Robert Wright's Nonzero

Why consciousness is so weird ... Is consciousness like your brain’s shadow? ... If David was a zombie, would anyone know? ... Bob’s wacky theory about consciousness ... Is consciousness what collapses the quantum wave function? ... Can there be a true science of consciousness? ...

Louis’s “meduso-anthropic” theory and the meaning of life ... Creating new universes (literally) ... Using black holes to power starships ... How black-hole starships could unite humanity ... Reality as a simulation and the wise alien scenario ...

What is “mindfulness?” ... Suffering: Can't live without it! ... The pathology of our wandering minds ... Seeking the chaos of impermanence ... Do all thoughts have feelings? ... What's the relationship between your mind and your brain? ...

Sam Harris, mystic and atheist ... The mystery of consciousness ... Is mysticism more like science than like religion? ... How religion makes progress ... Sam's case for intolerance ... The root causes of extremism ... Religious and secular reasons to do good ... Ways religion may be closer to the truth than atheism ... A secular approach to death ...

The non-Euclidean nature of coral reefs ... When physics defies human comprehension ... Bad blood between the sciences and the humanities ... The limits of scientific knowledge ... Are scientists asking the wrong questions about consciousness? ... The intenseness of having an identical twin ...

Kevin Kelly's new book The Inevitable ... Technology as an extension of evolution ... Will Google monopolize AI? ... How to foster an ethical AI ... People of the screen ... The importance of seeing the glass as half-full ...

The world’s dangerous debt burden ... Richard’s plan for solving the debt crisis ... Trump, debt, and the loopholes he loves ... What caused China’s trade surplus? ... Ominous parallels between Japan in the 1980s and China today ... Hillary’s mediocre formula for economic revival ...

Joan Didion and the New Journalism ... Didion's warning against trusting our own stories ... How and why are millennials and Gen Xers different? ... Didion's critique of second-wave feminism ... The greatness and sadness of Hunter S. Thompson ... Local news: MeaningofLife.tv is adding a YouTube dimension ...

Trumpism as a spiritual problem ... John extends some Christian charity to Trump ... What motivates Trump supporters? ... How anti-elitism fuels Trump’s campaign ... John: Trump’s use of fear is spiritually toxic ... Trump’s mistaken belief that invulnerability = power ...

The seminal Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu, hero of Paving the Great Way ... Buddhist and Darwinian arguments for reality not being as it seems ... The 'hyper-reductionism' of Buddhism ... Meditation and the doctrine of emptiness ... Does the Buddhist view of causality leave room for agency? ... Are the past and the future real? ... Hindu and Buddhist versions of non-duality ...