demonstrated potential to teach partiality and, therefore, morally destructive behaviour — then what other sources of inspiration are on offer?
(read more...)
Take a moral test HERE
Bernard-Henri Levy, France's "rock-star philosopher," and Slavoj Zizek, the Slovanian "Elvis of cultural theory," will scrutinize the totalitarianisms of the past as well as those of the future, as they argue for a new political and moral vision for our times and investigate the limits of tolerance.
Does the advent of capitalism cause more violence than it prevents? Is there violence in the simple idea of the neighbor? asks Zizek in Violence: Six Sideways Reflections.
Are human rights Western or Universal? How is it that progressives themselves-those who in the past defended individual rights and fought fascism-have now become the breeding ground for new kinds of dangerous attitudes? - New York Public Library
Slavoj Žižek's work triggers continuous controversy; Welcome to the Desert of the Real, his analysis of 9/11, was attacked both as anti-Semitic in Israel and as Zionist in Egypt. He is the author of more than thirty books and is the subject of the documentary Žižek. His own critically acclaimed documentary, The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, was the subject of a film retrospective in 2007 at the Museum of Modern Art.
Peter Singer is perhaps the most thoroughgoing philosophical utilitarian since Jeremy Bentham. As such, he believes animals have rights because the relevant moral consideration is not whether a being can reason or talk but whether it can suffer. Jettisoning the traditional distinction between humans and nonhumans, Singer distinguishes instead between persons and non-persons. Persons are beings that feel, reason, have self-awareness, and look forward to a future. Thus, fetuses and some very impaired human beings are not persons in his view and have a lesser moral status than, say, adult gorillas and chimpanzees. (read more...and more...)
Ray walked on stage, played a composition on an old upright piano, and then whispered to I've Got a Secret host Steve Allen "I built my own computer".
"Well that's impressive," Steve Allen replied, "but what does that have to do with the piece you just played?" Ray then whispered the rest of his secret: "The computer composed the piece I just played." During the yes or no questions, former Miss America Bess Myerson was stumped, but film star Henry Morgan, the second celebrity panelist, guessed Ray's secret.(read more..)
Kurzweil does not believe in half measures. He takes 180 to 210 vitamin and mineral supplements a day, so many that he doesn't have time to organize them all himself. So he's hired a pill wrangler, who takes them out of their bottles and sorts them into daily doses, which he carries everywhere in plastic bags. Kurzweil also spends one day a week at a medical clinic, receiving intravenous longevity treatments. The reason for his focus on optimal health should be obvious: If the singularity is going to render humans immortal by the middle of this century, it would be a shame to die in the interim. To perish of a heart attack just before the singularity occurred would not only be sad for all the ordinary reasons, it would also be tragically bad luck, like being the last soldier shot down on the Western Front moments before the armistice was proclaimed. (read more...)
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy.
"Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" shows that by knowing how people think, we can design choice environments that make it easier for people to choose what is best for themselves, their families, and their society. Using colorful examples from the most important aspects of life, Thaler and Sunstein demonstrate how thoughtful "choice architecture" can be established to nudge us in beneficial directions without restricting freedom of choice.
Richard H. Thaler is the Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics and the director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business.
(read more on einhod blog...)
He's been called "the man with five brains" -- and Murray Gell-Mann has the resume to prove it.(read more...)
Israel Eldad (b. 1910 as Israel Scheib in Podvolochisk, Galicia, d. 1996), was a Revisionist Zionist philosopher. He was an early member and later chief ideological strategist of the Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) or Lehi. Called By the British the Stern Gang.
Born in Riga, Yeshayahu Leibowitz (brother of Nechama) was educated in Germany and Switzerland and immigrated to Eretz Yisrael in 1935. He joined the faculty of Hebrew University and taught chemistry, physiology, and history and philosophy of science. He authored many books and articles, lectured publicly, and was an editor of several volumes of the Encyclopedia Hebraica. Outspoken in his views on Judaism and Israel, he aroused a great deal of debate and antagonism among religious and non-religious circles. The decision in 1992 to award him the Israel Prize sparked much controversy, and Leibowitz declined to receive it. He died in Jerusalem in 1994
(for much more click HERE)
The ancient Jews and Greeks split the ancient Western world. The Jews, as Paul Johnson wrote in his History of the Jews, were the best historians of the ancient world, stubbornly commemorating the situated history of a people and their universal, single God, our Abrahamic God. With this part of our Western Hebraic-Hellenic tradition comes our Western sense of history and progress, alive in the creativity of human history. In contrast, Greek thought was universalist and sought natural laws. The Greeks were the first scientists in the West.
If both natural law and ceaseless creativity partially beyond natural law are necessary for understanding our world, and if we as whole human beings live in this real world of law and unknowable creativity, these two ancient strands of Western civilization can reunite in ways we cannot foresee.
