This famous line from the 18th-century English poet Alexander Pope's poem "An Essay on Man" is as captivating today as it was 300 years ago (especially if we mentally substitute 'man' with 'human'). Sometimes, when we fail to express our confused thoughts and feelings, we do what people have done for thousands of years - …
Tag: search for meaning
Spreading the Word: Human Search for Meaning and Artificial Intelligence
Can we create a human-like artificial intelligence? It is a profoundly philosophical question before being a purely technical one. If it was just a matter of technological possibility, I suspect we would have done it already. However powerful and advanced, disembodied computation is not the sort of ‘human-like’ intelligence that we - actual living embodied people - …
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Search for Self as Search for Home
"It might be youth. It might be the reptilian impulses of a species with migration encoded in its DNA. It might be your inferiority complex or the boredom of small-town claustrophobia or the exhibitionist streak you’ve never told anyone about. It might be the hungers of ancestors whose aspirations have sunk into your bones, pushing …
Spreading the Word: Existentialism
Today I share with you a short video about Existentialism. I think they've managed to capture the main ideas of this philosophical attitude nicely and have presented them in a clear way. We are all after meaning in our lives. And there is absurdity in that. Why? Well, as an existentialist would say - because …
Spreading the Word: Pillars of Meaning
In this week's "Spreading the Word", I share with you a video. It is a 2017 TED talk given by the writer Emily Esfahani Smith. She has studied how people find and create meaning in (and for) their lives, and has come up with a suggestion of the results - she refers to them as …
Philosophical Essay on Philosophy (Part II)
In the first part of this essay, I explored what philosophy is for me, what is its meaning and value. Now it is time to address one of the most frequent objections to philosophy: namely, that it is something too abstract, too theoretical, impractical, and, therefore, useless. Here we go! Image reference below (1) First, …
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Philosophical Essay on Philosophy (Part I)
Having finished one year`s course in philosophy, here is a question I asked myself last weekend - what is philosophy for me? It is a state of mind and an approach to life, I responded to myself. Having an engaging dialogue with oneself is completely acceptable in philosophy. Deep, broad and well-argued thoughts are welcome. …
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