The Seed of Certainty
Hello everyone, I hope you've been doing well — I certainly have. My new article is finished. I have now left it with the wonderful Iona Italia for editing. It should be published within a week, you'll receive an email when it is. Who knows? "The lunatic who believes he...
The tragedy of ignorance
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing very well. It strikes me that this is a formal way of me say I want you to be happy. If you remember last week's email, I talked about a lot of the stories we frame our existence around and how they...
The arbitrariness of it all
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been doing well and that my letters are making a humble contribution to this. Aside from well-being and our ability to enhance it in others, I see no real basis for meaning in this life. Fortunately, this is more than enough. "Happiness...
The four thoughts that turn the mind
Hello everyone, Are you in high spirits? This email will be long and fun. I hope you have had a good week, for you will never get it back... This week I launched my first major update to the website in a while, you should have all received an announcement...
The technology behind this
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been doing very well. I have been busy working on some fresh updates to the website. A problem I have been facing is how I can support myself when focussing on reading and writing. Ideally, I would like to make a living from...
On Communication and Politics
Hello everyone, How are you doing? Think about that question carefully, what you tell yourself in response is important. I have been taking steps to improve my craft as a writer recently. A chance to practice writing to an audience regularly has also been a pleasant side-effect of being able...
David Deutsch's Multiverse
Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well. I have finally finished reading The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch and since then I have also finally read Conscious by Annaka Harris. In this email, I would like to talk a little about the former. When David was a...
Happiness and Problem Solving
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing very well. Since I have written about cutting through suffering, I think this time I will talk a little about happiness. Let me start with these two quotes from the marvellous Karl Popper. "The best thing that can happen to a...
The problems we face
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Here are some questions I would like you to reflect on. What are our biggest problems? Where should we direct our time and energy towards? We all want happiness and shirk from suffering. In fact, a problem is essentially a cause...
How to cut through suffering
Hello everyone, I start these emails the same way every time, but I do hope you are doing well. I was wondering, have you ever heard the term avidya? It means ignorance in Sanskrit. In Buddhist traditions it is believed that ignorance is the root of all suffering. That is;...
An explanation of explanation
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. I feel a little bad about something. I still do not feel close to being able to publish my next article How we know what we know. Epistemology — the study of knowledge — is deep. I have spent thinking about the problem...
The lies we tell
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well. Yesterday I had a conversation with a good friend about Sam Harris' book Lying. Sam's position was that we tend to be skilled at rationalising that it is justified when it is not and that we tend to deal needless harm...
Effective Altruism and Social Engineering
Hello everyone, I hope you have been doing well. In this week's email, I want to take the time to tell you about Effective Altruism. What is it? The goal of Effective Altruism is summed up pretty well by the title of William Macaskill's book. "Doing Good Better"...
The Real and the Seeming
Hello everyone, We are living in very peaceful times, I hope you are enjoying them. My question for everyone this week is simple. "What is real?" What does it mean to say that something is the case? What is the difference between saying something is a certain way,...
The Wisdom of mere muggles
Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing very well. I once found myself in line to buy Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the day of its release. I didn't camp or anything – I just wake up early. It wasn't that long, but others cosplaying as various characters....
What is consciousness?
Hello everyone, I have a question for you all. "What is consciousness?" It's not a trick question. In fact, I don't think it should be a hard question. The hard problem is how consciousness arises, not what it is. I have had conversations with otherwise intelligent people who...
Living is dying
About 150 years after the historical Buddha died, a king named Menander encounters the venerated Buddhist monk Nagasena. The king did not know him and asked for a name. The monk provided his name, but added: "This is only a name, a denotation, a matter of conventional usage. There...
The Tragic and Utopian Visions of Human Nature
The Blank Slate is a book about the question of whether we are nature or nurture. Are we born like blank slates to be written on by our life experience or do we have an innate nature that remains consistent through our lives?...
Sakya Trizin Rinpoche and Jane Goodall
Hello everyone, Welcome to my very first email. Thank you for being interested in what I have to say. Highlights of this week: Attending two talks by Sakya Trizin Rinpoche, a highly regarded figure in Tibetan Buddhism Seeing Jane Goodall, the legendary scientist and conservationist live at her Rewind the...