Out of this union can arise a healing of the long split between science and the humanities, and the schism between pure reason and practical life, both subjects of interest to Immanuel Kant. Science is not, as Galileo claimed, the only pathway to truth. History, the situated richness of the humanities, and the law are true as well. This potential union invites a fuller understanding of ourselves creating our histories and our sacred, as we create our lives. (more from Edge)
Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion
George Steiner interviewed by Alan Macfarlane
Steiner was born in Paris in 1929, delivered - according to family lore - by an American doctor who then returned to Louisiana to assassinate Huey Long. His parents, Frederick and Else Steiner, were Austrian Jews who had taken French citizenship, and the children were brought up speaking English, French and German, to which Steiner later added Italian.
His father, an investment banker, was "an agnostic, a Voltairean", Steiner says. But he "had deeply the Jewish sense that there is no higher vocation than teaching" and encouraged his son's classical studies. When rumours of war came, "Mamam was indignant. She said, 'They will die on the Maginot Line if they dare attack.' My father, bless him under the name of God, saw more clearly." Tipped off by a German former colleague while visiting New York on behalf of the French government, Frederick Steiner arranged for his wife and children to join him there in 1940.(more...)
Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman continues an argument begun in the 19th century, when writers such as John Ruskin and William Morris extolled the crafts remembered in our surnames (Smith, Cartwright, Thatcher, Mason, Fletcher) while lamenting the mind-numbing and soul-destroying labour of the industrial process which was replacing them. A long line of thinkers, from Hegel and Marx to Sennett’s teacher Hannah Arendt, have sympathised with the argument. But Sennett does not think that craftsmanship has vanished from our world.
The word "craftsman" summons an immediate image. Peering through a window into a carpenter's shop, you see an elderly man surrounded by his apprentices and his tools. Order reigns within: parts of chairs are clamped neatly together, the smell of wood shavings fills the room, the carpenter bends over his bench to make a fine incision for marquetry. The shop is menaced by a furniture factory down the road.read more Here and Here)
The craftsman might also be glimpsed at a nearby laboratory. There, a young lab technician is frowning at a table on which six dead rabbits are splayed on their backs, their bellies slit open. She is frowning because something has gone wrong with the injection she has given them; she is trying to figure out if she did the procedure wrong, or if there is something wrong with the procedure.
A third craftsman might be heard in the town's concert hall. There, an orchestra is rehearsing with a visiting conductor; he works obsessively with the string section, going over and over a passage to make the musicians draw their bows at exactly the same speed across the strings. The string players are tired, but also exhilarated because their sound is becoming coherent. The orchestra's manager is worried: if the visiting conductor keeps on, the rehearsal will move into overtime, costing management extra wages. The conductor is oblivious.(
Eric G. Wilson is a professor of English at Wake Forest University. This essay is adapted from his book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, being published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
At the behest of well-meaning friends, I have purchased books on how to be happy. I have tried to turn my chronic scowl into a bright smile. I have attempted to become more active, to get out of my dark house and away from my somber books and participate in the world of meaningful action. I have taken up jogging, the Latin language, and the chair of a university English department. I have fostered the drive to succeed in my career. I have bought an insurance policy, a PalmPilot, and a cellphone. I have taken an interest in Thanksgiving and Christmas, in keeping my hair trimmed short, and in meticulously ironing my clothes. I have viewed Doris Day and Frank Capra movies. I have feigned interest in the health of others. I have dropped into the habit of saying "great" and "wonderful" as much as possible. I have pretended to take seriously certain good causes designed to make the world a better place.I have contemplated getting a dog. I have started eating salads. I have tried to discipline myself in nodding knowingly. I have tried to be mindful of others but ended up pissed as hell. I have written a book on the hard-earned optimism of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I have undertaken yoga. I have stopped yoga and gone into tai chi. I have thought of going to psychiatrists and getting some drugs. I have quit all of this and then started again and then once more quit. Now I plan to stay quit. The road to hell is paved with happy plans.
Children of Men DVD was released in Europe on January 15, 2007 .
World divisions, chaos and anarchy, these are the ways the world and the last remaining inhabitants are checking out. No child has been born for eighteen years. Human life and its moral self is eroding into extinction. Set in Britain in the year 2027, this is Theodore Faron finding his ghosts coming back to haunt his fruitless life, in the form of an underground band of rebels The Fishes. Unwittingly drawn into their plight, learning who can be trusted, who can be dependable, and how he must hold the most precious secret the Human race has been so longing to hear, the miracle that can change the course of Humanity; the first pregnant woman in eighteen years. On the run, he, Kee and Miriam must travel cross-country, on the run, terrified and helpless to the safe haven of the Human Project. With the help of aging hippie Jasper Palmer this horrific, dark, unconventional and uncompromising road movie is all that is left between the demise of the Human race and the birth of a new drawnThis half-hour documentary by director Alfonso Cuarón entitled "The Possibility of Hope" is included in the extras. The documentary explores the intersection between the film's themes and reality with a critical analysis by eminent scholars: the Slovenian sociologist and philosopher Slavoj Žižek , anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein, futurist James Lovelock, sociologist Saskia Sassen, human geographer Fabrizio Eva, cultural theorist Tzvetan Todorov, and philosopher and economist John N. Gray.
