A "higher purpose" that doesn’t involve spooky forces ... What does it matter whether a higher purpose exists? ... What does the “meaning” in “meaning of life” mean? ... Pondering the trajectory of human development ... The importance of understanding other perspectives ... Debating whether we’ve made moral progress ...

What do we mean by a meaningful life? ... Finding purpose in being a part of something bigger ... How social context determines our understanding of meaning ... Fantasies about uniting humanity: one cause, one God, one reality ... Are we making moral progress? ... Is it empowering or terrifying to think we create our own meaning? ...

Finding meaning in Washington D.C. ... Heather’s spiritual life ... Ways Episcopalians think about God ... Tempting things public servants should avoid ... The importance of being hokey ... “There is no having it all” ...

A mathematically informed skepticism of the biographical genre ... The significance of unpredictability ... Using math to understand the trajectory of our lives ... Over time, do our perceptions converge on the truth? ... The delusion of attributing significance to coincidences ... When John learned that math = power ...

Stoicism: a philosophical alternative to religion ... Adapting an ancient philosophy of life to modern times ... Accepting harsh truths ... Confronting regret, fear, and death ... Applying Stoicism to the social sphere ... Interpreting the concept of radical self-sufficiency ...

Brainpickings.org: How an unsettled 22-year-old's office newsletter evolved into a meaning-of-life resource ... Honorable relationships in the age of transactional networking ... Fruitful monotony versus compulsive consumption of media ... Choosing understanding over judgment ... Maria's spiritual routine: reading, writing and meditation ... Success as freedom from contentification and commercialization ...

Jeremy's new theory and the origins of life ... Wrestling with the second law of thermodynamics ... Self-organizing systems and self-replicating ones ... Natural selection as a special case of more general physical laws ... The role of ritual in Jeremy’s Jewish faith ... The laws of physics were written by people, not God ...

Jesus, Buddha, Roger and Paul: friends in conversation ... How do you say "nirvana" in Christian? ... The perennial philosophy ... Religious pluralism as a political imperative ... Why Paul will not live for eternity (and Roger will) ... When Christian mysticism feels pretty Buddhist ...

Star Wars Philosophy 101 ... St. Augustine on why people join the Dark Side ... What makes Jedi better than terrorists, and the Empire worse than the U.S. ... Midi-chlorians and the mind-body problem ... The Lucas Empire v. the Fan Alliance: battle for the imaginary universe ... The Force Awakens: spoilers and speculations ...

What does it mean to be Jewish? ... The development of different Jewish movements ... Barbara: God doesn't change; our understanding of God changes ... The Torah, the Talmud, and the Jewish canon ... Bringing the old ways into modern times ... Why moral philosophy alone isn’t enough ...