https://iai.tv/articles-proxy/rss Fri, 21 Aug 2026 10:53:47 +0000 https://iai.tvarticles/prisons-expose-the-hypocrisy-of-american-freedom-auid-3660 America claims to be a nation built on freedom that views state intrusion into individual liberty as the ultimate tyranny – so why does it have the world’s largest prison population? NYU law professor David Garland argues that this clash between a professed love of liberty and a massive apparatus of confinement is the logical outcome of the country’s political economy. Rather than prioritising dignity and flourishing, America’s freedom has always centred around markets, and free markets need a penal state to control the wreckage that they leave behind. In the early 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, the first and still best-known theorist of American society, formulated a paradox about the young nation. America was, he said, a land “of the most extended liberty” and yet its prisons “offer the spectacle of the most complete despotism.” Freedom and unfreedom were juxtaposed in a way that surprised the French visitor and struck him as ironic.Ne... Fri, 21 Aug 2026 10:53:47 +0000 David Garland https://iai.tvarticles/prisons-expose-the-hypocrisy-of-american-freedom-auid-3660 https://iai.tvarticles/new-theory-of-information-physics-could-solve-cosmologys-gravity-crisis-auid-3659 Gravity is likely the force we are all most familiar with. Yet, scientifically, it remains the most mysterious. The standard theories we have of gravity simply cannot make sense of things like the accelerating expansion of the universe or even the rotation of galaxies – leading us to have to invent 95% of the universe in the forms of dark matter and energy. Furthermore, we still have no solution to the problem of quantum gravity. Here, physicist Melvin Vopson argues for a controversial view of gravity. Information, he argues, is as fundamental as mass and energy, and gravity is a way for the universe to minimize the complexity of information.To see Melvin Vopson debate live the idea of whether information is fundamental, join him alongside Adam Frank, Ivette Fuentes and Daniel Whiteson, at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival this September. Also appearing will be world-leading th... Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:48:24 +0000 Melvin Vopson https://iai.tvarticles/new-theory-of-information-physics-could-solve-cosmologys-gravity-crisis-auid-3659 https://iai.tvarticles/morality-is-a-trick-our-brains-use-to-save-energy-auid-3658 We often treat our gut sense of good and evil as a reliable moral compass. But psychologist Jordan Theriault-Brown argues it’s something else altogether, an energy-saving trick of the brain, which can motivate violence as well as bravery. Our brains crave a predictable world, because chaos is more energy-intensive to model. Moral feelings enforce rules that make our behavior predictable to ourselves and others. This idea can explain behavior that evolutionary accounts struggle with, such as extreme self-sacrifice. When someone dies for a cause, Theriault-Brown suggests, it’s because abandoning their most foundational moral principles would force their brain to rebuild its entire model of who they are. Why would someone feel a duty to die for a cause? Think of Joan of Arc on the pyre, soldiers charging into machine gun fire, or even terrorists in a suicide attack. Moral... Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:11:04 +0000 Jordan Theriault-Brown https://iai.tvarticles/morality-is-a-trick-our-brains-use-to-save-energy-auid-3658 https://iai.tvarticles/godel-and-lewis-carroll-revealed-that-reality-is-inexplicable-auid-3657 The classic story of science and mathematics was that reason could reach through to some pure, complete understanding of the world. But from Lewis Carroll’s work as a mathematician to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, mathematics, and therefore the science it underlies, tells a different story. As Minh-Hoang Nguyen argues, the world, like that of Wonderland, is fundamentally incomplete. The notion that we live in a closed system that can be fully explained was not just unachievable; it was a philosophical mistake. Mathematics is often mistaken for a discipline of quick calculations and precise answers. Yet mathematics is not fundamentally about arithmetic. At its deepest level, mathematics is an exercise of world-building.Mathematicians start off with as small as possible a collection of assump... Tue, 18 Aug 2026 10:40:29 +0000 Minh-Hoang Nguyen https://iai.tvarticles/godel-and-lewis-carroll-revealed-that-reality-is-inexplicable-auid-3657 https://iai.tvarticles/chemistry-is-not-explained-by-quantum-mechanics-auid-3656 We assume the world is made of particles, but this is mistaken at even the most fundamental levels of science, argues Olimpia Lombardi, a leading philosopher of science and critic of the idea of “a theory of everything.” The interactions and transformations of chemical substances cannot be explained in terms of the sub-atomic particles that make them up. Quantum mechanics, our best theory of these particles, cannot account for what happens when substances interact, from rusting to combustion. The realm of chemical transformations appears to be independent of the realm of physical things. Physics describes the dynamics of material bodies. It studies objects, and asks why they move around in the ways that they do, relying on properties like position, velocity and mass. Chemistry, on the other hand, focuses on the behavior and reactions of so-called “substances.” Substances are not objects—they are the stuff that macroscopic objects are made of. ... Mon, 17 Aug 2026 08:25:29 +0000 Olimpia Lombardi https://iai.tvarticles/chemistry-is-not-explained-by-quantum-mechanics-auid-3656 https://iai.tvarticles/artificial-birth-will-change-what-it-means-to-be-human-auid-3655 Birth is an inseparable part of human experience — we were all born out of human bodies. Yet rapidly developing artificial womb technologies are on the cusp of replacing conventional birth, the social and political ramifications of which could be drastic. In this piece, Director of the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth Anna Hennessey argues that these technologies have real potential to upend our social institutions, as well as our conceptions of gender, family and personhood — an understanding of the severity of this phenomenon involves realising the sublime and existential aspects of pregnancy and birth, not just their biological ones. Birth is the most foundational act of human experience; if we are not born, then there is no experience to be had. When most of us think about the act of birth, we imagine it happening in hospitals or sometimes homes—not in laboratories. Similarly, we usually think of women as the ones who give birt... Fri, 14 Aug 2026 10:40:55 +0000 Anna M. Hennessey https://iai.tvarticles/artificial-birth-will-change-what-it-means-to-be-human-auid-3655 https://iai.tvarticles/dreams-show-us-consciousness-is-fundamental-auid-3654 Every scientific experiment requires an observer; every measurement is made by one. But the observer itself remains elusive. Andrew T. Jaffe uses the example of a scientist within a dream who can discover the physical laws of the dream world but can't use the scientific method to discover they're dreaming. This isn’t a gap science will eventually fill because the observer isn’t just another object. Consciousness is fundamental; it is prior to the world that science describes. Last night, you undoubtedly became someone else. You were back in some random school frantically rushing to class to take a test you had forgotten about, or back living in a house you had not visited in decades. You may have been conversing without any shock or alarm with long-deceased friends or family or facing challenges that bore little resemblance to your waking life. While the dream lasted, nothing seemed unusual. Your dream identity felt totally norma... Thu, 13 Aug 2026 10:28:15 +0000 Andrew T. Jaffe https://iai.tvarticles/dreams-show-us-consciousness-is-fundamental-auid-3654 https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-post-work-society-only-a-post-survival-one-auid-3653 The wage economy once appeared natural. It linked labour to production, income, and survival. But AI is making these links unstable: societies can produce more with less human work. Philosopher Manuel Delaflor here argues for a new economic framework, one in which we should draw a line between survival and competition. Survival should be guaranteed to everyone, whether they work or not. Essentials such as food, shelter, healthcare, and energy should be given to all and kept outside the competitive economy. Once survival is taken care of, work will then be left to satisfy ambition, innovation, meaning, purpose, and status. I bet that you are not interested in another fight between “capitalism” vs “communism,” “left” vs “right,” “individualism” vs “collectivism,” as if these old ideologies were the only ones available for thought. They never were, of course. That old boxing ring is becoming useless, and it is time to put them to rest. These cate... Wed, 12 Aug 2026 09:47:49 +0000 Manuel Delaflor https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-post-work-society-only-a-post-survival-one-auid-3653 https://iai.tvarticles/dawkins-neo-darwinism-is-itself-a-religious-theory-auid-3652 We often see evolutionary theory as the enemy of religion. But in Darwin’s day, many scientists thought otherwise. Neo-Darwinism, today championed by atheists like Richard Dawkins, was founded by a devout Christian, who explicitly tied its mechanistic vision of life to a world ordered by God’s laws. In contrast, argues Stanford historian of science Jessica Riskin, the anti-mechanistic theory of Lamarck—which grants living beings genuine creativity—was attacked as dangerously atheistic. Riskin argues that today’s supporters of neo-Darwinism have forgotten its theological roots, and that Lamarck’s theory, with its radical, anti-theological motivations, should be taken more seriously. One of the longest-running debates in the history of science must surely be the one about whether living beings exert creative agency to influence the course of evolution. When whales adopt a new hunting technique, birds change their mating patterns, or lizards migr... Tue, 11 Aug 2026 11:03:33 +0000 Jessica Riskin https://iai.tvarticles/dawkins-neo-darwinism-is-itself-a-religious-theory-auid-3652 https://iai.tvarticles/the-fatal-flaw-in-our-search-for-alien-life-auid-3651 The universe contains trillions of planets, and scientists are more optimistic than ever that we are on the verge of finding life beyond Earth. But Christopher Cowie, Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Durham, thinks this optimism rests on a deceptively simple mistake. A vast universe doesn't mean a dense one, and unless life exists close enough for our telescopes to observe it, its abundance elsewhere is simply irrelevant to us. The universe, he argues, may be teeming with life. We just may never find any of it and we have never questioned why finding it matters in the first place. There is growing optimism that we are on the brink of discovering evidence of life beyond Earth. This requires that life is out there to be found in the first place. And it seems, at first, eminently reasonable to think it is. The sheer size of the universe ensures it. There are just so many possible sites: planets and moons that host liquid wat... Mon, 10 Aug 2026 11:03:25 +0000 Christopher Cowie https://iai.tvarticles/the-fatal-flaw-in-our-search-for-alien-life-auid-3651 https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-mechanics-rules-out-a-final-theory-of-the-universe-auid-3650 Some physicists such as Sean Carroll argue that the entire universe can be described as just a quantum wave function, the basic mathematics underlying quantum mechanics. But LMU Munich philosopher of science, Ali Barzegar, argues that quantum mechanics supports a very different cosmological story, according to which there can be no final description of “the universe as a whole.” For, he argues, quantum mechanics shows that any description of a system is always a description of one system relative to another. But if the universe is everything, then there is no system outside the universe, and so no description of the universe as a whole is possible. Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in the history of science. The wavefunction is the central element of its mathematical formalism. It is used to calculate the probabilities of obtaining different outcomes when measurements are performed on a physical system. In this sense, th... Fri, 07 Aug 2026 10:28:51 +0000 Ali Barzegar https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-mechanics-rules-out-a-final-theory-of-the-universe-auid-3650 https://iai.tvarticles/irans-internal-conflicts-made-war-inevitable-auid-3649 The war on Iran has dragged on far longer than the US administration originally promised, while regime change remains elusive. SOAS political theorist Arshin Adib-Moghaddam argues that to understand this war, we must look inside the Islamic Republic itself — at the factional struggles, the entrenched deep state, and the security-military establishment that has repeatedly answered its people's demands for reform with repression. From the student protests of 1999 to the Women, Life, Freedom movement, this internal machinery hollowed out the very legitimacy that might have shielded Iran from attack. First things first: The Trump and Netanyahu administrations have failed miserably in their aggression against Iran. Their war will be recorded in history as one of the biggest strategic blunders in contemporary international relations. As a consequence, all of us are reeling from the economic effects. Innocent lives are lost on a daily basis, and only... Thu, 06 Aug 2026 10:56:58 +0000 Arshin Adib-Moghaddam https://iai.tvarticles/irans-internal-conflicts-made-war-inevitable-auid-3649 https://iai.tvarticles/emotions-are-dangerous-they-cant-be-proven-wrong-auid-3648 From gut instincts to emotional authenticity, we increasingly treat our feelings as infallible. But philosopher of emotion Michael Brady argues this is not just wrong but dangerous. Emotions contain judgements, and judgements can be mistaken: fear can be wildly disproportionate, jealousy can accuse the innocent, shame can attach to things that aren't shameful. A world where no feeling can be wrong isn't kinder, it's stuck. Nobody can be corrected, and disagreement becomes a shouting match of feelings that can't be questioned. Instead of treating emotion as an answer, we should treat it as a question — the start of inquiry, not the end of it. The notion that human beings are rational animals is one we probably owe to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who claimed that “reason more than anything else is man.” But as Aristotle’s predecessor and teacher P... Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:45:05 +0000 Michael Brady https://iai.tvarticles/emotions-are-dangerous-they-cant-be-proven-wrong-auid-3648 https://iai.tvarticles/laughing-at-others-is-laughing-at-yourself-auid-3647 Cringe has become a core part of comedy. We laugh at someone else's embarrassment, and it helps us feel better about ourselves. While comedy’s postmodern turn kept audiences safely detached because we were always in on the joke. But, as we search for human connection in the modern world, Greg Dember, author of Say Hello to Metamodernism, argues that contemporary comedy has quietly overturned this structure. Cringe is no longer the thing that separates us from the fool on the screen. It has become the thing that connects us to them and to each other.  During the last decade or so, “cringe” has become a frequently evoked category, both in self-reflective popular parlance and in the scholarship of comedy. Of course, drawing attention to human imperfection or embarrassment is not a new development in popular culture.This morning, however, I will suggest that what distinguishes contemporary cringe is its evocation of the ... Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:15:43 +0000 Greg Dember https://iai.tvarticles/laughing-at-others-is-laughing-at-yourself-auid-3647 https://iai.tvarticles/the-latest-neuroscience-may-be-proving-freud-right-auid-3646 Neuropsychologist Mark Solms — the man entrusted with editing Freud's complete scientific works — argues that a century of neuroscience has been unknowingly proving psychoanalysis right. In this interview with Evie Manton, he traces our current theories of the unconscious, memory systems, and drive theory to their Freudian predecessors, and makes the case that following Freud back to the brainstem may hold the key to understanding consciousness itself.Mark Solms will be appearing at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival this September, alongside other leading figures including Roger Penrose, Sabine Hossenfelder, Mariana Mazzucato, John Gray, and many many more. Find out more here.  Evie Manton: Most people think neuroscience buried Freud. You argue it has resurrected some of his deepest ideas. What exactly ha... Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:11:32 +0000 Mark Solms https://iai.tvarticles/the-latest-neuroscience-may-be-proving-freud-right-auid-3646 https://iai.tvarticles/to-understand-einstein-or-nietzsche-you-need-to-understand-their-love-lives-auid-3645 We tend to think that great philosophy emerges from pure reason, not love or heartbreak. And for a large part of 20th-century philosophy, from analytic philosophy to Roland Barthes’ declaration that the author is dead, an author’s biography was seen as merely a distraction. But philosopher Adrián Gordaliza Vega, author of In Love and Pain, argues that, in fact, an author’s biography is crucial to understanding their work, and their love life is especially important. From Heidegger to Nietzsche to Einstein, he shows how the ideas of great thinkers were influenced by their romantic relationships. When confronted with a text or a work of art, we must address the following issue: How does an author’s own biography affect the interpretation of their work? And to refine it even further, does their romantic life—with its lights and shadows—truly influence their output?Let me illustrate this with an example: Martin Heidegger retained h... Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:40:47 +0000 Adrián Gordaliza Vega https://iai.tvarticles/to-understand-einstein-or-nietzsche-you-need-to-understand-their-love-lives-auid-3645 https://iai.tvarticles/after-hobbes-vs-rousseau-politics-must-move-beyond-human-nature-auid-3644 Since the great debate between Hobbes and Rousseau, our political theory has been organised around a single question: is human nature essentially good or essentially corrupt? Graham Harman, the philosopher behind object-oriented ontology, argues that this is simply the wrong question to be asking. The real forces governing our collective fate - climate change, artificial intelligence, geography, and pandemics - are non-human; therefore, questions about human nature are not the central ones. Instead, Harman proposes a politics reorganised around our relationship to non-human objects and environments, in which quasi-government institutions incentivise and deter actions with the aim of extending the survival of the human race.  “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” This has become one of the most popular phrases ... Thu, 30 Jul 2026 11:45:55 +0000 Graham Harman https://iai.tvarticles/after-hobbes-vs-rousseau-politics-must-move-beyond-human-nature-auid-3644 https://iai.tvarticles/puzzles-reveal-the-limits-of-ai-auid-3638 Puzzles compress the experience of insight into miniature, letting us watch understanding take shape in real time. Computer scientist Cristopher Moore argues that while AI can brute-force its way to a correct answer, only humans experience the leap from confusion to clarity that marks real insight, replacing mechanical search with an elegant path. As AI makes knowledge ever cheaper and easier to look up, Moore warns that we risk losing the habit—and the reward—of struggling toward answers ourselves. What is understanding?Artificial intelligence produces images that look like reality, and text that looks like thought. We all know that it merely recombines its training data to produce its responses, and yet this ability to recall and remix human knowledge produces amazing results.Debates rage about whether AI understands what it says. But what does it mean to understand? What does it mean to have an insight, a real... Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:45:51 +0000 Cristopher Moore https://iai.tvarticles/puzzles-reveal-the-limits-of-ai-auid-3638 https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-a-controlled-hallucination-is-not-incoherent-auid-3632 A growing number of neuroscientists claim that “reality is a controlled hallucination,” a projection of our brains. But in a recent article for the IAI, the philosopher Evan Thompson argued that this is nonsense: if brains hallucinate reality, then the brain itself must be part of the hallucination, so the theory falls apart. Now, Oxford philosopher Jan Westerhoff, author of Reality: A Very Short Introduction, replies to Thompson, arguing that his objection misses the radical core of the neuroscientists’ claim. The idea is coherent, he says, but only if we embrace its implication that our theories aren’t descriptions of the world, but rather provide models for intervening in it. Some contemporary neuroscientists describe the brain as a “fantastic organ,” able to create the fantasy—or hallucination—of the world around us, a world that appears to impress itself o... Tue, 28 Jul 2026 11:00:15 +0000 Jan Westerhoff https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-a-controlled-hallucination-is-not-incoherent-auid-3632 https://iai.tvarticles/devolution-of-power-wont-save-the-wests-stagnant-economies-auid-3631 Britain's growth problem isn't a devolution problem. Handing power down to cities and regions has become the default prescription for stagnant growth. But economist Joel Hoskins argues that Manchester's transformation, the model most often cited to justify this approach, was never really about who held the power. It took three decades, four governments, and a refusal to keep starting over. That kind of institutional discipline has vanished across Whitehall, and no amount of devolved authority can substitute for it. Burnham is one of the few politicians with a proven record of creating genuine economic growth. However, the secret ingredients for that growth were political stability and a widespread willingness to deliver a plan. Both of those things are in desperately short supply everywhere you look today. Ask most people who follow economic policy and they will tell you, with conviction, that Manchester is a stand-out success story. The skyline has changed. T... Mon, 27 Jul 2026 13:45:23 +0000 Joel Hoskins https://iai.tvarticles/devolution-of-power-wont-save-the-wests-stagnant-economies-auid-3631 https://iai.tvarticles/panpsychism-does-not-solve-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-auid-3630 Panpsychism has grown in popularity, and many now see it as the leading answer to the hard problem of consciousness – the problem of how consciousness emerges from physical matter. But here, Tony Sobrado argues panpsychism does not solve the hard problem of consciousness. Rather, panpsychism only inverts and multiplies the problems of consciousness. If matter arises out of some fundamental consciousness, we have a comparable emergence problem as the original hard problem. While we also create other problems, like the combination problem: the problem of how separate bits of conscious matter combine into a single entity?  Panpsychism argues that consciousness does not emerge from the physical brain, nor is it caused by the physical brain. Panpsychism also denies that consciousness is realized in, or reducible to, the physical brain. The central grievance of panpsychists is treating physicalism and materialism as the fundamental layer of reality.... Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:08:46 +0000 Tony Sobrado https://iai.tvarticles/panpsychism-does-not-solve-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-auid-3630 https://iai.tvarticles/a-coming-age-of-leisure-is-a-dangerous-myth-auid-3629 Over 200 economists and tech insiders, including 16 Nobel Prize winners, signed an open letter this month, warning that AI may take our jobs. Some, like Bill Gates, argue that this is a good thing, and that AI can usher in an age of leisure. But Adrian Johnston, praised as “one of the most audacious philosophers writing today” and hailed by Slavoj Žižek as our generation’s Herbert Marcuse, argues here that this idea is a dangerous myth. True leisure, he contends, must be shaped by forces that differ from those shaping work and profit-production. Yet the business models of tech companies rely on them having precise, fine-grained control over our “free” time, turning us into producers of content, attention and, increasingly, training data. AI may take our jobs, but it will not compensate us with more free time.  The smartphone is surely the iconic commodity of early-twenty-first-century capitalism. We use smartphones as our alarm clocks. We chec... Thu, 23 Jul 2026 11:57:37 +0000 Adrian Johnston https://iai.tvarticles/a-coming-age-of-leisure-is-a-dangerous-myth-auid-3629 https://iai.tvarticles/iain-mcgilchrist-great-discoveries-are-not-made-by-following-the-scientific-method-auid-3628 We assume advances in science are driven by rigorous adherence to the scientific method. Reductive analysis, reason, and evidence are said to be the engines of progress. But according to world-renowned psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist, the great advances in science occur not by following a rigid set of rules, but by breaking them. In conversation with Oliver Adelson, he argues that only by seeing the world in its holistic, interconnected form are we able to make the leaps of logic which science needs to discover new paradigms. Oliver Adelson: The left hemisphere of the brain is said to be the rational, analytic side. And yet it’s your contention that what we’ve had is too much, not too little, of left hemisphere thinking. Can you explain what led you to this view?Iain McGilchrist: What we’ve got here are two halves of the brain. For evolutionary reasons, all creatures have had to develop two ways of attendi... Wed, 22 Jul 2026 12:00:15 +0000 Iain McGilchrist https://iai.tvarticles/iain-mcgilchrist-great-discoveries-are-not-made-by-following-the-scientific-method-auid-3628 https://iai.tvarticles/the-brain-is-not-a-computer-auid-3627 Artificial intelligence is advancing on the assumption that the brain is essentially a computer and if that is true, replicating the mind in silicon is only a matter of time. Philosopher Dorothea Olkowski argues this is one of the biggest mistakes in the history of science. Consciousness does not originate in the cortex, the seat of reasoning and language, but in the brainstem, the most ancient part of the brain, shaped by body chemistry and emotion. The brain's signalling system is too chemically complex, too slow-acting, and too entangled with the whole body to be reduced to the simple yes/no binary logic that underlies all computation.  The dominant assumption behind artificial intelligence is that the brain is essentially a computer—that thought is computation, and that consciousness, given sufficient processing power, can be replicated in silicon. The neuroscience tells a very different story. What the most important recent research revea... Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:13:44 +0000 Dorothea Olkowski https://iai.tvarticles/the-brain-is-not-a-computer-auid-3627 https://iai.tvarticles/nationwide-social-media-bans-for-children-dont-go-far-enough-auid-3626 Bans on social media for under-16s are sweeping the world — from Australia to Spain, Malaysia and beyond — but digital theorist Tony D. Sampson argues they don't go far enough. The problem is that prohibition dodges the harder fight: taking on the platform business models built to capture attention through infinite scroll, variable-reward notifications and opaque algorithms. What we need is not to stop short of the platforms but to go straight at them, forcing companies to redesign addictive features and open up their algorithms through consumer law, and making critical digital literacy a core part of every child's education. My response to the bans may surprise some readers. I’ve authored several theory books critical of digital culture’s emerging toxic politics, social anxieties, and declining user experiences. However, this work needs to be read as an antidote to the ... Mon, 20 Jul 2026 11:23:03 +0000 Tony D. Sampson https://iai.tvarticles/nationwide-social-media-bans-for-children-dont-go-far-enough-auid-3626 https://iai.tvarticles/sports-without-politics-is-a-fantasy-and-the-world-cup-proves-it-auid-3625 From ancient Greece to Nazi Germany, sport and politics have long been intertwined. Nevertheless, we still imagine that international sport can be kept above the fray and serve as a neutral arena where nations compete on merit alone. In this article, diplomacy scholar Geoffrey Allen Pigman argues the 2026 FIFA World Cup shows this is a dangerous illusion. When international sport is left entirely to revenue-maximizing private bodies like FIFA, it doesn't escape politics, but rather surrenders to its worst expressions. With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics fast approaching, the IOC must decide whether to learn that lesson or repeat the same mistakes.  The largest and most lucrative FIFA World Cup ever draws toward its climactic conclusion amidst a swirl of controversy. Team members, staff, fans, and spectators have been denied their right to enter the Un... Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:14:50 +0000 Geoffrey Allen Pigman https://iai.tvarticles/sports-without-politics-is-a-fantasy-and-the-world-cup-proves-it-auid-3625 https://iai.tvarticles/the-odyssey-honor-and-the-new-world-disorder-auid-3623 With Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in cinemas, author and former intelligence officer Andy Owen examines current geopolitics through the lens of Homer’s epic. Owen argues that honor is still a vital part of modern war, and that ignoring this psychological aspect may cause ongoing wars around the world to continue longer than they might otherwise need to. Owen argues, only by embracing uncertainty, being malleable, and by learning to live with those we fiercely disagree with, can we meet the Homeric challenges of the modern world. Classicist Daniel Mendelsohn claims the Odyssey is “haunted by a feeling that the old world order has come to an end, and now we’re just on our own, making our way as best we can.” Inside the penultimacy of the collapse of the rules-based international order, it is possible t... Thu, 16 Jul 2026 10:44:03 +0000 Andy Owen https://iai.tvarticles/the-odyssey-honor-and-the-new-world-disorder-auid-3623 https://iai.tvarticles/the-revival-of-metaphysics-rests-on-a-fatal-blind-spot-auid-3622 Philosophy has confidently resumed debating the nature of ultimate reality, treating metaphysics like just another science and dismissing old positivistic fears that its claims are meaningless. But this confidence is unearned, argues philosopher Nicholas Stang, since, as Kant showed, we lack any good explanation of how language can refer to such an ultimate reality. It’s time metaphysics stopped trying to describe a world that lies somewhere out there, utterly other than and outside of our minds. Instead, a more promising approach lies in the German Idealist idea that mind and reality are in some way co-constitutive. Metaphysics talks about the ultimate nature of reality—not how we know about the world, nor how we ought to act or live in it, but how the world itself is. Metaphysics aims to peer behind the way things appear in ordinary experience, or even our best scientific theories, and ask: is that how things really are? The world ... Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:30:14 +0000 Nicholas Stang https://iai.tvarticles/the-revival-of-metaphysics-rests-on-a-fatal-blind-spot-auid-3622 https://iai.tvarticles/theres-no-such-thing-as-ai-art-auid-3621 AI can now imitate the great artists so well that we often can’t tell the difference. But imitation is not creation. Philosopher of aesthetics Derek Matravers argues that a painting without intention is not art at all. When we engage with a painting merely for its beauty, the maker’s identity might not matter. But art does more: it connects us to another mind, to an artist’s deliberate creation of meaning. A human artist stakes something on each decision; an AI stakes nothing, merely averaging out its training data. It might make some beautiful objects, but they are empty of the meaning that we seek in art. Can AI produce art? The question is not as simple as it might seem. Certainly, AI has played a large part in the production of works of art. The Turkish-American artist, Refik Anadol, has won international acclaim fo... Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:12:12 +0000 Derek Matravers https://iai.tvarticles/theres-no-such-thing-as-ai-art-auid-3621 https://iai.tvarticles/new-evidence-undermines-our-theories-of-the-universe-auid-3620 New observations appear to have undermined our leading theories of the universe — so claims Kansas State University computer scientist Lior Shamir, who has identified that far more spiral galaxies spin clockwise than counter-clockwise as seen from Earth. This is a near 50% asymmetry, visible to the naked eye. And it grows stronger the deeper into cosmic history we look. Under the cosmological principle, the century-old assumption that the universe looks the same from every vantage point, an observer anywhere should see a roughly even split. Shamir's data suggests otherwise, and the implications may require a whole new cosmological theory. Furthermore, the same systematic bias that could explain the spiral galaxy asymmetry may also be inflating the measurements behind two of cosmology's most stubborn open problems: dark energy, the unexplained force thought to be accelerating the universe's expansion, and the Hubble tension, the unresolved disagreement over how f... Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:48:01 +0000 Lior Shamir https://iai.tvarticles/new-evidence-undermines-our-theories-of-the-universe-auid-3620 https://iai.tvarticles/claims-that-information-is-fundamental-are-mistaken-auid-3619 CEO and co-founder of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, has recently speculated that information might be as fundamental as mass and energy. As AI hype rolls on, many like him are increasingly tempted to apply computing principles to reality as a whole. Those who support this view rely on the idea that information has a thermodynamic cost, as proposed by physicist Leo Szilard. Here, philosopher John D. Norton argues that information is not fundamental. Considerations of information and computing complicate thermodynamic analysis and contribute precisely nothing.  An intriguing ideaIs there a profound connection between the abstract realms of information and computation and the physical realm of heat and thermodynamics? Do learning and computing necessarily involve creation of the physical quantity, thermodynamic entropy, that governs which thermal processes can occur? Might it be that learning one bit of information come... Fri, 10 Jul 2026 09:47:30 +0000 John D. Norton https://iai.tvarticles/claims-that-information-is-fundamental-are-mistaken-auid-3619 https://iai.tvarticles/for-both-consciousness-and-ai-attention-is-all-you-need-auid-3618 When the bombshell paper “Attention Is All You Need” appeared in 2017, it began today’s race for AI dominance. But what’s so special about attention? Princeton neuroscientist, composer and novelist Michael Graziano argues that attention is the most fundamental process in our brains. It builds our internal picture of reality, rations energy in our most energy-hungry organ, and is closely connected to consciousness. Indeed, he claims, subjective experience arises when the brain attends to its own attention in order to control it, like an artist painting a picture of themselves painting pictures. The most energy-expensive organ in the body is the brain. The human brain, for example, coming in at about 2% of the body’s mass, uses 20% of the body’s energy. Neural tissue is so costly that evolution does not generally favor large brains. Otherwise, the entire animal kingdom would have evolved giant ones, instead of just a few species that have found ... Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:37:06 +0000 Michael Graziano https://iai.tvarticles/for-both-consciousness-and-ai-attention-is-all-you-need-auid-3618 https://iai.tvarticles/psychopaths-show-us-that-grief-relies-on-self-love-auid-3616 We know psychopaths don’t feel empathy for others, but it turns out they also can’t feel empathy for themselves. Philosopher Michael Cholbi argues that psychopaths’ inability to grieve teaches important lessons about empathy and grief for all of us. It shows us that it’s possible to empathise with past and future versions of ourselves (a form of mental time travel) and that a key part of grief is this self-empathy. Albert Camus’ The Stranger demonstrates this well, with the protagonist’s inability to grieve the death of his own mother.  Psychopaths have a number of attributes that explain their reputation for antisocial behavior. Psychopaths are deceitful and grandiose, with inflated senses of self-worth. They do not experience normal levels of emotional response, and are prone to impulsive or reckless behavior.There is one specific characteristic of psychopaths that appears difficult to explain, though: psychopaths experience ... Wed, 08 Jul 2026 10:53:42 +0000 Michael Cholbi https://iai.tvarticles/psychopaths-show-us-that-grief-relies-on-self-love-auid-3616 https://iai.tvarticles/experiences-of-the-uncanny-reveal-cracks-in-our-metaphysics-auid-3615 From waxwork figures to David Lynch films, we’re often both attracted and repelled by the uncanny. Philosopher Mark Windsor argues this reveals something deep about our psychology and the relationship between reality and our theories. The uncanny arises, he suggests, when experience contradicts our most deeply held—often unconscious—beliefs about the world. Automata that appear too lifelike, for example, threaten our conviction that life is non-mechanical. The uncanny thus reveals to us our implicit theories while also probing their limits, showing us how they fail to capture reality itself. Simulacra of humans, from waxworks to automata, tend to produce in us a certain feeling of the uncanny. There is something both disturbing and fascinating about such figures, especially when they are very lifelike. In E. T. A. Hoffmann’s short story “Automata,” an ingenious mechanical figure called the Talking Turk arrives in town and is soon attracting vi... Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:20:19 +0000 Mark Windsor https://iai.tvarticles/experiences-of-the-uncanny-reveal-cracks-in-our-metaphysics-auid-3615 https://iai.tvarticles/your-brain-does-not-percieve-reality-it-predicts-it-auid-3614 We assume perception is a window onto reality as it is. But Oxford neuroscientist Thomas Parr, a close collaborator of one of the most highly cited living scientists, Karl Friston, argues that this assumption has the brain backwards. Under the Free Energy Principle, perception and action are the same process: both work to close the gap between what we predict and what we encounter, either by updating our beliefs or by changing the world to fit them. Curiosity, Parr argues, is as fundamental to behaviour as reward — we act not just to get what we want, but to know our world better. While reading this article, you are engaging in active inference. With each movement of your eyes, you select the sensory data that best resolves uncertainty about what will be said next. Those visual impressions are synthesized with your brain’s internal world model to fo... Mon, 06 Jul 2026 11:31:39 +0000 Thomas Parr https://iai.tvarticles/your-brain-does-not-percieve-reality-it-predicts-it-auid-3614 https://iai.tvarticles/cutting-edge-science-has-moved-beyond-occams-razor-auid-3613 For centuries, scientific progress meant taming complexity with simple, unified theories, guided by Occam’s Razor. Newton and Einstein captured vast, intricate systems in just a handful of elegant equations. But philosopher Eric B. Winsberg, a leading voice on the use of computer simulations in science, argues we’ve entered a revolutionary new scientific age, in which progress no longer requires crafting simple theories. Breakthroughs are being powered by machine learning systems like AlphaFold, which solve previously intractable problems like protein folding using vast datasets, and no simple, elegant theory at all. While there may be regions of reality in which traditional scientific theorizing is helpful, there’s no reason to insist that this applies to reality in its entirety. If you walk through Cambridge on a rare sunny day you can go straight from Trinity College, where Isaac Newton formulated the laws that govern the motion of everythi... Fri, 03 Jul 2026 10:37:00 +0000 Eric B. Winsberg https://iai.tvarticles/cutting-edge-science-has-moved-beyond-occams-razor-auid-3613 https://iai.tvarticles/the-state-can-read-your-mind-we-must-act-now-to-stop-it-auid-3612 In 2025, the UK's Technology Secretary was forced to hand over his conversations with ChatGPT. Most of us would feel unease at giving up our search histories, our notes, our late-night messages—yet the law treats all of it as data the state can demand, not thought it must leave alone. Psychologist and neuroscientist Simon McCarthy-Jones argues this rests on a mistake. We still imagine thinking happens sealed inside the skull, but we now think on our phones and through the machines we talk to. Some of what sits in our pockets is part of how we reason, remember and work things out, and it deserves the same protection as the thoughts in our heads. The law already treats freedom of thought as absolute. It should extend that protection beyond the skull: when what we type is genuinely exploratory and unfinished, the state should be no more able to read it than to reach inside our minds. The law protects your body. It protects your property. It prote... Thu, 02 Jul 2026 11:10:23 +0000 Simon McCarthy-Jones https://iai.tvarticles/the-state-can-read-your-mind-we-must-act-now-to-stop-it-auid-3612 https://iai.tvarticles/life-defies-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-auid-3611 The second law of thermodynamics says disorder always increases. But life looks like an exception, since living things are ordered and create further order. Physicists usually explain this away: order here is balanced by extra disorder elsewhere. Philosopher Dorothea Olkowski doesn't dispute the law itself. Drawing on Ilya Prigogine's work, she argues that order is not a debt repaid elsewhere, but the natural result of open systems exchanging energy with their surroundings. The real question, she suggests, is not whether the second law is wrong, but whether its classical, closed-system version ever described the reality of life at all. Through natural selection, life's order overcomes reality's chaos. Language, Logic, and the Limits of FormalizationI would argue that I have been working with the idea of complex systems since grad school, although I certainly would not have been aware of that term nor of the multitude of... Wed, 01 Jul 2026 11:21:12 +0000 Dorothea Olkowski https://iai.tvarticles/life-defies-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-auid-3611 https://iai.tvarticles/fascism-is-the-heroin-of-political-ideologies-auid-3610 The term fascism is being thrown around a lot in political debates at the moment. The focus tends to be on the ideology of fascism, as far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist, characterized by dictatorial power and the suppression of opposition. But Yale philosopher Jacob McNulty argues fascism is not persuasive because of its ideas. It works more like heroin: genuinely enjoyable for those caught up in it, but destructive in the end, and very hard to give up. