Svend Brinkmann’s idea of thoughtfulness is not just about exercising our rational powers to solve puzzles, but the existential dimensions of thinking.
What mathematicians call ‘disordered collections’ can help engineers explore real-world worst-case scenarios. The simple card game Set illustrates how to predict internet and electrical grid failures.
Sapolsky summarises the latest scientific research relevant to determinism: the idea that we’re causally ‘determined’ to act as we do and couldn’t possibly act any other way.
The idea that the least skilled are the most unaware of their incompetency is pervasive in science and pop culture. But a new analysis of the data shows that the Dunning-Kruger effect may not be true.
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s brilliant early work has had a lasting influence on philosophy, though almost no one has agreed with his conclusions – not even Wittgenstein himself.
Framing cats as responsible for declines in biodiversity is based on faulty scientific logic and fails to account for the real culprit – human activity.
What’s the role of someone who, like
Robert Mueller, speaks only facts in a tornado of partisan bombast? Is it a breath of fresh air or an abdication of responsibility to protect America’s interests?
We should all learn from mistakes. Driverless cars must do the same when it comes to any accidents they’ve been involved in on our roads, no matter who was to blame.
The mathematician Kurt Gödel is said to have found a way that the US constitution would allow for a dictator to take control, or so the story goes. He certainly had the mind for it.