Guide for the Perplexed is beyond any doubt the most famous of the app. 300 Hebrew manuscripts in the collections of The Royal Library. Also known as "The Copenhagen Maimonides", the manuscript was written and illuminated in Catalonia in the years 1347-1348, and is one of the finest examples of the illumination traditions of this part of Spain in this era.
The “illuminatorship” of “the Copenhagen Maimonides” has been much debated, but the current consensus is that the main illuminator was Ferrer Bassa, active in Barcelona as leader of a workshop, which also included his son Arnau. He is better known as a mural painter (the San Miguel de Pedralbes monastery, Barcelona), but is thought to have been the illuminator of several manuscripts.
One possibility is that Ferrer Bassa is responsible for the larger panels in the codex, while other members of the workshop may have executed the marginal illuminations. Some of the details connect with words in the text, but whether these cases point to a Jewish illuminator is uncertain; they may also be a result of cooperation with the scribe or the patron. It has been suggested that "the Copenhagen Maimonides” was Ferrer Bassa’s last work. He died around the time of is completion, presumably from the Black Death; after 1348, nothing is known of him or his son.
Come join the slowest-growing religion in the world - Dudeism. An ancient philosophy that preaches non-preachiness, practices as little as possible, and above all, uh...lost my train of thought there. Anyway, if you'd like to find peace on earth and goodwill, man, we'll help you get started. Right after a little nap. First, you might want to get ordained as a Dudeist priest.(to cont...)
"1. If you are a man of modest means and charisma and a rich, beautiful woman wants to have sex with you, don't question her motives until after the act is over.
2. Avoid living in the past, even if memories can be beautiful and remind you of a time you once enjoyed.
3. Though the man in the black pajamas might be a worthy adversary, you should avoid him whenever possible. Especially if he's easily avoided. Choose instead to cling to the tree of life.
4. Just because you're bereaved doesn't make you a sap. Keep your wits about you, even when you're bummed out.
5. Take 'er easy for all the sinners of the world, dude. Abide. And amen"
"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves".On Bullshit is an essay by philosopher Harry Frankfurt. Originally published in the journal Raritan in 1986, the essay was republished as a separate volume in 2005 and became a nonfiction bestseller.
In the essay, Frankfurt sketches a theory of bullshit, defining the concept and analyzing its applications. In particular, Frankfurt contrasts bullshitting and lying; where the liar deliberately makes false claims, the bullshitter is simply uninterested in the truth.Rather, bullshitters aim primarily to impress and persuade their audiences. Whereas the liar needs to know the truth the better to conceal it, the bullshitter, interested solely in advancing his own agenda, has no use for the truth. By virtue of this, Frankfurt claims, "bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."
The debate about our waste turns our old ideas about the right direction for society upside down. Traditionally, we've measured material progress by finding more efficient ways to produce the goods and services we need, on the principal that time is money. The three Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle – suggest we should be more concerned about saving resources than saving time. And if that means doing things in a manner which is less productive – and ultimately may mean we are poorer as a result – the moral imperative of “saving the planet” says we should do just that.
In other words, for all the fluffy talk about a caring, sharing, green future, environmentalists are ultimately more concerned about stuff than people. (MORE ON TIMES)
Do men and women speak the same language? Can they ever really communicate? These questions are not new, but since the early 1990s there has been a new surge of interest in them. Countless self-help and popular psychology books have been written portraying men and women as alien beings, and conversation between them as a catalogue of misunderstandings. The most successful exponents of this formula, such as Deborah Tannen, author of You Just Don't Understand, and John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, have topped the bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic. Advice on how to bridge the communication gulf between the sexes has grown into a flourishing multimedia industry. Gray's official website, for instance, promotes not only his various Mars and Venus books, but also seminars, residential retreats, a telephone helpline and a dating service.
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Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions -- both big and small -- have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice -- the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish -- becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice -- from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs -- has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
The better one gets to know the Jews, the more peculiar they appear. "Remember us unto life, O King who delights in life," they pray on the solemn occasion of their New Year, which this year fell on September 13. Unfeigned and spontaneous delight in life is uniquely Jewish; the standard Jewish toast states, "To life!" while the most characteristic Jewish gibe admonishes, "Get a life!" We are not dealing here with so-called lust for life that involves a pile of broken dishes and a hangover the next morning. Instead, the Jews evince a liking for life as such. That is not only unusual; it is almost unnatural.
Life as such is not that likable. As Mephistopheles taunted Faust in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's tragedy, life in its totality was fit only for a god, too hard a cracker for ordinary humans to digest. That seems to be the prevalent opinion across epochs and cultures. Socrates told us to despise life and instead to view death as the highest good. Buddhism teaches us to regard it as an illusion to inure ourselves from its attendant pain. From the Spartans to the Vikings, the martial cultures of the pagan world showed contempt for life, for they often fought to the death. Pagans aspired to a glorious death; I can think of not a single instance in the history of the Jews, whose wars of antiquity were frequent and ferocious, of the mention of a "glorious death". The very notion is repulsive to Jewish sensibilities. (more by Spengler from AsiaTimes)
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