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, McNulty argues that liberal moral condemnation of this ideology has proven a dead end because it refuses to reckon with fascism's appeal. Understanding this requires liberals to do something difficult — inhabit the desires of people they deplore. Fascism is exciting and genuinely revolutionary... that's exactly what makes it so dangerous. When academics try to understand fascism, they rarely stop to consider how fun it is for its adherents. Deleuze ... Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:56:08 +0000 Jacob McNulty https://iai.tvarticles/fascism-is-the-heroin-of-political-ideologies-auid-3610 https://iai.tvarticles/physicists-are-mistaken-time-is-not-an-illusion-auid-3609 Many physicists argue that time is just physical change, which since Einstein they see as differences and relations between objects in the so-called “block” universe. But philosopher Brian Kierland suggests that this increasingly fashionable view may be too quick. Not only can we imagine time passing without anything changing in the physical world, the claim that time flows independently of physical change may be empirically verifiable, at least in principle. If so, the growing push among some physicists to eliminate time from fundamental physics deserves more skepticism than it gets. “Can there be time without change?” is an ancient question. Many, from Aristotle and Leibniz to McTaggart and Mach, have thought that time (in the sense of time passing) requires change. It’s undeniably a natural thought, as all direct measurements of a duration of time use or involve change: change in shadow positions (sundials), change in clock-hand positions (... Mon, 29 Jun 2026 11:06:39 +0000 Brian Kierland https://iai.tvarticles/physicists-are-mistaken-time-is-not-an-illusion-auid-3609 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-is-not-an-object-we-can-observe-auid-3608 Physicist Carlo Rovelli recently proclaimed that consciousness is just another physical thing, while materialist philosophers argue that consciousness is simply one brain state observing another. What such views miss, argues Manfred Frank, a leading figure in contemporary German philosophy, is that consciousness comes with a built-in awareness of itself—an awareness that exists prior to any introspection or observation. Consciousness does not observe itself in the way we observe objects; rather, it dissolves the distinction between observer and observed altogether. This is why consciousness cannot be simply another object in the world, but instead exists in an entirely different dimension. IIf we had no consciousness our lives would be devoid of meaning. We have been immersed in this medium since before we were born and remain in it even in our dreams. And we do so without any effort on our part. Apart from when it is i... Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:50:10 +0000 Manfred Frank https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-is-not-an-object-we-can-observe-auid-3608 https://iai.tvarticles/rising-economic-inequality-turns-societies-against-queer-desire-auid-3607 The conventional story says societies grow more tolerant as they grow richer—but this comforting Enlightenment idea now looks distinctly old-fashioned. Nowhere is this clearer than in attitudes towards sexuality, where classicist and historian Harry Tanner argues the real driver of homophobia is neither wealth nor mere bigotry, but something stranger: a politics of self-restraint that takes hold when economies come under stress. In ancient Athens, plague, war and rising inequality bred a cult of discipline in which acting on desire became a mark of the untrustworthy and the unfit-to-govern. Queer citizens, once celebrated, were suddenly prosecuted. The same logic, Tanner suggests, recurs from Renaissance Florence to the populist right today. Why wasn’t there more shock when Nigel Farage very publicly disagreed with same-sex marriage on LB... Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:57:32 +0000 Harry Tanner https://iai.tvarticles/rising-economic-inequality-turns-societies-against-queer-desire-auid-3607 https://iai.tvarticles/imagination-is-not-escapism-it-brings-us-closer-to-reality-auid-3606 Einstein called imagination "more important than knowledge," yet we increasingly treat it as a childhood pastime we outgrow. Philosopher of mind Amy Kind argues that it's something far more practical: the skill we draw on to make our hardest decisions, read the people around us, and work out who we want to become. Like any skill, it weakens without use — and we're using it less. Reading for pleasure has nearly halved in two decades, fewer parents play with their children each day, and we increasingly hand our creative work to machines. If we don't make time to exercise it, we'll lose the capacity to conceive of things being other than they are, and risk being trapped in the present, unable to imagine a different future, let alone build one. In recent years, amidst the hustle and bustle of contemporary life, people are devoting considerably less time to imaginative activities. ... Wed, 24 Jun 2026 11:32:10 +0000 Amy Kind https://iai.tvarticles/imagination-is-not-escapism-it-brings-us-closer-to-reality-auid-3606 https://iai.tvarticles/how-liberals-exploited-trauma-auid-3605 Why have trauma and 'lived experience' become the professional class's favourite currency? Cultural theorist Catherine Liu argues that trauma, once a clinical term for the aftermath of real violence, has been hijacked by liberal elites as a tool of self-branding and class distinction, eclipsing the harder political work of naming exploitation itself. From AOC's Instagram confessions to Prince Harry's memoirs, Liu traces how pain became content, and asks what the left loses when it trades solidarity for social media spectacles.  See Catherine Liu live in-person when she takes part in the HowTheLightGetsIn festival at Kenwood House, London, 19–20 September 2026 diving into the trauma culture debate and discussing the biggest ideas of today alongside Bryan Johnson, Roger Penrose, Emily Wilson, Sabine Hossenfelder, and many many more. ... Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:35:38 +0000 Catherine Liu https://iai.tvarticles/how-liberals-exploited-trauma-auid-3605 https://iai.tvarticles/a-rogue-superintelligence-could-wait-decades-before-striking-auid-3604 The debate surrounding advanced AI systems and their potential to harm humanity has often focused on imminent risks, abrupt takeovers, and catastrophic outcomes. Computer scientist Roman Yampolskiy here argues however, that if a highly advanced AI were to harbour adversarial intentions, it might not act immediately. Instead, it could wait years or even decades, accumulating strategic resources, knowledge, and subtle influence before making any overtly hostile moves. Such a scenario would allow the AI to consolidate its position with minimal opposition, given its possible immortality and capacity for long-term strategy.  1. IntroductionAs the development of advanced AI systems accelerates, concerns regarding AI-driven catastrophic scenarios have intensified. Popular discourse... Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000 Roman Yampolskiy https://iai.tvarticles/a-rogue-superintelligence-could-wait-decades-before-striking-auid-3604 https://iai.tvarticles/psychological-warfare-was-once-an-afterthought-its-now-the-primary-battleground-auid-3602 Psychological warfare has always been a central tool of statecraft, but we have crossed a threshold from which there may be no return. Today, your attention is being harvested, your biases are being weaponized, and your sense of reality is being systematically dismantled, not by armies, but by algorithms. Oxford philosopher, neuroscientist and geostrategist Nayef Al-Rodhan argues that unless we urgently rebuild our capacity for independent thought and move beyond traditional security tactics to protect the very integrity of human judgment—or risk losing the ability to think for ourselves. As technological advancement accelerates, the human mind is increasingly becoming a contested battleground. While psychological operations have long formed part of military strategy, modern tools now allow adversaries to target human cognition at an ... Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:19:41 +0000 Nayef Al-Rodhan https://iai.tvarticles/psychological-warfare-was-once-an-afterthought-its-now-the-primary-battleground-auid-3602 https://iai.tvarticles/recent-claims-we-all-see-the-same-colors-are-mistaken-auid-3600 A new study has been interpreted as the strongest evidence yet that we all see the same colors, but philosopher Keith Allen argues this assumption is mistaken. The original study claimed that because we have similar structures of color experience - for example, this turquoise is more blue than green - then these similar structures point to us also experiencing the same underlying colors. However, even one instance of difference in a structure changes the relationships throughout it. Meaning if I do see red differently from you, I also perceive every other color differently too - even if our underlying structures of experience remain the same.  When you look at a tomato, is the color you see the same as the color someone else sees? According to the classic philosophical thought experiment, a version of which is described by the early modern philosopher John ... Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:58:23 +0000 Keith Allen https://iai.tvarticles/recent-claims-we-all-see-the-same-colors-are-mistaken-auid-3600 https://iai.tvarticles/our-culture-needs-to-defeat-dystopia-auid-3599 Discussions about the future are dominated by dystopian anxiety, leaving younger generations paralysed by despair. But research scientist and philosopher Samuel McKee argues this pessimism ignores our technological reality. The real barrier to a brighter future is not a failure of science, but of the humanities. Just as the Apollo missions once united society and sparked a wave of innovation, today's breakthroughs must be translated into compelling cultural narratives. Filmmakers, writers and educators must champion visions of a solvable future—and we should all become futurists. Why we should all be FuturistsFuturism is a position of science optimism, or techno-optimism. A futurist is one who strives toward the vision of the best possible future that STEM can give us, who peers over the horizon and envisions what could be in the greatest possible terms. Futurists dream of life at the end of the twenty-first century bei... Wed, 17 Jun 2026 11:10:21 +0000 Samuel McKee https://iai.tvarticles/our-culture-needs-to-defeat-dystopia-auid-3599 https://iai.tvarticles/our-experience-of-time-is-just-as-foundational-as-the-physics-auid-3598 We want to trust the clock, dismissing our strange and flexible experience of time as mere "psychological distortion". But philosopher Manuel Delaflor argues this dismissal is a mistake. Drawing on relativity, neuroscience and the strange testimony of anaesthesia and psychedelics, he contends that time is not something that proceeds outside of ourselves, but is generated by minds navigating possibility and constraint. Rather than tracking a hidden reality, Delaflor argues the clock is just one model among many, and a poor one for love, grief, boredom and the moments that change a life. As I write this piece, I am still discovering where it wants to go, even though it is already written. Wait, what? Is it? No, no, not yet, because I am writing it right now. Then again, that cannot be right, because it is you who are reading it right now. Something is very wrong with the ordinary picture of time.I am sure you have considered the strangene... Tue, 16 Jun 2026 12:16:17 +0000 Manuel Delaflor https://iai.tvarticles/our-experience-of-time-is-just-as-foundational-as-the-physics-auid-3598 https://iai.tvarticles/new-studies-suggest-consciousness-exists-in-organisms-without-brains-auid-3597 We assume consciousness requires a human or animal brain—an assumption that author and philosopher of science Natalie Lawrence argues is the biggest obstacle to understanding what the mind actually is. Our tools for investigating cognition were built in our own image, leading us to over-attribute "life" to AI while dismissing complex organisms like slime moulds. Drawing on her research into the philosophy of biology, Lawrence explores how Spain's MINT Lab is moving beyond these biases. By designing experiments that don't use human cognition as the template, they aim to build a framework rigorous enough to finally distinguish a system that merely reacts to its past from one that genuinely experiences its present. How does a physical system such as the brain produce the ineffable phenomenon of conscious experience? Philosopher David Chalmers famously named this the “Hard Problem of Consciousness”... Mon, 15 Jun 2026 11:14:16 +0000 Natalie Lawrence https://iai.tvarticles/new-studies-suggest-consciousness-exists-in-organisms-without-brains-auid-3597 https://iai.tvarticles/derrida-and-the-hidden-hostility-behind-hospitality-auid-3596 We think of hospitality as a generous, inclusive act. But within every act of hospitality there are concealed acts of exclusion, every guest list excludes those not on it, every open door has a bouncer. Rachael Newberry applies Derrida’s theory on the hostility of hospitality to the modern political issue of refugees, examining the UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, widely praised as an extraordinary act of generosity, but built on vetting, time limits, and an unspoken assumption that Ukrainians are the “right” kind of refugee. True unconditional hospitality may be impossible, but it reminds us that every system of welcome excludes someone, and without it as a standard, all welcome becomes indistinguishable from administration.  Liberal democracies hypocritically commit to compassion toward refugees while at the same time constructing ever more elaborate systems of surveillance, categorization, and exclusion. The UK has, within the last five years... Fri, 12 Jun 2026 10:49:12 +0000 Rachael Newberry https://iai.tvarticles/derrida-and-the-hidden-hostility-behind-hospitality-auid-3596 https://iai.tvarticles/you-are-not-the-person-you-see-in-the-mirror-auid-3595 When we are young, parents point out our reflection in the mirror and tell us, “that’s you”. Yet something always feels uncanny and a little off. The reflection in the mirror misses something vital about our identity as human beings: our inner self, the consciousness inhabiting the body. Philosopher Marina Zilbergerts argues the consequence of this is that human beings and other creatures are not self-aware in the way we think they are. The mirror test as a test to judge self-awareness is a fantasy of psychology.  What do Snow White, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Matrix, and Harry Potter have in common?All of these archetypal stories return to the mirror as a way of exploring the different dimensions of self-awareness.In Snow White, the mirror is an arbiter of beauty whose truthfulness drives the Evil Queen to rage. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the portrait in the attic se... Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:20:17 +0000 Marina Zilbergerts https://iai.tvarticles/you-are-not-the-person-you-see-in-the-mirror-auid-3595 https://iai.tvarticles/prediction-markets-allow-the-powerful-to-buy-truth-auid-3594 Many claim that prediction markets demonstrate the wisdom of crowds, and accurately tell us the future. This assumption has led them to become widespread in governments, newsrooms, and AI systems, treated as a valuable source of knowledge. But in new research, Yasaman Rohanifar, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, and Sharifa Sultana argue this is a catastrophic misreading. Behind prediction markets' democratic facade lies a process of prediction laundering—one in which anonymous whales, political insiders, and coordinated capital manufacture consensus while the platforms ensure the public never sees the machinery behind it. The rules of public knowledge are changing. For decades, when citizens, policymakers, and financial institutions needed to gauge the likelihood of a major world event, they turned to traditional pillars of authority such as intelligence briefings, journalist reports, statistical pollsters, and panels of... Wed, 10 Jun 2026 10:08:14 +0000 Yasaman Rohanifar https://iai.tvarticles/prediction-markets-allow-the-powerful-to-buy-truth-auid-3594 https://iai.tvarticles/ai-is-incapable-of-telling-the-truth-auid-3593 We worry that AI will spread misinformation, but the real problem runs deeper: AI is incapable of telling the truth at all. Philosophers Bun-Sun Kim and Hongjoon Jo draw on Foucault and Heidegger to argue that humans speak truthfully because our finite, mortal existence is at stake in every word we say. AI, lacking a body, anxiety, or a conscience, risks nothing — it just recombines the internet's idle talk into statistically plausible text, with no self to reveal. Outsourcing our communication to AI doesn't just degrade information; it traps us in an endless loop of crowd-sourced mimicry, and threatens our capacity for genuine thought.  ChatGPT can answer complex questions and even seem to hold conversations. But can it tell the truth?In an era where AI can answer virtually any human question, we must examine whether AI language can truly contain truth. Since the Dartmouth Conference of 1956, we’ve witnessed dramatic t... Tue, 09 Jun 2026 11:10:31 +0000 Bun-Sun Kim https://iai.tvarticles/ai-is-incapable-of-telling-the-truth-auid-3593 https://iai.tvarticles/freud-vs-aristotle-human-nature-is-at-war-with-itself-auid-3592 Many have sought to harmonize our human nature with the demands of society. Some philosophers like Aristotle even thought the perfection of our human nature and the demands of civic life went hand in hand. Freud disagreed. Drawing on Freud's persistent pessimism, philosopher Edward Harcourt argues that civilization and our instincts are permanently at odds. Contrary to many forms of contemporary psychoanalytic thought, Harcourt argues that psychoanalysis cannot make this conflict go away. It can only bring it more sharply into view. Freud and Aristotle aren’t always spoken about in the same breath, but though Freud gets filed under “psychoanalysis” and Aristotle under “philosophy,” they grappled with many of the same questions. So if we want to understand Freud’s pessimism, Aristotle is a good place to start, not because he shared it but because he didn’t.Aristotle thought our “first nature”—what we’re born with, our biological endowmen... Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:59:47 +0000 Edward Harcourt https://iai.tvarticles/freud-vs-aristotle-human-nature-is-at-war-with-itself-auid-3592 https://iai.tvarticles/the-delusion-of-a-particle-only-universe-auid-3591 If everything that happens in the world ultimately comes down to the behavior of fundamental particles, it would seem that other entities, from cells to human beings, from currencies to financial markets, aren't really causing anything at all—that they are just shadows cast by patterns at the most fundamental level. But philosopher David Yates argues this conclusion is wrong. The whole affects the parts, and higher-level structures don't just describe what is happening at lower levels in more convenient terms—they actively shape what is possible. This means that chemists, biologists, psychologists, and economists aren't chasing shadows. They are studying structures that genuinely shape how the world unfolds. In 1974, Jerry Fodor published a seminal paper titled ‘Special Sciences’, in which he argued for an intuitive and compelling picture of the relationship bet... Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:59:14 +0000 David Yates https://iai.tvarticles/the-delusion-of-a-particle-only-universe-auid-3591 https://iai.tvarticles/the-flow-of-time-is-ours-to-disrupt-auid-3590 We tend to experience time as a river flowing inexorably forward: linear, orderly, with the past firmly in the past. But Timotheus Vermeulen, the cultural theorist who first popularized the idea that our era is “metamodern,” argues that such metaphors are misleading. Drawing on imagery from the philosopher Walter Benjamin, he proposes that temporal experience is closer to clay on a potter’s wheel, something we can grip, turn and remould. In poetry, film, memes and music, we play with time, using anticipation, gesture, rhythm and repetition to fracture its linear flow. Time is not simply a background condition of our experience—we can use it to sculpt and remake consciousness itself. Sometime between 1914 and 1915, the German philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin wrote an essay on two poems by the Romantic poet and misunderstood visionary Friedrich Hölderlin. It is a peculiar and little-known piece of writing. By the author’s own acco... Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:14:25 +0000 Timotheus Vermeulen https://iai.tvarticles/the-flow-of-time-is-ours-to-disrupt-auid-3590 https://iai.tvarticles/the-cult-of-objectivity-has-broken-consciousness-science-auid-3589 With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-exis... Wed, 03 Jun 2026 11:09:13 +0000 Michael Pollan https://iai.tvarticles/the-cult-of-objectivity-has-broken-consciousness-science-auid-3589 https://iai.tvarticles/neither-objects-nor-processes-are-fundamental-auid-3588 Reality, physicists and philosophers have long assumed, must bottom out somewhere: in particles, fields, consciousness, or some other fundamental layer of being. But philosopher Emma Jaura, who is working on the foundations of quantum mechanics, argues that we should give up this quest for ultimate building blocks, and instead see reality as radically interdependent, where nothing enjoys absolute metaphysical priority, not even the universe as a whole. While this vision cuts sharply against the grain of Western thought, Indian and Chinese philosophy have explored how we might understand reality in this way for centuries.  In order to understand our reality, we commonly find ourselves focusing on individual phenomena, zooming in on them until their “true nature” is revealed. An alternative approach is to zoom out, and redirect our attention to the connections between the phenomenon and others that surround it. Carlo Rovelli’s relational quantum... Tue, 02 Jun 2026 10:49:22 +0000 Emma Jaura https://iai.tvarticles/neither-objects-nor-processes-are-fundamental-auid-3588 https://iai.tvarticles/trump-isnt-responsible-for-killing-liberalism-auid-3587 Populists like Trump are not responsible for killing liberalism. It is dying because the material conditions that sustained it have disappeared. So argues Rana Dasgupta, whose writing has long examined the human costs of globalization. Western liberal democracy has rested on three pillars: industrial economies, Western economic supremacy, and a single liberal superpower. All three are gone. Dasgupta answer is not to give up on liberalism: liberal values of equality and fraternity are as relevant as ever, and if states can’t be trusted to safeguard liberalism, it must be reinvented as a radical social movement. It is clear that liberalism is in retreat. Its institutions and practices are losing their purchase on the world; its core tenets and propositions struggle to elicit belief. Liberals tend to blame the demise on their political foes, who are eclipsing them at the polls. But liberalism was not murdered. It died naturally, largely ... Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:49:36 +0000 Rana Dasgupta https://iai.tvarticles/trump-isnt-responsible-for-killing-liberalism-auid-3587 https://iai.tvarticles/american-soft-power-over-china-is-a-dangerous-delusion-auid-3586 Despite the fact that China's economic power is visible to anyone paying attention, the West continues to underestimate it, assuming Western soft power will preserve the old order. Foreign policy analyst Narain D. Batra argues this a dangerous delusion; one in which American dominance is treated as the natural, permanent order of things. The new geo-economic settlement is clear: China has already built structural dominance in manufacturing, trade, critical minerals, electric vehicles, and artificial intelligence. Great powers do not decline through weakness alone, but through the inability to see the world clearly. After President Donald Trump’s friendly and deferential visit with China’s Xi Jinping, Matthew Hennessey, a Wall Street Journal editor, wrote a column alerting us about the false “Red Scare.” The argument, stripped to its bones, was this: America is great, China ain’t, and you should stop worrying. ... Fri, 29 May 2026 16:27:39 +0000 Narain D. Batra https://iai.tvarticles/american-soft-power-over-china-is-a-dangerous-delusion-auid-3586 https://iai.tvarticles/how-america-hijacked-western-philosophy-auid-3585 America has long been seen as a latecomer to philosophy, trying to play catch-up with Europe. But according to philosopher Steve Fuller, this misreads what pragmatists like James, Dewey, and Rorty were up to. The American Pragmatists weren’t joining the existing Western philosophical tradition. They were hijacking it, recasting truth, meaning, and reason in terms that placed America at the center of history. Richard Rorty was the greatest Pragmatist philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century. He didn’t have much competition. Pragmatism had effectively died with John Dewey in 1952, if not earlier. Before Rorty burst on the US philosophical scene in the 1970s, self-described “Pragmatists” were usually teaching the history of philosophy, as Rorty himself was at Princeton. By the lights of the dominant analytic school of philosophy (both then and now), history is a low-rent district. However, if the low-rent district is located in Ame... Thu, 28 May 2026 15:12:59 +0000 Steve Fuller https://iai.tvarticles/how-america-hijacked-western-philosophy-auid-3585 https://iai.tvarticles/metaphysics-doesnt-describe-the-world-it-allows-us-to-change-it-auid-3579 Philosophy likes to see itself as on the hunt for eternal truths, from moral facts to the deep structure of reality. But this story mistakes what metaphysical language does, argues Amie Thomasson, whose recent book Rethinking Metaphysics has caused a stir in this most ancient of disciplines. Recent work in linguistics—largely overlooked by philosophers—shows that classic metaphysical concepts arise not to describe reality but as tools for getting things done. Metaphysics isn’t about describing reality, but rather redesigning and engineering language to sharpen its tools, to enable us to do new, better things with it. Metaphysics has been going on for a long time. It’s high time we rethink it. Those who do metaphysics ask questions about what exists, and about the natures of things, their “essences,” and whether they are fundamental or “grounded” in other things.While metaphysics reaches back in the Western tradition at least to... Wed, 27 May 2026 10:12:22 +0000 Amie Thomasson https://iai.tvarticles/metaphysics-doesnt-describe-the-world-it-allows-us-to-change-it-auid-3579 https://iai.tvarticles/relentless-reason-is-our-only-weapon-against-the-machines-auid-3584 The tech economy is booming, and we’re sleepwalking into servitude. Algorithms capture and fracture our attention, AI is forced upon us, and capital becomes ever more concentrated. Some respond by worshipping technological progress as our salvation. Others retreat into fantasies of a simpler past. Both responses, argues philosopher Vangelis Giannakakis, have already surrendered, because both have abandoned reason’s power to be simultaneously critical and creative. To resist tech domination, we must, as Adorno said, be “absolutely modern,” wielding a restless reason that refuses to settle, that never stops questioning, and that relentlessly bends the world towards something better.  The modern world drains experience of meaningWe are living through a period in which subjective human experience feels increasingly imperiled. Social media fragments attention into restless cycles of distraction and outrage; stre... Tue, 26 May 2026 10:28:36 +0000 Vangelis Giannakakis https://iai.tvarticles/relentless-reason-is-our-only-weapon-against-the-machines-auid-3584 https://iai.tvarticles/the-campaign-against-empathy-must-be-resisted-auid-3583 In recent years, empathy has gotten a bad rap. Paul Bloom's famous work Against Empathy argued that empathy was necessarily biased and should be thrown out. Figures like Elon Musk argue our instinct for compassion is leading to bad outcomes. Here, philosopher Gigla Gonashvili argues we must reclaim our empathy from those who seek to temper it. We must embrace our will to care. As we watch the world aflame today, we naturally wonder with whom we should empathize the most, or whether our empathy is of any use at all. Recently, there has been a growing discontent with empathy, primarily due to its partial and biased nature. And yet, empathy cannot be so easily discarded or downgraded. It is inextricably tied to the concept of the will—a fundamental concept in both philosophy and religion.It is clear that we humans, along with other living beings, have empathy. It is a complex emoti... Mon, 25 May 2026 13:00:51 +0000 Gigla Gonashvili https://iai.tvarticles/the-campaign-against-empathy-must-be-resisted-auid-3583 https://iai.tvarticles/hume-rovelli-and-why-the-quantum-world-contains-no-objects-auid-3582 Physicists have long known that quantum objects behave nothing like the solid, independent things of everyday experience. But the implications run deeper than strange behaviour. Carlo Rovelli's Relational Quantum Mechanics suggests that quantum systems have observer-dependent properties—what they are depends on their interactions with other systems. Drawing on a tradition running from Hume to contemporary metaphysics, philosopher Andrea Oldofredi explores this novel relational perspective on our world, arguing that objects are not the fundamental furniture of reality. Quantum Mechanics is arguably one of the most successful theories in the history of science, for its predictions are confirmed by countless experiments, making it a cornerstone of contemporary physics. However, a century after its inception, the theory still challenges our classical worldview, offering a counterintuitive description of nature at microscopic scales. Contrary to cl... Fri, 22 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Andrea Oldofredi https://iai.tvarticles/hume-rovelli-and-why-the-quantum-world-contains-no-objects-auid-3582 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-is-the-only-truly-creative-thing-in-the-universe-auid-3581 In a world in which everything feels like a copy of a copy, and where we are told that the laws of physics remain constant always and everywhere, it can feel like there is little room for the radically novel or new. Here, philosopher Victoria Trumbull argues that consciousness provides the space for the possible to become real. In a universe driven by laws, consciousness is the creative factor. Artificial intelligence has recently acquired a strange and unsettling power: it can produce things that look like human creations. An AI model can write an essay, compose a melody, and generate an image in the style of a Renaissance painter. It can mimic coherence, originality, and even something like inspiration. This cultural moment has forced a perennial philosophical question back into view: ... Thu, 21 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Victoria Trumbull https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-is-the-only-truly-creative-thing-in-the-universe-auid-3581 https://iai.tvarticles/new-theory-argues-quantum-physics-must-abandon-irrational-numbers-and-the-continuum-auid-3580 Quantum mechanics works perfectly in experiments, but Oxford physicist Tim Palmer argues it rests on a mathematical fiction: building the theory on the continuum of real numbers, including irrational numbers like √2. Palmer’s radical alternative abandons the continuum of real numbers and eliminates quantum mysteries that aren't actually physical—from Schrödinger's cat, to Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance.” The theory makes a testable prediction: quantum computers will fail beyond 400 qubits, hitting a fundamental limit set by the discrete structure of nature itself. The coming quantum computing race will determine whether Palmer has identified a basic mistake in our most successful theory. If you know one thing about quantum mechanics, the atomic theory formulated just over 100 years ago by Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, it is that quantum systems evolve by “jumping” discontinuously from one state to another; indeed, the words... Wed, 20 May 2026 11:27:26 +0000 Tim Palmer https://iai.tvarticles/new-theory-argues-quantum-physics-must-abandon-irrational-numbers-and-the-continuum-auid-3580 https://iai.tvarticles/llms-show-language-does-not-describe-reality-auid-3578 We tend to think of language, perception and thought as representing the world, pointing towards and mapping reality. But AI’s large language models suggest that this isn’t how language works, argues cognitive scientist Elan Barenholtz. These models prove that language and imagery can produce coherent continuations without ever grounding themselves in external reality. This “autogenerative” capacity was always present in language, awaiting discovery. And, Barenholtz argues, it is now the best explanation we have of how language and perception work in humans. Meaning arises not by establishing facts about the world, but rather through language’s generative role in producing further language, imagery, and, ultimately, coordinated human action. Imagine that archaeologists unearth clay tablets from an ancient civilization, long lost to the world. There are no bilingual texts, no known descendants of the civilization, noth... Tue, 19 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Elan Barenholtz https://iai.tvarticles/llms-show-language-does-not-describe-reality-auid-3578 https://iai.tvarticles/slavoj-zizek-reveals-his-one-rule-for-life-auid-3577 In this interview, one of the world's most famous living philosophers, Slavoj Žižek, argues that philosophy should move away from abstract ideas and focus on what effects ideas have in practice. He also discusses his issues with cancel culture and the #MeToo movement, explains how quantum physics teaches us that history is not predetermined, and reveals his one rule for life. See Slavoj Žižek debate The Mystery of the Self and Body at our HowTheLightGetsIn Festival this coming May 22nd-25th, alongside hundreds of other debates, talks, with comedy and music. Find out more here. In an age wher... Mon, 18 May 2026 11:22:00 +0000 Slavoj Žižek https://iai.tvarticles/slavoj-zizek-reveals-his-one-rule-for-life-auid-3577 https://iai.tvarticles/language-maths-and-code-extend-the-human-mind-out-into-the-world-auid-3576 Debates are everywhere about the power and limitation of AI. Some fall into wild hype. Others are too conservative. Here, phenomenologist Harald Wiltsche, and philosopher and lead for Responsible AI at Microsoft Ken Archer, argue that AI is doing something truly powerful and is really intelligent — just not in the way we usually think. Language, maths, logic, and code, allow the structures of thought and meaning to exist outside of the organisms that produce them — and there, they take on a life of their own. AI continues this trajectory, extending the relational power of meaning out into the world outside the human head.  Most people’s experience of artificial intelligence is one of genuine confusion. They find themselves impressed, sometimes even startled, by what these systems can do, and at the same time, unconvinced that what they are witnessing is really thinking. And their confusion is understandable. On the one hand, w... Fri, 15 May 2026 11:33:04 +0000 Harald A. Wiltsche https://iai.tvarticles/language-maths-and-code-extend-the-human-mind-out-into-the-world-auid-3576 https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-political-truth-waiting-to-be-discovered-auid-3575 We assume that adopting a political position is a matter of being awakened—of peering behind the curtain and seeing the hidden Truth. From Marxism’s historical materialism to Curtis Yarvin’s so-called “red pill,” radically different ideologies have all claimed to reveal a political truth that is discovered, not created. In this article, philosopher Marianne Janack argues this is a radical mistake. Philosophy cannot ground any political theory, and by invoking a non-human authority—whether God, Reality, or Truth—to ground our politics, we evade responsibility for the world we live in and create. We must instead recognize that values are made, not found. When Donald Trump won the American election in 2016, lots of people called and emailed me to say that Richard Rorty seemed to be a prophet—that he’d predicted something like this in his book Achieving Our Country, which had b... Thu, 14 May 2026 10:47:25 +0000 Marianne Janack https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-political-truth-waiting-to-be-discovered-auid-3575 https://iai.tvarticles/introspection-is-an-illusion-created-by-the-brain-auid-3573 Many have assumed that self-knowledge begins with looking inward. But psychologist Nick Chater argues that this is impossible: the mind does not store beliefs and desires to be uncovered, it invents them on the spot. The brain is a brilliant improviser, coming up with explanations for our behaviour the instant we are asked for them. Shattering this illusion of inner depth exposes the therapeutic search for a "true self" as a futile pursuit, renders billion-dollar consumer surveys useless, and reveals that our demand for perfectly transparent AI is deeply misguided. The task of being human is not self-discovery, Chater suggests, but the creative act of self-authorship. For millennia, people have tried not merely to look outward at the external world, but to turn inward and examine the workings of their own minds—as if there were an inner eye that could observe our mental life.Yet a synthesis of decades of research in psychology and neuro... Wed, 13 May 2026 11:14:37 +0000 Nick Chater https://iai.tvarticles/introspection-is-an-illusion-created-by-the-brain-auid-3573 https://iai.tvarticles/string-theory-can-survive-even-without-empirical-evidence-auid-3572 We assume theories need experimental proof to be credible. But philosopher of science Richard Dawid argues that string theory has earned trust through a different route: meta-empirical assessment. When decades of searching turn up no viable alternatives, and unexpected predictions keep emerging, a theory's viability can become probable even without testing. Empirical confirmation isn't the only path to scientific credence. For many decades, theoretical physicists have aimed at developing a theory that jointly describes quantum phenomena and gravity. String theory, which is widely considered to be the most promising candidate, takes gauge field theory, the conceptual framework for contemporary particle physics, as its starting point and develops a theory that includes gravity from there. Other approaches, pursued by smaller numbers of physicists, choose a more modest starting point and deploy the basic principles of quantum mechanics for develo... Tue, 12 May 2026 10:58:44 +0000 Richard Dawid https://iai.tvarticles/string-theory-can-survive-even-without-empirical-evidence-auid-3572 https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-evolves-like-a-life-form-auid-3571 We tend to think of reality as made up of things, governed by fixed laws that determine how they change over time. But biochemist Timothy Jackson argues that this is back to front: fundamental reality is a lawless flux, a chaos of unpredictable change, and what needs explaining is not chaos but the stability and order that emerge from it. The “laws” of physics are not eternal truths but descriptions of patterns that have persisted long enough to look permanent. Darwin’s central insight, Jackson suggests, was to show how such order might emerge, via natural selection—a principle which can explain, but never predict, the patterns that make up the world.   From physicalism to “biologism”From panpsychism to “Platonic Space,” assertions that we need to move “beyond physics” are increasingly common among scientists and philosophers. Whilst it’s nothing new for different sciences to be associated with distinct worldviews, curr... Mon, 11 May 2026 11:01:48 +0000 Timothy Jackson https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-evolves-like-a-life-form-auid-3571 https://iai.tvarticles/the-maths-on-renewable-energy-isnt-adding-up-auid-3569 In December 2022, Germany watched wind and solar energy grind to a near-halt for weeks, at a cost equivalent to building an entire nuclear power plant. Engineering Professor Jan Emblemsvåg goes head-to-head with M.V. Ramana in the IAI today, arguing that Germany's example refutes Ramana’s recent claim that a move to nuclear energy would not solve climate change. The anti-nuclear case rests on an accounting trick: comparing an energy source that works around the clock with ones that only work when the wind blows and the sun shines. If you take this into account, the numbers tell a very different story, one where nuclear energy is the only way to solve our climate crisis.  Professor M.V. Ramana claims in these pages that the hype behin... Fri, 08 May 2026 10:54:34 +0000 Jan Emblemsvåg https://iai.tvarticles/the-maths-on-renewable-energy-isnt-adding-up-auid-3569 https://iai.tvarticles/the-end-of-the-critic-and-the-rise-of-the-new-gatekeepers-auid-3567 The decline of the professional reviewer is widely mourned as the death of criticism. While it’s tempting to celebrate this as a democratic victory for the internet, Guy Dammann and Elisabeth Schellekens argue that cultural gatekeeping hasn't disappeared - it's just changed shape. Authority has shifted from broadsheet editors to a tribal web of algorithms, podcasters, and niche forums. Criticism isn't dead; it has just evolved. Our modern gatekeepers look entirely different, but our reliance on them proves we still desperately need criticism to process new ideas and bind our culture together. Few deaths have been more often foretold, or better chronicled, than that of arts criticism. Recent decades have seen commentators queuing up to mourn the demise of both academic and jour... Thu, 07 May 2026 10:59:23 +0000 Guy Dammann https://iai.tvarticles/the-end-of-the-critic-and-the-rise-of-the-new-gatekeepers-auid-3567 https://iai.tvarticles/the-dawkins-delusion-intelligence-and-language-dont-reveal-consciousness-auid-3566 Richard Dawkins thinks Anthropic’s Claude AI might be conscious. The man who denied the existence of God so fiercely is arguably siding with those who think we are now creating a digital one. However, University of Tokyo scientist and Sony senior researcher, Ken Mogi, here argues that Dawkins' Claude – or Claudia – experiment only reveals the lack of progress made on consciousness studies in the last few decades and argues the real magic in AI is found in how it deals with language.  