I consider myself a “person,” not a “thing.” I feel my inner-self unity and know, as I know anything, my lifelong continuity. But what I think I feel could be illusion, and what I think I know deception.
What makes a human being a “person,” not a “thing”? What is it that provides people with such unity and continuity?
Memory? Is not a brain-injured person without memory still a person? The same body? The body is never the same, and over time, it is completely different. While most people assume that to be a person is to have (or to be) a soul, most philosophers—and even some theologians—conclude that persons are all material, that persons have no need, and no room, for anything nonphysical.
Is the person, or a “self,” all material? Read the rest of this entry »
That our universe is expanding is one of humanity’s monumental discoveries. Starting from something infinitesimally small, the universe has become something majestically large. How could this happen? What could this mean?
Normal people hardly ever think about the expanding universe; I think about it all the time. That’s why I love speaking with Alan Guth, whose theory of cosmic inflation revolutionized cosmology. Read the rest of this entry »
God makes rage. Fights about God are frequent and fierce. Does God exist? What is God’s name? Who are God’s people?
To me, to ask questions about God without describing God—or at least defining God—seems aimless. Or meaningless. So what can we know about God?
What is God like? The easy answer is “nothing”: God is not like anything; God is so transcendent that our limited minds can never know a single thing about what God is really like. Some religious traditions assert that we can know only what God is not like (so-called apophatic or negative theology).
Is that supposed to be good enough? Read the rest of this entry »
There are many things that we humans cannot explain, but the greatest of these is our own consciousness. I sense, feel, think—perception, emotion, intelligence. All these can be described—today, partially; tomorrow, fully.
But even if these mental functions can be explained, the great mystery will likely remain: what it “feels like” inside, the inner experience of personal awareness—what hearing music sounds like, what seeing color looks like, what being in love feels like. All the obvious things of human sentience, which, when one thinks hard about them, are astonishing.
There are so many theories of consciousness. Why is consciousness so baffling? Read the rest of this entry »
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