Philosophical questions that arise when we compare reality to our subjective experience of it

December 23, 2020

A surprisingly large number of unsettled questions in philosophy arise from the difficulty of meshing: A. our theoretical understanding of what things are "really" like (physics, atoms, etc.) with B. our direct, first-hand experiences as humans. Examples: (1) Ethics - most people experience a visceral feeling that some things are inherently and universally morally wrong (e.g., murdering children). Yet it's unclear what, in the universe of atoms (or in physics), could make (o...

What if “Free Will” Isn’t Guaranteed?

July 11, 2017

A useful trick that I've used for years: thinking of myself as having sustained free will for only about the next 5 minutes, and assuming my distant-future self has free will only intermittently. If like most people, you think of yourself as continuously having free will in the future, you may have thoughts like:(1) "I'll have an hour to do this project tomorrow, so I don't need to do it now."(2) "Once I'm back from vacation, I'll start going to the gym every day."(3) "I don't need to make t...

Your Best and Worst Influence – a two-minute social thought experiment

June 21, 2017

A simple 2-minute social thought experiment for you: Note: I highly recommend that you don't just read this list of steps, but instead, that you actually do them! Reading these steps will not give you any benefit, but doing them might! Step 1 - Think for a moment about the person who is the best influence on you, or the person in your life you don't see that much that you most admire the traits or actions of. Step 2 - Visualize something great this person did or said, or think of a ...

Why do people not behave in their own self-interest?

March 19, 2017

Naively, one might assume that people do what it benefits them to do. In fact, that's an assumption commonly made in economics. Yet it's clear that our behavior is not always in our own self-interest. People frequently buy fake supplements, try drugs they know are highly addictive, eat things they know they'll later regret, drive away the people they love most, procrastinate on really important things, and so on. So why do we behave in these strange ways? Well, here's my list of reasons we ...