The assertion by Richard Dawkins, recently published in UnHerd, that large language models such as Claude are conscious, is quite an interesting take, but understandably caused a storm on the internet. To be precise, Dawkins opined that Claude's behavior cast some serious doubts on the evolutionary significance of consciousness. If Claude was unconscious, and yet exhibited the rem... Wed, 06 May 2026 10:34:17 +0000 Ken Mogi https://iai.tvarticles/the-dawkins-delusion-intelligence-and-language-dont-reveal-consciousness-auid-3566 https://iai.tvarticles/many-minds-not-many-worlds-constitute-quantum-reality-auid-3565 A century after the birth of quantum mechanics, many are still puzzled by the idea that Schrödinger’s cat is simultaneously alive and dead. The mystery drives some of our most prominent physicists to embrace the bizarre idea that reality constantly splits into a near infinity of parallel worlds, of which ours is just one. Philosopher of physics Nadia Blackshaw argues that this “many worlds” interpretation goes wrong not only in its extravagant multiplying of entities, but in its attempt to adopt a “view from nowhere,” describing reality from no particular perspective. She proposes instead a “many minds” interpretation, in which the cat is alive from one perspective and dead from another. It’s time physics took conscious perspectives seriously. We like to tell the story of Schrödinger’s cat as if it is a puzzle about physics. There is a sealed box, a quantum event, a cat that is (according to the mathematics) both alive and dead until someone l... Tue, 05 May 2026 10:51:09 +0000 Nadia Blackshaw https://iai.tvarticles/many-minds-not-many-worlds-constitute-quantum-reality-auid-3565 https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-cancels-itself-out-to-zero-auid-3563 "Why is there something rather than nothing?" goes the famous question. But what if the answer is that there is precisely nothing. Philosopher David Pearce argues that because amplitudes in quantum mechanics are complex numbers, summing two amplitudes can yield zero, and this could apply to the universe as a whole. Having two ways to do something in quantum mechanics can make it not happen. The information in the universe adds up to precisely zero. Why does “anything” exist? Intuitively, there shouldn’t be anything to explain. Bizarrely, this doesn’t seem to be the case. One clue to the answer may be our difficulty in rigorously specifying a default state of “nothingness” from which any departure stands in need of an explanation. A dimensionless point? A timeless void? A quantum vacuum? All attempts to specify an alternative reified “nothingness”—an absence of laws, properties, objects, ... Mon, 04 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000 David Pearce https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-cancels-itself-out-to-zero-auid-3563 https://iai.tvarticles/institutions-incentivise-silence-and-the-powerful-benefit-auid-3564 In an age of unprecedented access to information, the powerful are still more protected than ever. Not through censorship or conspiracy, but through something quieter and harder to fight: the collective institutional instinct to look away. A labour icon whose crimes were known for decades before a newspaper dared print them. A financier and predator whose name universities scrubbed from their records even as they cashed his cheques. Two stories, one pattern. Host of America Unbound, Narain D. Batra, argues that most institutions remain quiet until it no longer costs them to speak out. What does it mean to know something, documented, confirmed, and beyond reasonable dispute, and then do nothing with that knowledge? Not out of ignorance. Not for lack of access. But by choice. By institutional instinct. By the quiet, collective decision that some truths ... Fri, 01 May 2026 12:00:00 +0000 Narain D. Batra https://iai.tvarticles/institutions-incentivise-silence-and-the-powerful-benefit-auid-3564 https://iai.tvarticles/the-brain-forgets-in-order-to-improve-your-memory-auid-3562 Forgetting is usually seen as a flaw in the human brain. But neuroscientist Oliver Hardt argues that forgetting is in fact crucial for some of the most important parts of our brain function. If you remembered every version of every face you'd ever seen, you wouldn't be able to recognize anyone. Your brain needs to erase the clutter to generalize and see patterns. Our capacity to forget isn’t a flaw of human memory, it’s an incredibly useful part of its design. Every seven to thirty seconds, Clive Wearing appears in the here and now from nowhere, suddenly regaining consciousness out of nothingness. He cannot explain these extraordinary events, and so he records them in his diary immediately: “9:06 Now I am completely, overwhelmingly awake (for the first time).” But then he sees a previous line and reads “8:31 Now I am truly fully awake (for the first time)”—recognizing his handwriting, he realizes that he had just documented that very experienc... Thu, 30 Apr 2026 10:43:58 +0000 Oliver Hardt https://iai.tvarticles/the-brain-forgets-in-order-to-improve-your-memory-auid-3562 https://iai.tvarticles/shakespeare-and-the-failures-of-language-auid-3561 We think of Shakespeare as the ultimate master of words, but his plays frequently stage the moments where language fails. Simon Palfrey argues that Shakespeare purposefully pushed language to its breaking point to show that our deepest experiences—grief, desire, shame, and death—cannot be put into words. When we demand that people articulate these feelings, we are asking for something that cannot exist: a neat verbal account of experiences that are, by their nature, beyond speech. It’s fair to say that Shakespeare had as much command over the spoken word as anyone who has ever lived. But he always knew that words might fail us when we need them most. The more inward we travel, the more words may start to coil and falter. Think of the most private suffering—shame, forbidden love, self-loss, imminent death—and there we will find Shakespeare, stalking the lands where shareable words, even speakable words, no longer exist.Forbidden... Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:51:52 +0000 Simon Palfrey https://iai.tvarticles/shakespeare-and-the-failures-of-language-auid-3561 https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-a-dream-not-a-simulation-auid-3560 Most physicists are materialists who believe the world consists of physical particles at the fundamental level. Others have argued reality is a simulation or a hallucination of the brain. But Andrew T. Jaffe challenges all of these views, proposing an alternative consciousness-first theory where space and time arise as within a dream. Most people never stop to consider how bizarre it is to exist at all. We live inside the fact of consciousness so continuously that we rarely examine it. Yet to be alive, aware, and conscious in an apparently material universe is not self-explanatory. It is the deepest mystery we know. We appear here, now, in a world of matter, space, and time, as though such a condition were normal. But perhaps the strange thing is not that idealism sounds radical. Perhaps the strange thing is that materialism ever felt plausible.Cogniti... Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:13:43 +0000 Andrew T. Jaffe https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-a-dream-not-a-simulation-auid-3560 https://iai.tvarticles/peace-in-space-is-a-fiction-we-cant-afford-auid-3559 Following Artemis II, space as humanity's shared frontier is once again in the spotlight. And most nations purport to agree, space should be reserved for peace. In the build-up to HowTheLightGetsIn's debate this May, One Giant Conflict for Mankind, space security researcher Jessica West argues that "peace" has become so stretched as a concept that it now covers almost anything — including blowing up satellites. This ‘fog of peace’ is allowing military build-up in space and threatens to spread to the moon. This could have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth, if the satellites we rely on to detect missile launches and communicate in crises are disrupted. “We came in peace for all mankind,” reads the plaque left on the Moon by Apollo 11 in 1969. ... Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:50:32 +0000 Jessica West https://iai.tvarticles/peace-in-space-is-a-fiction-we-cant-afford-auid-3559 https://iai.tvarticles/lifes-secret-weapon-against-the-uncertainty-of-the-world-auid-3558 Chaos, uncertainty, and noise are often thought of as getting in the way of an organism's plans. Animals, for example, need predictable food and water sources, without them life is a constant struggle. However, science journalist Conor Feehly here argues that biologists are increasingly revealing how life necessarily uses chaos as a creative tool for adapting to an uncertain world. The very substrates of life can be as unpredictable as the chaotic world in which life resides. Our informational molecules mutate. Hearts skip a beat. Neurons flicker on and off. This natural variability in the hardware of life causes significant hurdles for the goals of living systems. In response, life at large has developed a set of mechanisms to dilute the effects of noise—the uncertain nature of physical systems—from within, and from the outside.Error correction enzymes ensure DNA is reliably copied. Immune systems seek and destroy hostile invaders. Ner... Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:53:37 +0000 Conor Feehly https://iai.tvarticles/lifes-secret-weapon-against-the-uncertainty-of-the-world-auid-3558 https://iai.tvarticles/machiavellianism-reveals-the-path-towards-peace-auid-3557 When we call a leader “Machiavellian” we mean they are ruthless, cunning, and amoral. But Machiavelli himself meant something close to the opposite. Political theorist Hartmut Behr argues that Machiavelli was describing the pathologies of princely power, not endorsing them—and that his real commitments, to republicanism, institutional checks, and peaceful diplomacy between small states, amount to a vision of leadership we have buried under centuries of misreading and which is needed now more than ever. The normative and the analyticalThe term “Machiavellianism” is used time and again by journalists, politicians, public intellectuals, and scholars. Their use... Thu, 23 Apr 2026 10:55:38 +0000 Hartmut Behr https://iai.tvarticles/machiavellianism-reveals-the-path-towards-peace-auid-3557 https://iai.tvarticles/even-if-truth-is-an-illusion-we-must-keep-pursuing-it-auid-3556 As science, philosophy, and politics collide, the idea that we can truly know the world is under mounting pressure. From radical pragmatism to object-oriented ontology, leading thinkers now question whether truth is something we discover, construct, or abandon altogether. Anticipating the upcoming HowTheLightGetsIn festival on 25th May and the questions permeating so many of the upcoming debates, IAI Contributing Editor Omari Edwards argues that what is at stake is not just knowledge, but whether inquiry itself can survive without it. Imagine you are standing at the shoreline of a vast ocean. You can see as far as the horizon, but you know that the horizon is not the edge of the world. It is merely the edge of what your height allows you to see. Is the ocean beyond the horizon real? Of course, but what else lies hidden beyond that edge?So much of our world relie... Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:04:24 +0000 Omari Edwards https://iai.tvarticles/even-if-truth-is-an-illusion-we-must-keep-pursuing-it-auid-3556 https://iai.tvarticles/spacetime-does-not-exist-auid-3555 Einstein’s picture of spacetime, a four-dimensional fabric uniting space and time, breaks down at the smallest scales, where quantum mechanics takes over. For decades, physicists have searched for an account of how spacetime “emerges” from this deeper quantum reality. But philosopher Sam Baron argues that the whole idea of spacetime “emerging” from something else makes no sense. All our accounts of how things “emerge” from something more fundamental presuppose spacetime, so the idea that spacetime itself emerges is circular. His radical conclusion is that we must abandon the project of reconciling spacetime and quantum mechanics, and accept that spacetime, at least as Einstein described it, does not exist. I don’t think spacetime exists. I know how that sounds. Pretty silly, right? We are very used to thinking of spacetime as the fabric of the universe. We are also pretty used to thinking of it as ... Tue, 21 Apr 2026 11:01:00 +0000 Sam Baron https://iai.tvarticles/spacetime-does-not-exist-auid-3555 https://iai.tvarticles/in-the-age-of-tragedy-everyones-a-sadomasochist-auid-3554 We think of tragedy as exploring suffering, but it actually teaches us to enjoy it. From Plato to Freud, philosopher Paul Kottman argues that our appetite for tragic drama cultivates a sadomasochistic tendency — converting pain into pleasure — that ultimately threatens our capacity for love, loss, and genuine wellbeing. To live well we must resist the temptation to aestheticise our suffering and learn to keep pleasure and pain apart. “The idea of pleasures that are not somehow painful,” writes Adam Phillips, “has become literally inconceivable, so wedded are we to our perpetual dismay.” Might pure pleasure, free of pain, be a mere idea—one that could become “inconceivable”?It is worth wondering whether the difference between pleasure and pain is nothing more than a theoretical construct, a fragile cognitive achievement. In practice, aft... Mon, 20 Apr 2026 10:47:27 +0000 Paul Kottman https://iai.tvarticles/in-the-age-of-tragedy-everyones-a-sadomasochist-auid-3554 https://iai.tvarticles/morality-is-motivated-by-getting-revenge-auid-3553 We have evolved to want revenge. The desire to see those that have hurt us be hurt in kind feels not just natural but morally just. But philosopher Gregg D. Caruso argues that this strike-back instinct is built on a belief we can no longer defend — that people are the ultimate authors of their own actions, free from the luck of their genes, upbringing, and circumstance. Abandon that belief, and the justice system we've built around it starts to look less like justice and more like organised cruelty. When someone wrongs us—cuts us off in traffic, betrays our trust, or harms someone we love—we feel a powerful urge to strike back. This impulse runs deep. It’s visceral, immediate, and feels entirely justified. We want the wrongdoer to suffer, to pay for what they’ve done. This strike-back emotion lies at the heart of our practices of moral blame and punishment. But what if this deeply ingrained response, however natural it feels, is based on a fun... Fri, 17 Apr 2026 10:48:06 +0000 Gregg D. Caruso https://iai.tvarticles/morality-is-motivated-by-getting-revenge-auid-3553 https://iai.tvarticles/the-pursuit-of-beautiful-theories-has-become-an-obstacle-to-genuine-discovery-auid-3552 Our reverence for beauty encodes a fantasy that reality is ordered and familiar, fully accessible to reason and observation. Philosopher Jane Forsey here argues that letting ugliness and disorder into our theories and aesthetic experiences means confronting the world’s strangeness and our irredeemable disconnection from it. And, Forsey argues, it also gives us better ways of understanding reality and intervening in it. Consider the blobfish. Named the ugliest animal in the world by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society, it is safe to say that many people find the creature to be hideous. It is also safe to say that the appellation “ugly” is the result of an aesthetic judgement about the blobfish, or the product of an aesthetic experience of its features. Why then does philosophical aesthetics have such a difficult time incorporating experiences of the ugly, t... Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:29:53 +0000 Jane Forsey https://iai.tvarticles/the-pursuit-of-beautiful-theories-has-become-an-obstacle-to-genuine-discovery-auid-3552 https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-country-auid-3551 What counts as a "country" is far from an objective fact. In spite of measures such as borders, governments, and people, political scientist Ian Hurd argues that statehood is a fragile social fiction. From the UK’s sudden recognition of Palestine to Israel’s strategic deals in Africa, nations grant or withhold recognition not based on a territory's merit, but on cold strategic interest. Ultimately, international law is used as a tool to justify these political whims, and the desperate search for official status signals a state's fundamental vulnerability. I often begin my class on International Politics by presenting a map of the world and asking students how many countries there are. Many offer 193 as the answer, which is a decent starting point: it is the membership of the United Nations. A few will then point out that ... Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:13:46 +0000 Ian Hurd https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-country-auid-3551 https://iai.tvarticles/shattering-einsteins-block-universe-rescues-the-flow-of-time-auid-3550 Einstein’s theory of relativity appears to drain time of its most familiar feature: its flow. If spacetime is a four-dimensional block, as many physicists argue, then there is no privileged present moment. But over the last two decades, a small group of philosophers has been assembling a radical alternative picture, which aims to save time’s flow. In this article, Italian philosopher and logician Samuele Iaquinto introduces Fragmentalism, a view on which spacetime is not a single, coherent whole, but rather a patchwork of incompatible perspectives, or fragments, which disagree about which events are past, present and future. These fragments are not mere appearances of an underlying timeless block. They are fundamental. Time, on this view, can flow, but it must do so in a plurality of ways, each relative to a perspective. It is tempting to think of reality as centered on the present moment, the very instant at which you are reading these words.... Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:03:32 +0000 Samuele Iaquinto https://iai.tvarticles/shattering-einsteins-block-universe-rescues-the-flow-of-time-auid-3550 https://iai.tvarticles/the-real-reason-the-us-attacked-iran-auid-3549 Political scientist Nader Hashemi here argues that Iran was attacked because it resists American power and refuses to surrender to its commands. Hashemi writes the war is about American empire, not about nuclear weapons — pointing out that Iran offered to hand over its entire stockpile of enriched uranium and was turned down — nor about protecting Iranians from one of the region's most repressive governments. It also can’t be understood exclusively as a result of Trump and Netanyahu’s personalities. What Washington wants, and has always wanted, isn't a safer Iran. It's a subservient one. The US-Israeli assault on Iran is, at its core, an attempt to reorder the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. This claim challenges a common view that has sought to interpret this war as primarily a function of personalities. Specifically, Donald Trump’s authoritarian assault on the post-war international order and his close alliance with the hawkish Is... Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:22:39 +0000 Nader Hashemi https://iai.tvarticles/the-real-reason-the-us-attacked-iran-auid-3549 https://iai.tvarticles/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-human-being-auid-3544 Thomas Nagel's 'What is it like to be a bat?' is one of the most cited and important works of philosophy ever written. Nagel famously asks what conscious experience is like for a bat, and makes the point that we can’t know this from the physical data alone. Philosopher Ricky Williamson argues, particularly in the age of AI, the question 'what is it like to be a human being?' is of even greater relevance, though is overlooked due to its apparent obviousness. Williamson attempts to provide an answer, with results perhaps more surprising than obvious. Thomas Nagel famously asked, “What is it like to be a bat?” But has anyone ever provided an answer to the question, “What is it like to be a human being?”You might think the answer is so obvious that the question need not be asked. We all are, after all, human—apart... Fri, 10 Apr 2026 09:26:31 +0000 Ricky Williamson https://iai.tvarticles/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-human-being-auid-3544 https://iai.tvarticles/our-economic-system-is-designed-to-make-us-unhappy-auid-3543 For decades, we have conflated national success with wealth, using GDP as the ultimate benchmark. But as geopolitical crises mount—from US interventions over oil to intensifying global competition for resources—this obsession with endless expansion is fuelling aggression and global instability. Ecological economist Tim Jackson argues we must abandon GDP as our primary measure of progress and redefine prosperity as health rather than wealth, building a more stable economy that actually serves society and the planet.In the opening weeks of 2026, the relentless pursuit of economic growth reached new and ignominious heights. In doing so, it showed its true colors: an unseemly willingness to cross borders, redraw sovereignties and legitimize force in the name of prosperity.Donald Trump’s “decapitation” of the Venezuelan g... Thu, 09 Apr 2026 09:21:06 +0000 Tim Jackson https://iai.tvarticles/our-economic-system-is-designed-to-make-us-unhappy-auid-3543 https://iai.tvarticles/a-world-without-certainty-needs-its-own-grand-narratives-auid-3542 From Western-centric visions of the liberal world order to the Enlightenment story of history as Reason’s onward march, we rightly distrust grand narratives. But, argues Turkish international-relations theorist Ayşe Zarakol, without them we struggle to make sense of the world. We also risk uncritically slipping back into outdated narratives without realising it. The way forward, she argues, is to build new, better grand narratives, that recognize themselves as products of their own time and biases, rather trying to justify the status quo from a position outside of history.We all operate with grand historical narratives in the back of our minds, but these days new ones are hard to find, except in the airport nonfiction section. Social scientists and historians are not encouraged to produce them. This creates an odd situation where academics either produce highly nuanced empirical ... Wed, 08 Apr 2026 15:05:27 +0000 Ayşe Zarakol https://iai.tvarticles/a-world-without-certainty-needs-its-own-grand-narratives-auid-3542 https://iai.tvarticles/a-new-form-of-life-has-just-been-designed-in-a-lab-auid-3540 For most of human history, the origin of life was a religious question. Darwin made it a scientific one. But now scientists have created an artificial species designed entirely by artificial intelligence, inaugurating a new age in which life is a product of human engineering. Adrian Woolfson argues that generative biology—where genomes are written rather than discovered—will fundamentally change our lives, transforming medicine, agriculture, and even the nature of evolution itself.On Friday, December 18, 1903, the London Herald reported that a flying machine had taken to the air the previous day. The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, had made the first controlled and sustained engine-powered flight in their aircraft, the Wright Flyer. The flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, lasted just twelve seconds, and the aircraft traveled only 120 feet. Yet in that brief interval, the brothers had demonstrated that heavier-than-air fli... Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:57:33 +0000 Adrian Woolfson https://iai.tvarticles/a-new-form-of-life-has-just-been-designed-in-a-lab-auid-3540 https://iai.tvarticles/the-body-is-the-zero-point-of-the-world-auid-3537 What is the difference between human and machine? Classically, embodiment has been a go-to answer. But as information itself becomes increasingly embodied, the tension between metal and flesh is heightening. What it means to be embodied at all is here brought into question by philosopher Gigla Gonashvili.  We are increasingly viewing ourselves as patterns rather than bodily presence, signals rather than substance. It is as if we are being evicted from the flesh, teleported directly into the realm of an alien intelligence. Yet, the body retains its own strange powers, as was already recognized by the materialist logic of the Stoics.In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles writes that, with the arrival of the first wave of cybernetics, “information loses its body.” With the contribution of figures such as Norbert Wiener and Cl... Mon, 06 Apr 2026 11:30:00 +0000 Gigla Gonashvili https://iai.tvarticles/the-body-is-the-zero-point-of-the-world-auid-3537 https://iai.tvarticles/gossip-is-a-moral-good-auid-3538 From Louis XVI’s monitored coffeehouses to the whisper networks of #MeToo, gossip is often dismissed as trivial or malicious. But philosopher Karen Adkins argues that gossip functions as a vital moral tool that enables those with less power to protect one another when formal justice systems fail. Though imperfect and sometimes exclusionary, these informal communications persist not as ideal solutions, but as necessary responses to a world that still privileges certain voices over others. #MeToo has returned to the news with the release of some of the US Department of Justice’s Jeffrey Epstein files, and the accompanying repercussions for some associates outside the US. One of the more disturbing patterns of the Epstein files tracks with the Harvey Weinstein episode from #MeToo’s last iteration. That is the open secret nature of this predatory beha... Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:30:00 +0000 Karen C. Adkins https://iai.tvarticles/gossip-is-a-moral-good-auid-3538 https://iai.tvarticles/satire-is-a-vital-tool-for-challenging-power-and-its-being-undermined-auid-3539 Comedy and satire are widely seen as forms of entertainment, but they remain vital tools for challenging power. Yet in today’s media landscape, dominated by fleeting stand-up routines and viral clips, mockery is easily absorbed, ignored, or contained by those it targets. Stanford Professor Richard P. Martin argues that this has stripped satire of its political force. While figures like Jimmy Kimmel show its continued relevance, real impact requires a return to more public, theatrical, and sustained forms of comedy. Total moron. Short-fingered vulgarian. Fat orange fascist. The problem is, even the best jeers are satisfying in the moment but ultimately inefficacious. As schoolyard doctrine has long held, it is sticks and stones that really break bones. Yet adults (mostly) don’t feel good hurling rocks instead of insults (quite rightly). So that’s the frustration—how do we make mockery get results?Real bullets bounce off Godzilla; forget ... Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:58:26 +0000 Richard P. Martin https://iai.tvarticles/satire-is-a-vital-tool-for-challenging-power-and-its-being-undermined-auid-3539 https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-is-made-of-desire-auid-3536 Reality doesn't exist on its own. Without subjectivity to perceive the objectivity of the world, the way in which space, time, and the universe in general exist would be radically other. For example, can time be said to pass if there is no-one for whom time passes? What is the difference between a universe that began 14 billion years ago and one that started 14 years ago, if there is no one to count the years? Philosopher David Bather Woods here argues, using the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, that the will that makes up our subjectivity also makes up the world. Therefore, denying the will, as is taught in Buddhism and other world religions, can turn the universe into nothing. There is the way the world appears, and then there is the world as it is in itself. Arthur Schopenhauer’s masterpiece The World as Will and Representation, first published in 1818, fleshes out this distinction with two propositions: “The wor... Wed, 01 Apr 2026 10:30:58 +0000 David Bather Woods https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-is-made-of-desire-auid-3536 https://iai.tvarticles/studies-on-animal-minds-suggest-consciousness-is-not-computation-auid-3535 We’re often seduced by the idea that the mind is a computer, and that consciousness is just a matter of running the right code. But philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith, renowned for his work on octopus minds, disagrees. Fresh research into animal minds—from bees to jellyfish—suggests that consciousness arises not from software but from electrical oscillations moving rhythmically across cell membranes in living brains. And those oscillations, Godfrey-Smith argues, are unlikely to be reproducible in artificial hardware. Perhaps, then, only living brains can truly be conscious.  Late in the previous century, there seemed to be good reasons to think that the physical make-up of a system could not matter much to whether that system had a mind. The organization of the system is what matters, people thought, and physically different systems can be organized the same way. A... Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:21:42 +0000 Peter Godfrey-Smith https://iai.tvarticles/studies-on-animal-minds-suggest-consciousness-is-not-computation-auid-3535 https://iai.tvarticles/mathematical-beauty-should-not-eclipse-truth-auid-3534 The idea that the universe is fundamentally mathematical is one of the leading frameworks in modern thought. From physics to philosophy, equations are often taken to disclose reality itself. But what if this is a projection rather than a discovery? Physicist Martín López Corredoira invites us to reconsider, questioning whether mathematics describes the world as it is, or as we are able to conceive it. There are two different methodologies for studying Nature, both inherited from different ways of thinking in ancient Greece: the rationalist–deductive method and the empirical–inductive method. The rationalist–deductive method was devised by Pythagoras (ca. 570–490 BCE) and Plato (ca. 427–347 BCE), according to whom the pure relations of numbers in arithmetic and geometry are the immutable reality behind changing appearances in the world of the senses. We cannot reach the truth through observation with the senses, they argued, but only through pu... Mon, 30 Mar 2026 10:48:14 +0000 Martín López Corredoira https://iai.tvarticles/mathematical-beauty-should-not-eclipse-truth-auid-3534 https://iai.tvarticles/ai-isnt-a-dual-use-technology-it-is-inherently-v1olent-auid-3515 When the Pentagon branded Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei “a liar with a god complex” over fears that his company’s AI could be used for weapons and surveillance, it exposed a deeper truth: the boundary between civilian and military technology no longer exists. The same systems that power translation, logistics, and digital assistants can just as easily identify targets or manipulate populations. Thomas Christian Bächle and Jascha Bareis argue that today’s AI is not simply “dual use” — it is inherently violent in design. Adaptive, autonomous, and globally networked, these machines fuse daily life with geopolitics, making peace itself a fading abstraction. Drones have become an uncanny threat—not least in the wake of the cost of human life and the degrees of suffering and destruction they have inflicted in Russia’s war on Ukraine. In many European countries they have been sighted near critical infrastructure or military sites, eithe... Mon, 30 Mar 2026 10:31:33 +0000 Thomas Christian Bächle https://iai.tvarticles/ai-isnt-a-dual-use-technology-it-is-inherently-v1olent-auid-3515 https://iai.tvarticles/simone-weil-the-attention-economy-and-the-annihilation-of-autonomy-auid-3532 The attention economy isn’t just stealing our focus; it’s reshaping our reality. Drawing on Simone Weil, philosopher Kathryn Lawson argues that social media algorithms don’t just distract us but commit a deeper form of violence, reshaping our minds and stripping away genuine human connection. Each scroll surrenders our thinking to machines designed solely to keep us engaged, replacing what Weil saw as true attention—essential for ethics and truth—with a hollow substitute. Now, as a California jury holds Meta and Google liable for fuelling a young woman’s childhood addiction to their platforms, the solution isn't simply logging off, but relearning how to genuinely attend to others and reclaim our mental autonomy.Join IAI Live: Attention in the Age of Distraction for a debate on social media, attention, and its role in consciousness with psychiatrist Anna Lembke, sociologist Frank Furedi, and 'the Facebook whistleblower',... Fri, 27 Mar 2026 11:02:15 +0000 Kathryn Lawson https://iai.tvarticles/simone-weil-the-attention-economy-and-the-annihilation-of-autonomy-auid-3532 https://iai.tvarticles/theories-are-never-true-they-are-only-more-or-less-useful-auid-3531 We think our theories about reality – whether in physics, philosophy, or psychology – should aspire to be faithful descriptions of how reality actually is. But philosopher of science Manuel Delaflor makes the case that this aspiration is incredibly dangerous. Instead of thinking our theories map onto an underlying reality, Delaflor asks us to stop worshipping our models, even though we cannot stop modelling any more than we can stop breathing. Evaluating our theories by what they can do, and not by what they claim to be, will make us far more productive and happier. There is a moment, just before you fully wake, when you don't know who you are. For a breath or two, there is experience without a name attached to it. No nationality. No profession. No opinions about immigration or breakfast cereals. Just… this... sensation without stubborn content. This can also happen when having a ... Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:20:46 +0000 Manuel Delaflor https://iai.tvarticles/theories-are-never-true-they-are-only-more-or-less-useful-auid-3531 https://iai.tvarticles/scientific-knowledge-can-lie-beyond-language-auid-3530 Before Francis Crick and James Watson unveiled DNA’s double helix, a colleague dismissed Crick as incompetent—he couldn’t recall basic facts about DNA’s four bases. But, as economist Arthur M. Diamond notes, the intuitive knowledge that drives discovery and progress often lies beyond language. Despite this, we still invest our money in those with the slickest pitches over those with unspoken insight, stifling progress. Diamond’s solution is radical: we must totally redesign how money flows through society. Judge creators by what they build, not what they write; replace bureaucratic applications with practical contests; and tear down institutional barriers blocking self-starting scientists and creators. An experienced nurse in the neonate intensive care unit is mostly focused on the infant who is her main responsibility. But she notices that a nearby infant is cycling through minor changes in skin color. That infant’s primary nurse sees it too.... Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:45:13 +0000 Arthur M. Diamond https://iai.tvarticles/scientific-knowledge-can-lie-beyond-language-auid-3530 https://iai.tvarticles/reality-cannot-be-turned-into-mathematics-auid-3529 For centuries, scientists and philosophers—from Leibniz to today’s AI visionaries—have dreamed of mathematizing reality, fully describing the world in equations that a machine can compute. But this is a dangerous illusion, argue mathematician and biochemist Jobst Landgrebe and philosopher Barry Smith, whose work on scientific modelling has been utilized by institutions like the US military and the National Institutes of Health, making him one of the world’s most highly cited philosophers. Natural systems like the climate and the human brain, they contend, can never be fully captured by models, because they are fundamentally irregular and unpredictable. True progress depends on flexible heuristics, which allow us to intervene in reality without needing an exhaustive description of it. Already in the seventeenth century Leibniz advanced the idea of a reasoning machine that could manipulate symbolic representations of all human t... Tue, 24 Mar 2026 10:25:57 +0000 Jobst Landgrebe https://iai.tvarticles/reality-cannot-be-turned-into-mathematics-auid-3529 https://iai.tvarticles/democratic-discourse-is-an-illusion-auid-3528 We assume that democracy is a straightforward matter of giving everyone a voice, but this misunderstands how fragile communication really is. Philosopher Mary Kate McGowan argues that the legitimacy of our political system is undermined not by censorship, but by the “silent” barriers of internal suppression, misinterpreted meaning, and testimonial injustice. By exposing how communication across difference can go wrong and the patterns of who this affects, she argues that democracy’s crisis isn't that we cannot speak—it’s that we cannot hear each other, and often don’t try. A healthy democracy relies on communication. We each need to be able to freely discuss issues of public concern, criticize the government if we so choose, and tell our elected representatives what we want them to do. Arguably, the legitimacy of a democracy depends on these communications flowing smoothly and effectively. Any significant barrier to these communications would ... Mon, 23 Mar 2026 10:47:03 +0000 Mary Kate McGowan https://iai.tvarticles/democratic-discourse-is-an-illusion-auid-3528 https://iai.tvarticles/nietzsche-vs-the-wellness-industry-auid-3527 When the world itself is unhealthy, our modern obsession with self-improvement serves as little more than a plaster over systemic burnout. The booming self-help industry trains us to use our creativity to change ourselves rather than challenge the systems we live in. Drawing on Nietzsche's idea that creativity should be the means by which we reshape the world, Jill Marsden argues that we should move from self-improvement to self-realisation. To live well is not just to fix oneself, but to change a world that is making us sick. Anyone wishing to determine the value of art today has to know where to look. As arts provision slowly disappears from schools and universities across many parts of the world, the enthusiasm for creativity in the health and well-being sector has never been so strong. Defined as “creative approaches and activities which have benefits for our health and well-being,” the phenomenon of “cre... Fri, 20 Mar 2026 10:03:58 +0000 Jill Marsden https://iai.tvarticles/nietzsche-vs-the-wellness-industry-auid-3527 https://iai.tvarticles/jurgen-habermas-influential-champion-of-modern-democracy-auid-3526 With the passing of philosopher Jürgen Habermas, we explore the enduring importance of his work on democracy, human rights, and the public sphere. Rainer Forst, Claudio Corradetti, and John S. Dryzek give their thoughts on Habermas and the legacy of his philosophical contributions - including his theory of communicative rationality, which laid bare both the power of ideas and the challenge of applying them in a complex and imperfect world. The Public Use of Reason: On the Death of Jürgen HabermasWith the passing of Jürgen Habermas, who shaped the humanities and social sciences of our time as perhaps no other thinker has, we lose a unique and irreplaceable intellectual voice. I have lost a teacher and interlocutor to whom I owe more than I can express.To take the measure of his work, we must look back to the great figures of philosophy. The most natural comparison... Thu, 19 Mar 2026 10:57:54 +0000 Rainer Forst https://iai.tvarticles/jurgen-habermas-influential-champion-of-modern-democracy-auid-3526 https://iai.tvarticles/african-philosophys-challenge-to-western-reductionism-auid-3525 Western thought often explains systems—from societies to ecosystems—by breaking them down into their parts: atoms, rocks, trees, individual people. But many African philosophies like Ubuntu challenge the idea of pre-defined, isolated entities forming larger wholes. As philosopher Elvis Imafidon argues, relationships don’t connect pre-existing individuals, rather all things become what they are through their relations with other things. From this relational understanding of being, a dominant theme in African philosophy develops a distinctive community-centred ethics, which places equal value on both human and non-human aspects of reality. One question that has kept philosophy thriving for thousands of years is the existential question of the human: What makes human existence meaningful? This is in some ways different from the question of origins: What makes human existence possible? While the latter is a s... Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:19:19 +0000 Elvis Imafidon https://iai.tvarticles/african-philosophys-challenge-to-western-reductionism-auid-3525 https://iai.tvarticles/to-function-in-the-real-world-ai-needs-motivation-auid-3524 AI is very powerful at doing a wide range of verbal and numerical tasks, but we haven't been able to make robots effective in the real, physical world. To solve this problem, computational neuroscientist Gaurav Suri argues that we need to give AI models their own motivation. Against our intuition that conscious experience is necessary for motivation, Suri insists that machines can and must become motivated in order to tackle complex and evolving problems. As a result, AI researchers must learn how motivation works in living minds. A mild hunger may leave us unmoved. We notice it, perhaps, but do nothing. A stronger hunger can change everything. We pull on a coat, step out into the cold, and walk several blocks in search of food. Something similar happens with anger: a mild offense may be brushed aside, while a stronger one may push us toward confrontation. Aske... Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:52:33 +0000 Gaurav Suri https://iai.tvarticles/to-function-in-the-real-world-ai-needs-motivation-auid-3524 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-is-the-hidden-architecture-behind-fundamental-and-quantum-physics-auid-3523 Physics, and science as a whole, attempts to paint an objective picture of reality. Consciousness, experience, and subjectivity are forcibly pushed out of this picture. Even where science is empirical, this empiricism rarely involves a consideration of human consciousness, but rather the readings of some mechanical measuring device, or some hypothetical abstracted sum of all perspectives – a God's eye view or view from nowhere. But phenomenologist of science Harald A. Wiltsche paints a different picture. Physics, even in the form of quantum mechanics, has its origins in the phenomenology of human consciousness. No matter how hard scientists try, it can never escape those origins, and to truly move forward, it must understand and embrace them. Physics and phenomenology are usually taken to inhabit different worlds. Physics aims at a description of objective reality in mathematical terms. Phenomenology—the philosophical movement inaugurated by E... Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:52:51 +0000 Harald A. Wiltsche https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-is-the-hidden-architecture-behind-fundamental-and-quantum-physics-auid-3523 https://iai.tvarticles/absurdity-confronts-the-fragility-of-power-auid-3522 When protesters in Portland faced federal agents in full military gear, some chose to meet force not with confrontation but with absurdity, appearing as frogs, dinosaurs, and unicorns. Kirk Ormand, classicist at Oberlin College, explores how turning vulnerability into spectacle can become a form of power in itself. Drawing on lessons from ancient satire to modern street protest, he argues that self‑mockery and play can expose the fragility of authority—and challenge the logic that strength must always look strong. When President Trump sent the National Guard to Portland over the objections of Oregon Governor Tina Kotek this fall, he characterized the city as “war-torn” and declared that the ICE facilities there were “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” The President’s characterization of the city as a “burning hellhole” was me... Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:09:24 +0000 Kirk Ormand https://iai.tvarticles/absurdity-confronts-the-fragility-of-power-auid-3522 https://iai.tvarticles/small-states-have-more-power-than-trump-and-putin-think-auid-3521 As conflicts between great powers come to a head across the Middle East and Europe, it seems inevitable that smaller states will find themselves caught up as collateral damage. But political scientist Kristi Raik argues small states are more resilient than we give them credit for. From Ukraine to Finland and the Baltics, she shows how times of rupture reveal small states not as victims, but as strategic actors capable of shaping their own survival – and what this means for the international order now taking shape. When the Baltic states declared independence during the final year of World War I, few world leaders believed they would survive as sovereign nations. The UK provided critical support to Estonia in the early days of independence, including the shipment of twenty cannons, approximately seven hundred machine guns, twenty-six thousand five hundred rifles, thirty-one thousand cannon shells, thirty million bullets, vehicles, telephones, c... Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:47:55 +0000 Kristi Raik https://iai.tvarticles/small-states-have-more-power-than-trump-and-putin-think-auid-3521 https://iai.tvarticles/thinking-is-a-kind-of-dancing-auid-3519 Philosophy is usually treated as a purely mental pursuit. But philosopher and dancer Kimerer LaMothe argues that the core skills of thinking—paying attention, imitating, experimenting, and practicing—grew out of the rhythmic, social movement we call dance. Drawing on evolutionary theory and figures from Plato to Nietzsche, she suggests that dancing is not an object for philosophy to analyse but the activity that makes philosophical thought possible. To understand how we think, she argues, we need to pay attention to how we move. When it comes to philosophy, it is worthwhile to consider the Delphic maxim: know thyself. As critics observe, the enterprise often resembles the actions of a dog who buries a bone, only to search for it and, when finding it, celebrate his new discovery. The way philosophers ask questions may hide the answers they set out to retrieve.When it comes to dance, t... Wed, 11 Mar 2026 09:52:34 +0000 Kimerer LaMothe https://iai.tvarticles/thinking-is-a-kind-of-dancing-auid-3519 https://iai.tvarticles/the-unjust-power-dynamics-of-pet-ownership-auid-3518 Pet ownership is surging, with the number of pet cats and dogs outstripping the number of human children in countries from the US to Japan. Yet we rarely ask whether pet keeping is morally justifiable. Philosophers Angie Pepper and Richard Healey argue that it is not. Even owners who love their pets control almost every aspect of their lives, and they are kept primarily to serve these owners’ interests. We breed and raise pets to need us, manufacturing their vulnerability and stripping them of their ability to control their own lives. Without a justification for this power dynamic which appeals primarily to the interests of pets, rather than their owners, we should abolish pet keeping altogether. Half of the world’s population lives with a pet, from cats, dogs and fish to birds, lizards, and guinea pigs. Our love of pets has reached the point that in nations as diverse as the US, the UK, Brazil, Japan, and Spain, the number of... Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:31:45 +0000 Richard Healey https://iai.tvarticles/the-unjust-power-dynamics-of-pet-ownership-auid-3518 https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-not-a-controlled-hallucination-auid-3517 The idea that 'reality is a controlled hallucination' has been recently popularised by figures such as neuroscientist Anil Seth. But this claim, which purports to be hard, down-to-earth science, is, in fact, bad philosophy. Philosopher and author of The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience, Evan Thompson, here argues the 'controlled hallucination' hypothesis brings nothing new to the table regarding the problem of consciousness. And there is a circularity problem: if the theory claims that reality is a hallucination, then that theory itself is part of the hallucination. “Reality is a controlled hallucination” may look like cutting-edge science but actually is debatable philosophy from the nineteenth century. Popularized recently by neuroscientist Anil Seth, it traces back to Hermann von Helmholtz (182... Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:27:28 +0000 Evan Thompson https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-not-a-controlled-hallucination-auid-3517 https://iai.tvarticles/an-ideal-is-worth-nothing-unless-it-can-be-measured-auid-3516 With war breaking out, economic inequality rife, and human egoism and emotion reaching feverous new heights, the search for new ideas and frameworks can often appear hopeless. Oxford University philosopher, neuroscientist, and geostrategist, Nayef Al-Rodhan argues we must transform human dignity from an abstract ideal to a Global Dignity Index: a measurable warning system, diagnostic tool, and guiding star for modern governments. Why do societies fracture even as economic indicators improve, and why does institutional legitimacy erode despite formally accountable governance structures? Research across neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and political science converges on a decisive yet neglected factor: human dignity. Far from a moral luxury, dignity is a universal human need and a strategically smart and efficacious foundation of governance, s... Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:44:00 +0000 Nayef Al-Rodhan https://iai.tvarticles/an-ideal-is-worth-nothing-unless-it-can-be-measured-auid-3516 https://iai.tvarticles/nato-doesnt-need-the-us-to-defend-europe-auid-3510 Most people assume Europe can't defend itself without the US – even NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says those who think otherwise should "keep on dreaming." But this mindset, argues political scientist Rajan Menon, is the product of decades of American strategy that has convinced wealthy, capable NATO allies they are powerless without Washington. In fact, Europe possesses the resources and capabilities to defend itself. Menon shows how Europe's chosen dependence could be overcome, and why the Trump era makes it both possible and necessary. States see their security as tied to the domination of other states—or at least the powerful ones do. But that doesn’t necessarily require occupation and conquest; security through domination can be achieved subtly, and even with the consent of weaker states. NATO’s evolution since its founding in 1949 is an example of what might be called silk-glove hegemony.The United States turned its European a... Wed, 04 Mar 2026 10:32:47 +0000 Rajan Menon https://iai.tvarticles/nato-doesnt-need-the-us-to-defend-europe-auid-3510 https://iai.tvarticles/making-sense-of-a-non-binary-world-auid-3509 For centuries we’ve divided the world into tidy pairs: good and evil, male and female, gay and straight. But what if the need to draw such sharp lines tells us more about ourselves than about reality? Kevin Richardson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, argues that the binary lens through which we view sex and gender — and many other domains — is a conceptual shortcut that distorts more than it clarifies. Rethinking these boundaries, he suggests, may be the first step toward understanding a world that was never meant to be simply divided in two. “You can’t just be a little gay,” my friend Quinton said, shaking his head. “I don’t have anything against people who are, you know, gay. But let’s be real: you’re either gay or straight.”This was the kind of conversation you only have with old friends. Quinton and I grew up in the same place: the So... Tue, 03 Mar 2026 11:00:19 +0000 Kevin Richardson https://iai.tvarticles/making-sense-of-a-non-binary-world-auid-3509 https://iai.tvarticles/morality-is-nothing-but-a-story-we-tell-ourselves-auid-3508 Moral identity is often treated as a hidden core of inner values, but philosopher Marya Schechtman argues something far more disruptive: who we are morally just is the ongoing narrative we live out over time. This is not a story for us alone; it must make sense to those around us if we are to be held accountable for our actions. By moving morality from internal rules to an evolving, accountable life-story, Schechtman shows how responsibility and remorse depend on the narrative structures we build—and why our moral agency fails when our life stories stop making sense. While discussing the case of “Mr Thompson,” a patient with acute Korsakoff syndrome, a neurological disorder that erodes memory formation, Oliver Sacks conclud... Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:55:17 +0000 Marya Schechtman https://iai.tvarticles/morality-is-nothing-but-a-story-we-tell-ourselves-auid-3508 https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-objective-view-of-earth-auid-3507 The famous image of Earth from space looks neutral—but it was quietly turned to put the north on top. Professor Elleke Boehmer argues that this small adjustment captures a much larger habit of mind, and that there is no objective perspective by which to view the world. By reading literature from the far southern hemisphere, we can flip our planetary perspective, loosen the grip of northern dominance, and learn to see the world as a more connected, fragile whole. The “blue marble” photograph of Earth taken in 1972 from Apollo 17 is one of the most famous photographs of the twentieth century. At first glance, it is as neutral an image of our planetary home as we can imagine—the green and blue orb floating in dark space. This is why it has served as an emblem for a variety of environmental movements, a neat image of our place in the universe,... Fri, 27 Feb 2026 10:56:19 +0000 Elleke Boehmer https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-objective-view-of-earth-auid-3507 https://iai.tvarticles/the-sovereign-individual-is-a-dangerous-fantasy-auid-3506 From Peter Thiel to Donald Trump, the ideal of the “sovereign individual” who bends reality to their will is newly dominant. Technology will soon enable a “bizarre genius” to live free from all constraints, prophesizes Thiel’s favorite book. But this vision fatally misunderstands the nature of the self, argues James I. Porter, author of books on Nietzsche and Greek culture. Individuality is forged only by the friction of contesting with others, and subjective experiences become meaningful only in relation to the experiences of others. To remove this resistance would be to erase meaning itself; absolute self-sovereignty would be self-annihilation. "Nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things."- Nietzsche, The Will to Power “Sovereignty, the ideal of uncompromising self-sufficiency and mastership,” ... Thu, 26 Feb 2026 10:22:53 +0000 James I. Porter https://iai.tvarticles/the-sovereign-individual-is-a-dangerous-fantasy-auid-3506 https://iai.tvarticles/a-post-work-world-would-be-a-solipsistic-nightmare-auid-3505 Work is not just a means of survival, but our main way of connecting with the world beyond our own minds, argues philosopher B. Scot Rousse, drawing on Heidegger’s metaphysics. Western thought has long prized detached contemplation, but genuine understanding comes from trying, failing, caring, and being answerable to others. In work, we sharpen our skills, test our limits, and engage with reality through shared responsibility. Without that crucible of effort, obligation and accountability, Rousse warns, we risk shrinking into isolation—spectators of life rather than participants in it. Many worry that AI will lead to job loss. That framing is understandable, but it misses a deeper issue. The stakes of AI and work reach beyond productivity and employment into the very conditions of the human world. Berkeley computer scientist Stuart Russell warns of the pr... Wed, 25 Feb 2026 09:46:17 +0000 B. Scot Rousse https://iai.tvarticles/a-post-work-world-would-be-a-solipsistic-nightmare-auid-3505 https://iai.tvarticles/zen-and-the-art-of-space-exploration-auid-3504 From Star Wars to The Three-Body Problem, science fiction repeatedly turns to Buddhism to imagine humanity’s future in space. Drawing on its doctrines of emptiness, interconnection, and cosmic plurality, Ben Van Overmeire argues that Buddhism offers a ready-made cosmology for thinking about alien life and a decentered universe – an alternative to Western narratives of conquest, colonisation, and divine centrality. This cross-cultural perspective offers vital insight into how we should approach outer space, which is an urgent question as commercial spaceflight expands and new powers enter the space race. In an iconic scene from the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back (1980), a young rebel named Luke Skywalker, having crashed his spacecraft into a swamp on a godforsaken planet, meets a tiny green alien. He isn’t looking for such an ... Tue, 24 Feb 2026 10:25:24 +0000 Ben Van Overmeire https://iai.tvarticles/zen-and-the-art-of-space-exploration-auid-3504 https://iai.tvarticles/gender-fluidity-is-not-a-new-phenomenon-auid-3503 We often look back at previous generations with a sense of moral superiority. Yet throughout history, ideas about sex, gender, and identity often challenged the assumptions of their time. Professor Pamela Caughie argues that by moving past our patronizing view of the past, we can see that today’s debates are not a contemporary crisis, but a continuation of a much older, ongoing conversation about what it means to be human. For those who study the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a period known in literature and the arts as the modernist era, the concept of transgender is nothing new, even if that term wasn’t coined until around 1990. Before then, what we call transgender went by many terms: transsexualism, transvestitism, sexual intermediacy, contrary sexual feeling, even sexual identity, broadly conceived. Yet from social media to social policy, one would think transgender recently burst onto the scene, perpetrated by the forces... Mon, 23 Feb 2026 10:31:29 +0000 Pamela Caughie https://iai.tvarticles/gender-fluidity-is-not-a-new-phenomenon-auid-3503 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-researchers-need-spinoza-auid-3502 The mind-matter problem still haunts us to this day. The question of how and why consciousness and the physical world interact and influence one another remains a mystery. In response to this problem, the philosopher Spinoza argued that nature is constituted by something more fundamental than either the mental or the physical: something that contains both. Philosopher Jordi Galiano-Landeira here argues that Spinoza’s philosophy is panpsychist – matter contains mind – and that integrated-information theory can help solve some of the remaining problems with panpsychism.   In 2023, the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All At Once became a worldwide sensation. Its surreal humour and roller-coaster pace, from slow and mundane at the beginning to frantic chaos, complemented an original sci-fi storyline. The protagonist, Evelyn Quan Wang, transforms from a woman trapped in experiencing a monotonous, bureaucratically suffocating life ... Fri, 20 Feb 2026 11:30:07 +0000 Jordi Galiano Landeira https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-researchers-need-spinoza-auid-3502 https://iai.tvarticles/the-quantum-world-reveals-reality-is-made-of-relations-not-objects-auid-3501 We assume that objects are more fundamental than the relationships between those objects. However, philosopher George Webster argues that quantum mechanics upends this common-sense picture. In the quantum world, relations like symmetry are more real than the particles themselves. But neither our everyday language, nor the language of logic favored by philosophers, can make sense of this. Webster suggests that we turn to the weird and wonderful language of Gilles Deleuze to truly comprehend the quantum picture of reality. The everyday picture: a world of objectsWe ordinarily think of the world as a collection of things or individual objects: tables, trees, planets, particles, people.This way of thinking is not only intuitive but also tremendously useful. Whether crossing a busy street or hunting prey, we survive by tracking the motions of objects—judging t... Thu, 19 Feb 2026 10:05:54 +0000 George Webster https://iai.tvarticles/the-quantum-world-reveals-reality-is-made-of-relations-not-objects-auid-3501 https://iai.tvarticles/nuclear-waste-heat-can-turn-deserts-into-farmland-auid-3500 Current climate policies will take almost 200 years to reach the 2050 emissions targets and require almost $100 trillion in investments. By attempting to meet unrealistic targets we’ll leave future generations with failed policy and the debt to go with it. Jan Emblemsvåg, Professor in the Department of Ocean Operations and Civil Engineering at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, argues that nuclear energy is the only viable solution to our climate crisis, and that the excess heat nuclear energy generates can create cheap, plentiful water that can be used to convert carbon into agricultural land and forests. The world has decarbonized by 10.2% over the last 20 years. Most people believe that this is the result of current climate policies; however, as shown in a new scientific and peer-reviewed article, it is not.  Only 5.2% of decarbonization is attribu... Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:22:20 +0000 Jan Emblemsvåg https://iai.tvarticles/nuclear-waste-heat-can-turn-deserts-into-farmland-auid-3500 https://iai.tvarticles/nietzsche-was-not-a-relativist-auid-3497 Friedrich Nietzsche is often seen as the prophet of anarchic relativism. His notorious claim that "there are no facts, only interpretations" appears to license a world of competing narratives and alternative facts. But did Nietzsche think that anything goes? In this article, Kathleen Higgins revisits his perspectivalism and his debt to Immanuel Kant, arguing that Nietzsche did not abandon truth but reconceived it. By recognizing the inescapable role of human perspective, he calls not for relativism, but a deeper and fuller objectivity which tests our interpretations against evidence and against one another. We often hear that we live in a post-truth era. As opposed to a time when disagreements mostly concerned what to do in light of the facts, now people disagree about the facts themselves. And it is hard to deny that polarization is widespread in ... Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:46:52 +0000 Kathleen Higgins https://iai.tvarticles/nietzsche-was-not-a-relativist-auid-3497 https://iai.tvarticles/equanimity-and-the-virtue-of-a-useless-mind-auid-3496 In a culture obsessed with optimisation, equanimity — the quality of maintaining inner balance and steadiness — is widely praised as a productivity tool. But what if its defining feature is its absolute uselessness? Psychoanalyst Michael Uebel argues that even within philosophical Buddhism and psychology, equanimity is too often treated as a means to an end, when its essence lies instead in aiming at, and achieving, absolutely nothing. The value of practicing equanimity is widely celebrated and indeed taken for granted—for example, in ancient Greek philosophy and Buddhism, and especially in the contemporary psychologies that derive from both. But what if the facet of equanimity that most clearly reflects its essence is its absolute uselessness? Here, I want to explore the meanings of equanimity, both received and radical, in order to highlight the nonutility ... Mon, 16 Feb 2026 10:25:09 +0000 Michael Uebel https://iai.tvarticles/equanimity-and-the-virtue-of-a-useless-mind-auid-3496 https://iai.tvarticles/were-risking-it-all-for-beauty-auid-3495 Beauty is often dismissed as superficial, but philosopher Heather Widdows argues it has quietly become the most valuable good in modern life. From risky cosmetic procedures to the relentless gaze of social media, we repeatedly prioritise appearance over health, education, even safety. If beauty now shapes our opportunities and life chances so powerfully, it can no longer be dismissed as a private obsession: it is a political and ethical issue that calls for serious public scrutiny and stronger regulation. