Reason and Meaning
Philosophical reflections on life, death, and the meaning of life
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Two Million Views
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Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Life & Meaning
2. Religion & Meaning
3. Philosophy, Science & Meaning
4. Death & Meaning
5. Transhumanism & Meaning
6. Skepticism & Meaning
7. Optimism & Hope
8. Hope & Meaning
Personal
Wondering
Children
Daughter’s 30th Bday
New Grandchild
To My Grandchildren
More on Grandchildren
Switzerland
Wife’s 60th Bday
So Much To Learn
Random Musings
Mother’s Day
The End of the World
Random Reflections
Contact
Politics
Authoritarianism
Breaking Point
Overthrowing Democracy
Ross Douthat & David Frum
Toward Totalitarianism
American Authoritarianism
Giroux: Orwell & Huxley
Umberto Eco on Fascism
Brenner: Authoritarianism
Taub: Authoritarianism
Comey’s Firing
How Democracies Die
Civilization’s Fragility
Trump
Firing Mueller
Does Mueller’s Case Matter?
Arresting Mueller
The Case Against
Coping With Trump
Emptiness
Stupidity
Legitimacy
Impeachment
Inaguration
Devastation
Eric Hoffer & Trump
Ken Burns on Trump
One Nation After
End of Democracy
Existential Threat
Why Tolerate Trump?
Trump’s Racism
Cult of
Truth
Americam Crisis
Alternative Facts
A Right To Your Opinion?
Jason Stanley: Beyond Lying
Jason Stanley: Demagogues
Fake News
Fox News
New American Civil War
2016 Election
Brenner: Disgraced America
Eliezer Yudkowsky Pt.1
Eliezer Yudkowsky Pt.2
Prospect Theory
Education & The Election
Devastated by the Election
H. L. Mencken
Normal vs. Abnormal
Science
The Transhumanist Party
Congress & Science
Republicans & Science
Nerds, Science, Politics
Mark Bittman on Society
Politics & the Movie Fargo
Science & Political Office
Net Neutrality
Forbidden words
Economics
Piketty & Tyson
More Piketty & Tyson
Piketty & Politics
More Piketty
A New System
Whales & Profit
Morality & Stocks
General
Another Civil War?
Republicans & Democracy
Freedom Caucus
Sports, Law & Politics
American Politics 2014
The Dangers of Patriotism
Prison Reform
The Holocaust
Shakespeare & Politics
Abortion & Politics
Politicians & Grandchildren
10 Stages of Genocide
Kavanaugh: Sexual Assault
What If Everyone Had Guns?
Guns and God
Gun Deaths in USA
What Is Socialism?
Conservatives & College
Book Reviews
Farris: Fighting Dirty
Hoffer: The True Believer
James: Trump Is Asshole
Stanley: Propaganda
Bernstein: Why Read Arendt
Kellner: American Nightmare
Brennan: Against Democracy
Snyder: On Tyranny
Religion
Philosophy of Religion
Arguments for God
The Problem of Evil
Divine Plans
Smart-People Problem
No Smart-People Problem
Arguing with Theists
Philosophy/Theology/Science
God of the Philosophers
Accepting Religion
Are the Gods Evil?
Living & Religious Claims
Christianity Is a Delusion
Science & Religion
Science Explains Religion
Einstein and Darwin
Science & Religion: Dialogue
Did a God Use Evolution?
The End of Time
More on the End of Time
Hypatia & Religion
Logic & Religious Beliefs
Cosmology vs. Creationism
Against Creationists
A Critique of Religion
Religion & the Future
The Singularity & Religion
Better Humans Revisited
Building Better Humans
Technology & Religions End
Religion & Superintelligence
Converting Superintelligence
Transhumanism & Religion
Atheism
Spirituality wo/ Religion
The Age of Atheists
Religion for Atheists
Intellectual Snobbery
Arguments Against
Soft Core Atheism
Atheist Delusion
Religion & Meaning
Religion & Meaning Pt.1
Religion & Meaning Pt.2
General
American Piety
Religion Without God
Children wo/ Religion
Scientology
Biblical Prescriptions
Christianity & Abortion
Proofs for Santa
More Proofs for Santa
The Mina Stampede
And Public Colleges
The Dark Ages
Sexual Abuse Catholicism
Religion as Community
Science
Astronomy
Transcension Hypothesis
Livio: Hubble Telescope
Lisa Randall: Dark Matter
Black Holes & Truth
Energy/Matter/Time/Space
Extraterrestrial Life
Science & Philosophy
Science & Meaning
Science As Wisdom
Living in a Multiverse
Comp Sci & Philosophy
Piaget: Science&Philosophy
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Americans Don’t Believe
Science & Philosophy
Earth’s History
Many Worlds/Multiverse
Science & Mystery: Reply
Science & Mystery
Science & Technology
The Global Brain
Techno-Optimism
Social Media
Tech Hijacks Minds
Barbour: On Technology
Investing in Science&Tech
Rise of the Machines
Ong: Communications
Social Cooling
Is Google Bad?
