Category Archives: Meaning

Two Essays About Current Events: by Connie Willis and Heather Cox Richardson

Posted on 11 August 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Connie Willis is one of the most beloved science fiction writers of the past 40 years. As a writer she’s won many awards, for works often humorous but at times tragic, at times building human stories based on the weirdness … Continue reading →

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Ls&Cs: Meaning and Happiness

Posted on 25 October 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Kant’s take on happiness; Arthur C. Brooks’ three bite-sized dimensions to the meaning of life; Thomas B. Edsall on whether conservatives are happier than liberals.

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Links and Comments: Conspiracies! Conspiracies!

Posted on 20 May 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Over the past several weeks there’s been an outbreak of stories and articles in the various legitimate media (New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, et al) about conspiracy theories related to the coronavirus pandemic. So many articles! … Continue reading →

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Tyson, LETTERS FROM AN ASTROPHYSICIST

Posted on 21 October 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a new book by Neil deGrasse Tyson, just published a couple weeks ago. It’s blurbed as a ‘companion’ to his previous book, ASTROPHYSICS FOR PEOPLE IN A HURRY; post about that one here. This is a collection of 101 … Continue reading →

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Richard Feynman’s Meaning, and Being Savvy

Posted on 3 May 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a short book of three essays first delivered as lectures at the University of Washington in Seattle, in 1963, gathered into a book published in 1998. Feynman, of course, was a famous CalTech physicist influential for work in quantum … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Rules to Escape Trump’s Moral Rot; Escaping New Atheism(?); Optimistic Nihilism

Posted on 31 July 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

William Saletan, at Slate, takes inspiration from John McCain’s recent speech, during last week’s health care debate: Words to Live By. Subtitle: “McCain’s speech gives us a map for escaping the moral rot of Trumpism.” He says, “To escape the … Continue reading →

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Sean Carroll, THE BIG PICTURE

Posted on 3 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Sean Carroll’s THE BIG PICTURE: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, just published May 10th, is an ambitious, wide-ranging book not so much about cosmology (Carroll’s specialty at CalTech), as about the perspective we gain through … Continue reading →

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Dan Barker on Meaning without Divine Dictates, and the Slave Mentality

Posted on 19 May 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Dan Barker’s Life Driven Purpose (Pitchstone, April 2015), is much more cheerful than Lindsay’s book just reviewed. It’s an explicit response to religious superstar Rick Warren, and his ‘purpose-driven life’, in which everything about your life is in service to … Continue reading →

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Sean Carroll Interview

Posted on 8 May 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Phil Torres talks to Sean Carroll, author of a book coming out Tuesday that I’m greatly looking forward to, The Big Picture Salon: “The evidence is pretty incontrovertible that he doesn’t exist”: Stephen Colbert’s favorite scientist on the universe, naturalism … Continue reading →

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Paul Kalanithi, WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

Posted on 6 April 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

This is an almost unbearably sad, yet poignant and moving and thoughtful, memoir by a young Stanford neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at the age of 36. His life changes from being the physician to being … Continue reading →

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