In his review of The Infinite Staircase, Bill Bartlett has done me the honor every author most cherishes—he has read my book thoughtfully and has
It is more than commonplace these days to lament that truth has become a casualty of our digital era. It is also baloney. There are…
Mind, in other words, emerges from brain under conditions of socialization. As described in The Infinite Staircase, consciousness comes into being with brain, whereas mind comes into being with language and narrative.
We human beings like to believe we are special—and we are, but not as special as we might like to think. One manifestation of our
Free will means just what you think it means, despite all the poppycock you may sometimes hear to the contrary. That poppycock comes in a number of forms…
I learn a ton and get a lot of pleasure from reading Steven Pinker’s books. At present, I have two of them on my Kindle—Rationality
The Infinite Staircase takes on two mega-topics—metaphysics and ethics—connecting the two by positing that ethics represent strategies for living that align our behavior with metaphysics,
The Infinite Staircase purports to provide a Theory of Everything. From the outset, we know that this is impossible, so for its author to hold forth any further would simply be extending what is an already extended hubris.
The whole point of writing and reading a book about metaphysics and ethics is to engage with challenging ideas and debate their merits. Thoughtful and respectful dialogue is fundamental to this process. It is what is so sorely missing in much of today’s…