Slaughterbots
Scientists on Science
Rutgens: Trust in Science
Sagan: Speaking for Earth
Sagan: Irrationalism
Sagan: Pale Blue Dot
Gleiser: Limits of Science
Yanofsky: Science&Reason
Wilson: Young Scietists
Gawand: Graduation Speech
Biological Evolution
The Truth of
Biological Progress
Timeline
Darwin & Genius
Cultural Evolution
Shakespeare & Evol.
Evolution & Meaning
More Evolution & Meaning
We Must Evolve Quickly
We Must Evolve
Evolutionary Visions
Cosmic Evolution
Cosmic Evolution & Meaning
More Cosmic Evol & Meaning
Wright: Human Destiny
Pinker: Critique of Wright
Cosmic Natural Selection
Climate
George Will’s Nonsense
GMOs & Climate
Prisoner’s Dilemma
Environmental Catastrophe
Work & Climate
Bill McKibben, “Falter”
Jared Diamond, “Upheaval”
Avoiding the World’s End
Earth’s Average Temperature
Good Books
Evolution
Popular Science
Astronomy & Physics
Future
Transhumanists
Ray Kurzweil
Hans Moravec
Michio Kaku
Marshall Brain
Damien Broderick
Paul & Cox
Daniel Dennett
John Messerly
Critics
Michael Bess
Bill Joy
Charles Rubin
John Searle
Jaron Lanier
Better Humans
Better Humans Pt.2
Revolt Against
What Computers Won’t Do
Mind Uploading-Impossible
Transhumanism
The Transhumanist Wager
TH & Freedom
Life In a Computer
Mind Uploading
A Glorious Future
Implanting Moral Chips
Intelligence Augmentation
Superintelligence Pt.1
Superintelligence Pt.2
Bostrom: Superintelligence
Is It A Religion?
General
Connected to Past & Future
Robotic Nation
Robots & Economics
Rees: Our Final Hour
Overpopulation
Longevity & Overpopulation
Future Tech & Philosophy
Can We Live There?
Envy of the Future
Existential Risks
Star Trek
Survival of the Richest
Moral Enhancement
Future of Humanity
Good Books on AI & Robotics
Death
Death is Bad
Vincent Barry
George Pitcher
Steven Luper
John Leslie
Nick Bostrom
Samuel Scheffler
Death is Not Bad
Leo Tolstoy
Stephen Rosenbaum
Oswald Hanfling
David Benatar
James Lenman
Andrew Stark
Death & Technology
Death Should Be Optional
Tech Titans & Death
Cryonics
Can “We” Live On?
Scientific Immortality
Overpopulation
Essays on Dying
Laurie Becklund
Emily Debrayda Phillips
David Malham
Paul Kalanithi
Roger Ebert
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks Pt.2
Oliver Sacks’ Death
Poems
Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
Henley, “Margaritae Sorori”
Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death “
Owen, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”
Auden, “September 1, 1939”
Robinson, “Richard Cory”
Larkin, “An Arundel Tomb”
Larkin, “Aubade”
Appleman, “Gertrude”
Shelley, “Ozymandias”
Auden “Funeral Blues”
Personal
Death is Bad
Death Should Be Optional
Cemeteries
Friend’s Mother
Friend’s Mother Pt. 2
General
Do We Survive Death?
Christopher Hitchens
Denying Death
Death as Ticking Bomb
The Fear of Death
Fearing Immortality
Death & Meaning
Death is Evil
Ethics
Introduction
What is Ethics?
Theories & Intuitions
Moral & Legal
Ethical Theory
Morality & Facts
Meta-ethics
Is Ethics Objective?
