Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
We’re talking about what psychologists today would describe as the “adaptive unconscious.” Timothy Wilson, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, has described this in his important book Strangers to Ourselves (a very Augustinian title!). Over the past twenty years psychology has come to appreciate the overwhelming influence of “nonconscious
... See moreJames K. A. Smith • You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
Years ago, it had occurred to me that Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving. Describing life otherwise was like painting a tiger
Paul Kalanithi • When Breath Becomes Air
More than 20 years ago, two philosophers, Andy Clark and David Chalmers, wrote a journal article that opened with a question: “Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin?” Now, that question would seem to have an obvious answer, right? The mind stops at the head. It’s contained within the skull. But Clark and Chalmers maintained that
... See moreAnnie Murphy Paul • The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain
I count myself among a growing number of scientists who believe that the construction of self identity is not much better than the Lo-fi representations of other people we hold in our heads.
Gregory Berns • The Self Delusion
The most interesting thinkers in these fields—the “first-rate intelligences”—have been the ones best able to “flicker” between alternative perspectives on the same problem, paying attention to the objective and subjective while recognizing that neither can be collapsed into the other.