“It turns out the answer is inexplicably bound up with the Roman Empire, the unification of China, gender studies, and the rather uncomfortable positioning of man atop horse.”
Category: ideas
Does ‘Infinity’ Really Exist?
“This is a surprisingly ancient question. It was Aristotle who first introduced a clear distinction to help make sense of it. He distinguished between two varieties of infinity” – potential infinity and actual inifinities. He argued (maddeningly) that the potential kind does exist while the actual do not and cannot exist. Since then, the mathematicians, physicists, cosmologists and theologians have been weighing in …
Did We Misunderstand Allan Bloom’s “The Closing of the American Mind”?
“If you view The Closing of the American Mind through the prism of the culture wars, as most on the left and right still do, you miss what’s vital and distinct about it. That perspective also makes the book appear to be mainly an artifact of its era, and not a work of more lasting value. Twenty-five years on, it’s time to rescue Bloom from the partisans.”
The Trap Of Being Busy
“Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”
Teach Yourself Synesthesia! (Or At Least Give Your Brain A Good Workout)
“Conventional wisdom says that synesthesia is innate – you’re either born with the condition or you’re not, end of story. If you happen not to have been born that way but would really, really love to experience numbers as colors, or colors as sound … then you, my sense-straight friend, are pretty much out of luck. Except … maybe not?”
Is This Magazine Too Honest, Or Perhaps Too Inspirational, For The Internet?
“The more sincere Thought Catalog has skewed, the more exasperated its critics have become. Nolan says the backlash has been a product of both subject matter and tone: ‘It is confessional, but it’s more than that. I think it goes back to the fact that it’s not self-aware: They think they are great but they are not in on the joke – that they are the joke,”‘he says. ‘All of their posts about feelings just make them into a caricature of themselves.’
‘I’m really not afraid of being uncool,’ responds O’Connell.”
The Crowd’s Not So Wise – But Neither Are The Experts
“After the better part of a decade in which various markets, from Intrade to the stock market, became many people’s preferred way to peer into the future, a backlash is clearly under way. Not so long ago, knowing about the existence of Intrade was a mark of being in the vanguard. Today, mocking Intrade, ideally on Twitter, is a sign of sophistication.” But don’t ask experts about the future either – they’re just as wrong, and just as mocked.
Goodbye To All That, Redux: Decamping Literary Brooklyn For L.A.
“I’ve never felt more important than when I lived in New York. I was poor and my work was neither very good nor very well-read, and yet every day I’d wake up in my 10-by-10 room, its window looking out over my building’s rusted trashcans, and somehow think I’d achieved another great victory.”
Happiness Is (Spending Money On) Other People
Until people in the U.S. make around $75,000, their happiness goes up with every step up the ladder. After that, the only way to be happy is to put that extra money in the service of others (and not just your kids).
Why Religion Makes You Behave Better
“Can religion make you a more honest, upstanding person? Who better to ask than Dan Ariely” – the media’s favorite behavioral economist – “whose new book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, is about why people lie and cheat? Ariely says the answer is yes but not for the reason you might think.”