Cultural Moral Relativism
Personal Moral Relativism
Emotivism
Contractarianism
David Gauthier
Gilbert Harman
John Rawls
Normative Ethics
Morality & Religion
Natural Law
Kant’s Ethics Outline
Kant’s Ethics
Utilitarianism
Hobbes: Social Contract
Shermer: Science & Ethics
Sartre’s Ethics
Evolution & Ethics
Abortion
Noonan: “An Almost Absolute Value in History”
Marquis: “Why Abortion is Immoral”
Warren: “On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion”
Thomson: “A Defense of Abortion”
Reply to Pro-Lifer
More Replies to Pro-Lifers
Politics & Abortion
Philosophers & Abortion
Ethicists & Abortion
Christianity & Abortion
Euthanasia
The Euthanasia Debate
Williams: “The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia”
Brock: “Voluntary Active Euthanasia”
Rachels: “Active and Passive Euthanasia”
David Goodall’s Death
Biotechnology
Sandel: “The Case against Perfection”
Tooley: “Moral Status of Cloning Humans”
Steinbock: “The Morality of Killing Human Embryos”
Kass: “Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology & …”
Lauritzen: “Stem Cells, Biotech & Human Rights …”
Sexual Ethics
Goldman: “Plain Sex”
Mappes: “Sexual Morality and the Concept of Using …”
Sexism
Global
Just War Theory
Walzer: “The Triumph of Just War Theory”
Risse: “What We Owe to the Global Poor”
Dwyer: “Illegal Immigrants, Health Care, & Social …”
Justice is Enough
Good Books
Meaning
Agnostic
Paul Edwards
A. J. Ayer
John Wisdom
R. W. Hepburn
Robert Nozick
W.D. Joske
Oswald Hanfling
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Herbert Fingarette
Carl Sagan
Nihilists
Schopenhauer Pt.1
Schopenhauer Pt.2
Camus
Thomas Nagel
Walter Stace
Joel Feinberg
Simon Critchley
Milan Kundera
Subjectivists-Pessimistic
Jean Paul Sartre
Paul Edwards
Raymond Martin
John Kekes
Bertrand Russell
E. D. Klemke
Subjectivists-Optimistic
Kurt Baier
Kai Nielsen
Hazel Barnes
David Schmidt
Nick Hughes
Robert Solomon
David Lund
Julian Baggini
Richard Taylor
R. M. Hare
Irving Singer
Andre Maurois
Objectivists – General
Garrett Thomson
Karl Britton
Susan Wolf
Steven Cahn
Susan Wolf Pt.2
James Rachels
Tennyson: Ulysses
Objectivists – Specific
Joseph Ellin
Terry Eagleton
Mortiz Schlick
Owen Flanagan
Victor Frankl
Christopher Belshaw
Raymond Belliotti
Paul Thagard
Thaddeus Metz
Religious- Less Dogmatic
Leo Tolstoy
Antony Flew
David Swenson
Reinhold Niebuhr
Philip Quinn
William James
Huston Smith
John Hick
Religious- More Dogmatic
Louis Pojman
John Cottingham
William Craig
Tom Morris
Evolutionists
Daniel Dennett
Michael Shermer
Steve Stewart-Williams
John Stewart
Teilhard de Chardin
P.B. Medawar
Jacques Monod
E. O. Wilson
Julian Huxley
Larry Rifkin: Video
John Messerly
Book Reviews
The Human Predicament
Beginning & End
Joshua Seachris
Ultimate Questions
E. O. Wilson
God & Darwin
All Things Shining
Science & Philosophy
Surfing w/ Sartre
The Anthropocene
God & Meaning
Reply to Ruse
Michael Ruse
Philosophy
Intro. to Philosophy
What is Philosophy?
Philosophy/Science/Religion
Is Truth Relative?
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Do We Live in the Matrix?
Freedom & Determinism
Against Free Will
Can A Machine Think?
Philosophy of Mind
Personal Identity
Existentialism
Critical Thinking
Introduction
Psychological Impediments
A Right to Your Opinion?
Who Should I Believe?
But I Just Believe
Deceptive Language
Crimes Against Logic
A Graph of Cognitive Biases
G.I. Joy Fallacy
Belief & Knowledge
Human Nature
Confucianism
Hinduism
Buddhism
The Bible
Islam
Plato
Aristotle
Medieval Philosophers
Modern Philosophers
Kant
Marx
Freud
Sartre
Darwinism
Feminism
Alan Watts
Eastern
Hinduism: One Page
Hinduism: Basics
Hindu Philosophy
Buddhism Basics
Buddhist Philosophy
Confucianism: Basics
Taoism: Basics
Truth
Why Truth Matters
Harry Frankfurt: On BS
Is Knowledge Power?
Against Dogmatism
Fallibilism
Searching For Truth
Lying & Truth
Monopoly on Truth
Does Knowledge Matter?
Belief & Skepticism
Truth & Falsity
Truth and Power
Limits of Knowledge
Hope
Is Hope Bad?
Hope and Pandora’s Box
A Defense of Hope
A Defense of Optimism
Doug Muder on Hope
And Possibilities
Hope (Academic)
is the thing with feathers
And Existence
Against Hope
For Non-Believers
Poems
Tennyson, “Ulysses”
Emily Jane Brontë, “Life”
Henley, “Invictus”
Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”
Frost, “The Road Not Taken”
Dickinson: “The Brain is wider than the Sky”
Larkin, “This Be The Verse”
Tennyson “Tears Idle Tears”
Longfellow “Morituri Salutamas”
Longfellow “A Psalm of Life”
Frost, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Robinson, “Dear Friends”
Popular
Maslow: Self-Transcendence
Kahlil Gibran
Must Evil Exist?
Theory & Practice
Big Questions
Skepticism
Orwell’s 1984
Is There an Afterlife?
