Still Living with the Emotions of our Ancestors

July 27, 2011

According to evolutionary theory, emotions evolved because they were helpful for survival. Anxiety alerts us to potential danger and makes us wary. Anger motivates us to fight and shows our allies that we need help. Jealousy motivates us to keep our mates to ourselves to help maximize the number of our offspring that survive to child-bearing age. But the environment we live in today is obviously very different from the environment of our distant ancestors for whom these emotions were optimized. ...

Do We Really Read Non-fiction to Learn?

July 26, 2011

When you ask people why they read non-fiction, they are likely to tell you that their primary motivation is to learn. But are people's behaviors really consistent with this being their motivation? Almost all of the information that we read is already forgotten days after having read it, and most of what remains is forgotten after months. Even those facts or ideas that are particularly interesting or useful to us are forgotten the significant majority of the time, or at least, only partially reme...

Distinguishing Evil and Insanity: The Role of Intentions in Ethics

July 29, 2009

(Note: this is an essay I wrote many years ago that I still mostly agree with. It probably was what led to me eventually coming up with the idea of Philosophical Disorders.) After a little reflection, it is clear that the morality of a person who carries out an action doesn't just depend on the action itself but rather depends on the state of mind of the person who performs it. This holds for pretty much every commonly used definition of morality. Suppose, for example, that I was tricke...

The Missing Definition Of Morality

July 22, 2009

It is common to hear discussions of whether something is moral or immoral, as if "moral" were a word with a specific, agreed-upon meaning. Unfortunately, the word has so many meanings that its interpretation is extremely difficult without extra information. For example, if I say "murder is immoral", I could actually mean any of the following: 1. Murder violates an abstract principle that I would like all people to live by. 2. The Bible (or some other religious text) forbids murder. 3. ...

Is Math True?

January 18, 2009

Mathematics is often thought to be universally and unassailably true. Some people even argue that even an omnipotent God couldn’t make math false. But can mathematicians actually prove that math is true? If they can’t, does the fact that math is so useful in solving real-world problems provide evidence of its truth? And, if mathematics is not true, then does that imply that conclusions drawn from it are faulty or suspect? Let’s explore those questions. The first attempt we might take to p...

Welcome!

December 19, 2002

Thanks for coming to my site! I'm Spencer, a mathematician and entrepreneur. This is where I write thoughts about decision-making, rationality, psychology, behavior change, education, philosophy, science, and other subjects that I enjoy thinking about. I especially love exploring topics like "How can we modify our expectations to be happier?", "Why do smart, knowledgable people disagree so often?", and "How can we become more rational decision makers?" This site has more than 60 of my essays. I ...