Philosophy

We Are Not Alone

By Josh Ackerman, Ph.D. on June 29, 2009 - 8:28am in Coordination Games

Think Different. Be an Army of One. Is this stuff even possible? Scientific findings suggest that far from being completely autonomous individuals, people are fundamentally connected to others in ways they do not even realize. Read More

Darling, Do You Realize that My Cyber Lover Is Wiser than You?

Someone stupid could still be extraordinarily sexy

Phantom Words

The brain creates illusions of words and phrases.

Determinism Is Not Just Causality

Is the future already set in stone?

The Latest

The Comeback of Love

By Aaron Ben-Zeév, Ph.D. on July 3, 2009 - 8:16pm in In the Name of Love

Despite the difficulties of maintaining long-term romantic relationships in modern times, this is also a flourishing time for love, even a time of its renaissance. Love is on the mind of a greater number of people and its presence is a major criterion for more relationships. Love cannot be dismissed anymore as silly fantasy; it is perceived as realistic and feasible for many more people. Love has made an impressive comeback. And rightly so. Read More
Fascinating Figures: Alan Watts

By Christopher Ryan on July 2, 2009 - 9:41am in Sex at Dawn

Alan Watts was one of the best-known interpreters of Eastern philosophies for the West. He was also a real piece of work.
Read More
Funny Money, Or: The Pleasures of Efficiency

By J.D. Trout, Ph.D. on June 30, 2009 - 11:14pm in The Greater Good

Some months back, PT bloggers were asked to comment on their relationship with money, with a special focus on any quirks we have. This is a more personal perspective than many of us take in our blogs, but still interesting and worthwhile. I hope you like it. Read More
Taowinism: Tao+Darwin & Serenity prayer variations Part 2

By Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on June 30, 2009 - 5:32pm in Ambigamy

About 15 years ago I began to notice a sweet solid convergence between the Tao, Darwinism and the Serenity prayer that has guided both my behavior and my research ever since. Here are some more practical variations on the serenity prayer, second in a series of four. Read More
John Bargh and Some Misunderstandings About Free Will

By Roy F. Baumeister on June 30, 2009 - 1:45pm in Cultural Animal

Bargh and Baumeister debated free will for 90 minutes at the giant SPSP convention in Tampa. These are Baumeister's thoughts after the debate.
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Behind the Scenes at the Tampa Free Will Debate

By John A. Bargh, Ph.D. on June 29, 2009 - 1:08pm in The Natural Unconscious

Our Moderator (arrr!) Read More
We Are Not Alone

By Josh Ackerman, Ph.D. on June 29, 2009 - 8:28am in Coordination Games

Think Different. Be an Army of One. Is this stuff even possible? Scientific findings suggest that far from being completely autonomous individuals, people are fundamentally connected to others in ways they do not even realize. Read More
Darling, Do You Realize that My Cyber Lover Is Wiser than You?

By Aaron Ben-Zeév, Ph.D. on June 26, 2009 - 8:02pm in In the Name of Love

Intelligence is often a desirable characteristic in the beloved. Since intelligence has a greater weight in cyber love than in offline romantic relationships, people who value intelligence might seek to initiate, and sometimes even to maintain, romantic relationships in cyberspace. Read More
Phantom Words

By Diana Deutsch, Ph.D. on June 26, 2009 - 11:58am in Illusions and Curiosities

Just as we 'see' visual objects that correspond to those that are familiar to us, we also 'hear' phantom words and phrases that relate to our experiences. Read More
The Human Condition in a nutshell: Serenity prayer nails it, and here’s the rest. Part 1

By Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on June 25, 2009 - 1:25pm in Ambigamy

The serenity prayer is more than how they close AA meetings. That thing is deep and speaks to the fundamentals of the human condition, including everything that drives psychology and the behavioral sciences in general--the pursuit of wisdom whereby we can make better decisions, trekking the winding mountain ridge of life in the dark about the future without sliding down the slippery slopes on either side of the ridge top. Here are some new variations on that greatest of prayers. Read More
Free Will at the Tampa SPSP Conference: The Great Debate

By Roy F. Baumeister on June 25, 2009 - 12:02pm in Cultural Animal

Do human beings have free will? Or is every human action the inevitable result of prior events and external causes? Or both? Read More
Eisophtrophobia: Fear of mirrors and why the fallacies aren't common knowledge

By Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on June 23, 2009 - 3:41pm in Ambigamy

I have a motto for this work: To name it is to tame it.

I search for terms that enable us to label common mental “moves,” especially the faulty ones. If you have a name for a move, you’re prepared to identify it when it flies by in thought and conversation. That way, you can catch others in weak reasoning, and indeed, keep your own weak reasoning in check.
Read More
The Will is Caused, not 'Free'

By John A. Bargh, Ph.D. on June 23, 2009 - 9:06am in The Natural Unconscious

Note: The following is a summary of our side of a recent debate with Roy Baumeister on free will, held at the annual convention of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology last February in Tampa, Florida. Read More
Determinism Is Not Just Causality

By Roy F. Baumeister on June 23, 2009 - 7:22am in Cultural Animal

Determinism is the belief in the 100 percent inevitability of everything that happens. That requires a huge leap of faith.
Read More
Eye Candy

By Shelagh Robinson, Ph.D. on June 23, 2009 - 7:11am in Vitamin Eye

Eye candy is, by definition, good-looking people: Sweet to stare at, they tempt us with their addictive visuals. But the term has another meaning, especially when we remember that our brain's primary fuel is sugar. Eye candy is also a special kind of mutual gaze -- one that is dense with energy, sends our pleasure chemicals surging, and looks absolutely delicious. And it's good for you. Read More
Creeping up on consciousness

By Kathleen Taylor on June 22, 2009 - 2:53am in Science and Cruelty

Consciousness remains a mystery. But we may be one step closer to understanding it. Read More
Crying at Work: A Good Thing?

By Regina Barreca, Ph.D. on June 21, 2009 - 8:22am in Snow White Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Writes my pal Gene Weingarten in The Washington Post "Because women are attending grad schools in record numbers, and because male CEOs have screwed things up so publicly, Gina thinks women are soon going to dominate American business -- and feminize it." Read More
Neurobiology doesn’t reduce human experience into mechanistic meaninglessness.

By Timothy B. Stokes, Ph.D. on June 20, 2009 - 8:18pm in What Freud Didn't Know

Some suggest that embracing the neurobiology that underpins human experience reduces all that is rich and valuable in human life into biochemical mechanisms. The author suggests that experience and the biology that underlies it are actually two different things. They don’t equate. Read More
Darling, Should I be Modest with You?

By Aaron Ben-Zeév, Ph.D. on June 19, 2009 - 8:26pm in In the Name of Love

If we have to guard our modesty in the presence of our lovers, it means that we do not trust them to understand our profound love for them. Read More
Risk and Television: My Mastermind Story

By Regina Barreca, Ph.D. on June 19, 2009 - 2:18pm in Snow White Doesn't Live Here Anymore

At one BBC party, as I was trying to shove as many shrimp as possible into my cheeks in order to get some kind of protein into my system, a producer asked me to appear on a TV show that was a sort-of grown-up version of College Bowl.
The show was called "Mastermind" and was very popular in Britain at the time.
You sat under a spotlight on a stage and an announcer fired questions at you concerning a special subject and what was vaguely titled "general knowledge." Read More

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How to end world poverty.
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What our language reveals about how we think and who we are
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Philosophy Basics

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