Communing with Nature
Philosophy Humor
What is A Worldview?
Education
David Foster Wallace
Daniel Gray, BA
30 Years Teaching
Letter From Student
Defending Philosophy
Value of Philosophy
Philosophy & Wonder
Philosophy Class
Should I Go To College?
Value of College
Former Student
Relevance of Philosophy
Skepticism & Meaning
Football & Change
Teacher Burnout
Destroying Higher Education
Book Reviews
Why Does The World Exist?
Outer Limits of Reason
Better Never to Have Been
Consolations of Philosophy
Philosophy at Midlife
A Thinker’s Guide…
Star Map
Philosophers
Presocratics
Presocratics
The Ionians
Heraclitus
Parmenides & Zeno
Protagoras
Pythagoras
The One and the Many
The Sophists
Ancient Philosophers
Socrates’ Teachings
Socrates: Knowledge
Socrates: Trail And Death
Plato on Human Nature
Plato: Cave, Line, Sun
Plato: The Apology
Plato: Political Theory
Plato: Gyges’ Ring
Plato: Justice
Aristotle on Human Nature
Aristotle: A Good Life
Aristotle: Good Societies
Aristotle: Living Well
Epicurus
Plotinus
Stoics
Epictetus: Self-Control
Epictetus & Stockdale
Aurelius: The Meditations
Aurelius: Get Out Of Bed
Seneca: Shortness of Life
Cicero: On Old Age
On Emotions
Seneca: On Tranquility
Modern Philosophers
Hobbes: Politics and Ethics
Descartes’ Third Maxim
Descartes to Kant
Hume: Suicide
Hume: Good Philosophers
Adam Smith: Hume’s Death
Kant: Developing Talents
Kant: Ethics
Kant: Ethics (brief)
Marx: Politics
Schopenhauer: Pessimism
Schopenhauer: Hope
James: Once & Twice Born
Spinoza
Nikos Kazantzakis
Life & Thought
Saviors of God
Life’s Meaning
Against Hope
Bertrand Russell
Value of Philosophy
On Idleness
We Fear Thought
Nobel Prize Speech
Last Written Words
How To Grow Old
His Grandmother
The Will to Doubt
The Will to Doubt
What He Believed
A Free Man’s Worship
Will Durant
Value of Philosophy
Cycle of Life
Words & Wisdom
Cultural Progress
Meaning in Life
Story of Philosophy
Convict 79206
Contemporary Philosophers
Marcel: Problems & Mystery
Marcel: Creativity & Hope
Unamuno: Life as Tragedy
Adler: Truth & Justice
Frankl: Tragic Optimism
Piaget: Knowledge Evolves
Parfit: On Existence
Camus on Meaning
Sartre on Meaning
Process Philosophers
More
Work
Monotony
What We Want
Rethinking Work
Meaningful Work
Friends & Work
Fulfilling Work
Money
Work/Life Balance
Overworked
Do What You Love?
Music
All Things Pass
The Living Years
Suzuki & Schubert
Ode to Joy
Dan Fogelberg
River of Souls
Pawn in the Game
Closing Time
Oh Very Young
About Time
Political Parody
About Time Pt.2
Darrell Arnold
Love
What is Love?
Types of Love
And Death
Jane Austen
Love & Pain
50th Anniversary
The Art of Loving
Marriage
Monogamy
Time
Nostalgia
Life is Brief
Life is Fleeting
How To Spend It?
Experiencing Time
Past & Future
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Depression/Anxiety
Nicotine Gum
Responsibility
Whose Fault?
A Poem
Marijuana
Alan Watts
Back To Sanity
Game Addiction
Solitary Confinement
Happiness
Best Countries
Harvard Study
Predicting
Relationships
Relationship Scale
Nature
And Meaning
Walking in Nature
Solitude
Are We Ever at Home?
Health/Aging
Vegetarianism
Infections
Guns
Food & Society
Intelligence
Gerotranscendence
Movies
Philomena
Spotlight
Fargo
Sense&Sensibility
Groundhog Day
Paterson
Documentaries
Nightmare Bacteria
Exile Nation
No Place on Earth
Where To Invade
Life Itself-Roger Ebert
Food Chain
Command&Control
Trump’s Showdown
Writing
How To Write Well
Why Write?
About Writing
Writing To Learn
Examples of Great Writing
Faulkner: Nobel Speech
Evans: Writing Well Matters
Freedom
Freedom & Power
Freedom & Govt. Part2
Freedom & Govt. Part1
Freedom & Politics Part1
Freedom & Politics Part2
Freedom & Human Spirit
Books
AI & Robotics
Astronomy & Physics
Atheism & Agnosticism
Evolution
Evolution & Ethics
The Future
History
Meaning of Life
Popular Science
Politics
Popular Philosophy
Writing
Science & Religion
My Books
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