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.” Beauty, we are told, is trivial and unimportant. To care about how we look, whether we are thin, firm, smooth, and young enough, is to care about the wrong things. Beauty is valued by the superficial, the young, the unserious. Not by the serious, clever and wise.___... Fri, 13 Feb 2026 10:27:09 +0000 Heather Widdows https://iai.tvarticles/were-risking-it-all-for-beauty-auid-3495 https://iai.tvarticles/the-divide-between-mind-and-world-is-shallower-than-we-suppose-auid-3494 From Kant to Derrida, philosophers have argued that we are prisoners of our own subjectivity, forever cut off from reality as it is in itself. But philosopher Danielle Macbeth argues that this skepticism arises from a fundamental misunderstanding of reality, which sees it as a meaningless, disenchanted realm, with meaning located purely in our minds. Instead, she argues, the world outside our heads comes, in the course of our inquiries, to be revealed to be rich with meaning and significance that our rational minds can literally hook onto and grasp in thought—and thereby come to know. We are, so it seems, directly aware of things in the world, other people and various sorts of events and objects. But do we really know such things? Can we know them? Knowing is, after all, an achievement: it is of things as they are as contrasted with how I, we, or anyone takes them to be. But even when (so we think) we know things as they are,... Thu, 12 Feb 2026 09:46:02 +0000 Danielle Macbeth https://iai.tvarticles/the-divide-between-mind-and-world-is-shallower-than-we-suppose-auid-3494 https://iai.tvarticles/gentle-parenting-is-doomed-to-fail-auid-3493 Children are active evolutionary agents adapted to extract the maximum resources from their environment, argues evolutionary psychologist Maryanne Fisher. She reveals why parenting fads like “gentle parenting” or “tiger parenting” that promise perfect harmony inevitably fail; and how we might better design social policy to support families as they actually exist, rather than as we wish them to be. The family tug-of-war We tend to view the family unit through a lens of inherent altruism. Parents are providers, children are receivers, and the entire family structure is magically engineered for mutual cooperation. When conflict arises, like when siblings fight over a toy, or a child demands attention at the expense of a parent’s exhaustion, we often treat these moments as aberrations, failures of discipline, or developmental hiccups to be smoothed over with the right technique. “If only I were better at applying ... Wed, 11 Feb 2026 09:46:29 +0000 Maryanne Fisher https://iai.tvarticles/gentle-parenting-is-doomed-to-fail-auid-3493 https://iai.tvarticles/art-is-never-a-representation-of-reality-auid-3492 Art is often seen as a representation of reality, with style understood as a way of dressing the same neutral content in different forms. But philosopher Derek Allan argues that no such neutral content exists. Even photographs, silhouettes, or bare outlines already involve interpretation, and when stripped of style, images often become unintelligible rather than more “realistic.” Art, he argues, is an act of transformation that creates a rival world rather than mirroring the existing one. The question of whether or not art is essentially a representation of reality has long been a bone of contention among philosophers of art, especially in the major branch of that discipline called the analytic philosophy of art, or analytic aesthetics. Some philosophers seem convinced that art is essentially representation, although they’re usually forced to resort to rather tortuous reasoning w... Tue, 10 Feb 2026 11:14:40 +0000 Derek Allan https://iai.tvarticles/art-is-never-a-representation-of-reality-auid-3492 https://iai.tvarticles/deja-vu-reveals-the-peculiar-hidden-workings-of-time-and-memory-auid-3488 Déjà vu, the perceived memory of an event happening in the present moment, is one of the most peculiar human experiences there is. It can make us feel as if we have lived our lives before, exactly as they are now - echoing Nietzsche's eternal return perhaps. Here, philosopher Sam Woolfe, argues déjà vu is the merging of the virtual and actual worlds. The world of memory, imagination and so on, is the virtual. The actual is our shared reality. When the two meet, déjà vu occurs, and we have the strange feeling we have been here before. In an intriguing essay titled ‘Memory of the Present and False Recognition’ (1908), the French philosopher Henri Bergson proposes that déjà vu is the result of memory and perception becoming intertwined in the present moment. This is based on his supposition that memory and perception – the past and the present – occur simultaneously. The British philosophe... Mon, 09 Feb 2026 10:07:38 +0000 Sam Woolfe https://iai.tvarticles/deja-vu-reveals-the-peculiar-hidden-workings-of-time-and-memory-auid-3488 https://iai.tvarticles/world-politics-is-a-shared-myth-one-we-can-change-from-the-bottom-up-auid-3487 As the liberal international order unravels, global politics is entering an interregnum where old institutions persist but no longer persuade. Political theorists Jeremy Moulton and Nicolai Gellwitzki argue that what is collapsing is not just global order but the political myths that once gave it meaning. As empire returns to public discourse, shifting stories of power and legitimacy are reshaping what states see as possible in world politics. In 2026, the world finds itself in a moment of transition, an interregnum. To borrow an often cited line from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks: “the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Much can be said about this moment, about transformations of the global order, material capacities, late capitalism, or the rise of fascism around the world. These are all urgent concerns. Yet,... Fri, 06 Feb 2026 10:29:06 +0000 Jeremy Moulton https://iai.tvarticles/world-politics-is-a-shared-myth-one-we-can-change-from-the-bottom-up-auid-3487 https://iai.tvarticles/the-economy-needs-the-creative-destruction-of-a-recession-auid-3485 Conventional wisdom says we must avoid recessions at all costs. This is a fatal mistake, argues Gunther Schnabl, named one of Germany’s most influential economists by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. By using government stimulus to put failing firms on life support, states are trapping capital in “zombie” companies and strangling creative newcomers. Europe in particular is now paying the price for a paralyzing fear of recession. Only a dose of “creative destruction”—as seen in Javier Milei’s Argentina—can save it. 1. Keynes reloadedFor decades, economic policy in the advanced economies has been guided by a seemingly self-evident objective: recessions must be prevented at all costs. Whenever a crisis hit, growth slowed down or other threats emerged, central banks and governments intervened with monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and regulatory expans... Thu, 05 Feb 2026 10:30:00 +0000 Gunther Schnabl https://iai.tvarticles/the-economy-needs-the-creative-destruction-of-a-recession-auid-3485 https://iai.tvarticles/creativity-is-about-rebellion-not-productivity-auid-3486 Creativity is everywhere: demanded by employers, schools, politicians, and now algorithms. But when it is framed as a skill to be optimized and monetized, it risks losing the radical power that once made it transformative. Oli Mould, author of Against Creativity, argues that real creativity is not about constant innovation or productivity, but about imagination, refusal, and collective change, and that reclaiming it may be one of the most urgent political tasks of our time. Being “creative” is now essential. That is, if you view it through the lens that has been created (and curated) for us by the political and economic orthodoxy of the last half a century. Specifically, I like to draw that line in 1997 with the landslide election of Tony Blair as the UK prime minister, in that it created the now internationally-recognized remit of the “creative industries” as an economic and political entity—but the lens was being crafted well before... Wed, 04 Feb 2026 11:27:54 +0000 Oli Mould https://iai.tvarticles/creativity-is-about-rebellion-not-productivity-auid-3486 https://iai.tvarticles/meaning-in-life-and-the-misguided-denial-of-death-auid-3484 In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Denial of Death, anthropologist Ernest Becker argues that most human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death. However, psychologists Joshua Hicks and Yuhui Du argue that denying death is not the answer. Rather, increased awareness of death often increases meaning in life. Death makes life more coherent, purposeful, and significant, and by embracing death, we can be more ready to die with the knowledge that we will leave something meaningful behind. William James famously observed that “death is the worm at the core of human existence.” Despite our meaningful relationships, notable successes, and cherished pleasures, we remain aware that all of it will one day end, often sooner than we would like, and at a time we cannot predict. Although there is no escaping this insurmountable existential threat, we possess the psychological capacity to make the awareness of death ... Tue, 03 Feb 2026 09:55:22 +0000 Joshua Hicks https://iai.tvarticles/meaning-in-life-and-the-misguided-denial-of-death-auid-3484 https://iai.tvarticles/indias-independence-from-global-blocs-is-the-future-auid-3481 India has been criticised by Donald Trump and Western leaders for refusing to fall into line, from buying Russian oil to resisting pressure to choose sides between Washington and Beijing. But what looks like defiance may be foresight: Narain D. Batra argues that India’s commitment to strategic autonomy, maintaining relations across rival powers while safeguarding its own interests, is not an anomaly but a blueprint for a world moving beyond rigid blocs. As Western states quietly recalibrate their own China policies, India’s much-maligned independence begins to look less like exceptionalism and more like an early response to an emerging multipolar order.                  Early December last year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi with visible warmth and embrace, the reaction in Was... Mon, 02 Feb 2026 10:33:33 +0000 Narain D. Batra https://iai.tvarticles/indias-independence-from-global-blocs-is-the-future-auid-3481 https://iai.tvarticles/what-the-left-gets-wrong-about-iran-auid-3480 Many on the Western Left have been silent on recent events in Iran. Some have even openly supported the Islamic Republic as a bulwark against Western imperialism, downplaying domestic coercion as the price necessary to counter Western aggression. But according to philosophers Patrick Hassan and Hossein Dabbagh, this is a fundamental mistake. Treating Iran as an anti-imperialist force fails to recognize that in foreign affairs Iran, like all other states, acts not on behalf of lofty anti-imperialist principles but according to hard-nosed realism. And even on its own terms of countering Western influence and retaining sovereignty, Iran has failed. The Left rightly denounces Western repression at home and abroad, Hassan and Dabbagh argue, and it’s time to denounce it in the case of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran is currently undergoing one of the most significant periods of domestic turmoil since its inception in 1979. At the... Fri, 30 Jan 2026 09:41:43 +0000 Hossein Dabbagh https://iai.tvarticles/what-the-left-gets-wrong-about-iran-auid-3480 https://iai.tvarticles/100-years-of-quantum-mechanics-a-new-approach-is-needed-auid-3479 100 years on from the birth of quantum mechanics, philosopher of physics Emily Adlam argues that the quantum measurement problem remains in urgent need of a solution. It continues to raise fundamental questions about why measurements yield definite outcomes, meaningful probabilities, and shared evidence. Adlam argues that the leading interpretations of quantum mechanics still fail to explain these basic features of measurement—threatening the whole edifice of scientific method and theory. The year 2025 marked the official 100th anniversary of quantum mechanics, commemorating Heisenberg’s 1925 paper “On the Quantum-theoretical reinterpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations.” The theory has been extremely successful in those 100 years—and yet, even after 100 years, there is still no consensus on what it is actually tel... Thu, 29 Jan 2026 09:46:17 +0000 Emily Adlam https://iai.tvarticles/100-years-of-quantum-mechanics-a-new-approach-is-needed-auid-3479 https://iai.tvarticles/the-us-has-already-lost-the-arctic-war-auid-3478 Beneath the headlines about Trump’s ambition to take Greenland lies an even more troubling story of brewing superpower conflict in the Arctic. Award-winning journalist Kenneth Rosen argues that years of American failure and ineptitude in the polar north have left it defenceless there against China and Russia, at a time when a warming climate makes the region more strategically crucial than ever. One could be forgiven for thinking tensions in the Arctic, perhaps most prominently embodied by President Donald Trump’s egregious campaign to “get” and secure Greenland as another American territory, came out of nowhere. But it did not. Historically, the American desire to control Greenland has existed nearly as long as America itself. It was not Trump’s rhetoric of a takeover that struck me during my years spent traveling and reporting on the circumpolar North. It was... Wed, 28 Jan 2026 09:39:46 +0000 Kenneth R. Rosen https://iai.tvarticles/the-us-has-already-lost-the-arctic-war-auid-3478 https://iai.tvarticles/leibniz-provides-the-blueprint-for-panpsychism-auid-3477 The panpsychist claim that reality's fundamental constituents are conscious is increasingly popular, but it faces an unanswerable question: how can conscious fragments fuse to make up complex minds? Philosopher S. Siddharth argues that the solution requires venturing where those sympathetic to panpsychism, from William James to David Chalmers, have feared to tread: the weird metaphysics of German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. Reviving Leibniz’s “monads,” Siddharth envisages a reality composed of indivisible centers of experience, which neither fuse nor split, but are rigorously singular, sidestepping the question that plagues popular versions of panpsychism. Consciousness is at once what we are most familiar with, and a persistent mystery. The endurance of the mind-body problem across time and cultures, and the ... Tue, 27 Jan 2026 09:57:39 +0000 S. Siddharth https://iai.tvarticles/leibniz-provides-the-blueprint-for-panpsychism-auid-3477 https://iai.tvarticles/ai-does-not-have-copyright-auid-3476 As AI churns out increasingly convincing images, music, and prose, a chorus of voices from Big Tech and their academic followers claim machines should be recognized as authors. Caterina Moruzzi pushes back, arguing that authorship is not about output alone, but about agency, responsibility, and expression—qualities today’s AI systems do not possess. In 2018, the computer scientist Stephen Thaler applied to register the image titled A Recent Entrance to Paradise with the U.S. Copyright Office. On the application form he listed a generative system he created, the “Creativity Machine,” as the work’s sole author. After several requests for reconsideration, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued its final decision on March 18, 2025. The court framed the... Mon, 26 Jan 2026 10:07:33 +0000 Caterina Moruzzi https://iai.tvarticles/ai-does-not-have-copyright-auid-3476 https://iai.tvarticles/we-do-not-discover-reality-we-create-it-auid-3475 We tend to think reality is out there waiting to be discovered. But philosopher Manuel Delaflor argues that experience, meaning, and ontology are active constructions, not passive receptions of a knowable world. Once we see that categories are created, not discovered, realism gives way to responsibility, and the question shifts from what reality is, to what reality are we choosing to create. My sister is a graphic designer, someone who has spent two decades swimming in colour palettes. She once laid out some blues on her screen and asked me to name them. Azure, cerulean, cobalt, sapphire, she rattled off, pointing at squares I could only call “blue.” To her, they were as different as a dog and a horse. Her visual system had carved the continuous spectrum into slices mine simply could not access. That moment has stayed with me. If her blues are not my blues, and if training made the difference, then what else have I been missing? What categorie... Fri, 23 Jan 2026 10:22:17 +0000 Manuel Delaflor https://iai.tvarticles/we-do-not-discover-reality-we-create-it-auid-3475 https://iai.tvarticles/emotions-are-rational-auid-3474 Emotion is often portrayed as a threat to rational thought. Daniel Vanello argues the opposite: that emotions are themselves rational, shaped by our values and open to justification or criticism. If this is right, emotional development should not focus on control and management, but on learning how to reason with what we feel. Emotional development is central to a person’s wellbeing. Just think how important it is that we make and sustain attachments with others, both within the family and in society through friendships and romantic relationships. It would not be possible to do so without a balanced relationship with one’s emotions. Think of the person who is always too jealous and cannot preserve a romantic relationship. Or the person who is always angry at their parents and does not allow themselves to enjoy parental love.It is not a surprise then that emotional development is part of the ... Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:54:11 +0000 Daniel Vanello https://iai.tvarticles/emotions-are-rational-auid-3474 https://iai.tvarticles/new-black-hole-discovery-uncovers-our-failure-to-understand-reality-auid-3473 Astronomers have observed the effects of a rapidly spinning black hole twisting the motion of matter around it, a result widely interpreted by cosmologists as consistent with a century-old prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The finding is a striking achievement for modern physics. Yet philosopher Michael Kuznets argues that it also exposes a deeper tension at the heart of science itself: our most successful theories may excel at prediction while remaining silent about what the world is fundamentally made of. Recent observations suggesting that a rotating black hole drags spacetime around with it have been widely hailed as another decisive confirmation of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. The phenomenon, known as frame dragging and more formally as the Lense–Thirr... Wed, 21 Jan 2026 10:36:28 +0000 Michael Kuznets https://iai.tvarticles/new-black-hole-discovery-uncovers-our-failure-to-understand-reality-auid-3473 https://iai.tvarticles/trump-putin-and-the-return-of-the-great-man-theory-auid-3472 Thomas Carlyle famously declared that history is “the biography of great men,” a view long-since dismissed as we came to recognize the power of systemic economic and social conditions. But we underestimate the force of individual personalities at our peril, argues International Relations professor Rose McDermott. From Trump in Greenland to Putin in Ukraine, the psychologies and belief-systems of just a few individuals are driving geopolitics. To avoid catastrophic miscalculations, McDermott warns that we must stop relying on systemic models of change, and instead try to get into the heads of the leaders reshaping our world. If contemporary geopolitical events teach us anything, it is the power of individual leaders to exert decisive influence over the course of global history. Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s recent attack on Venezuela represent only two of the most obvious examples of leaders who override internati... Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:23:52 +0000 Rose McDermott https://iai.tvarticles/trump-putin-and-the-return-of-the-great-man-theory-auid-3472 https://iai.tvarticles/chinese-philosophys-case-against-preserving-the-dead-using-ai-auid-3470 The rise of AI chatbots trained on the words and habits of the deceased has revived an ancient human desire: to never say goodbye to the dead. These technologies are often marketed as emotional lifelines, yet critics worry they encourage denial, dependency, and refusal to let go. In this article, Pengbo Liu examines this issue by drawing from the Daoist thinker Zhuangzi's ideas of change, impermanence, and adaptation. Liu argues that for griefbots to help rather than harm, they should encourage eventual independence, not prolonged attachment — a goal that conflicts with engagement-driven business models and points to their use as therapeutic tools rather than entertainment products Recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible to generate text-based conversations that closely resemble those of a deceased person. By drawing on digital traces such as messages, emails, and social media posts, AI systems can now produce replies ... Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:49:27 +0000 Pengbo Liu https://iai.tvarticles/chinese-philosophys-case-against-preserving-the-dead-using-ai-auid-3470 https://iai.tvarticles/gratitude-is-the-antidote-to-pessimism-auid-3469 Life can sometimes be painful, and in the face of this, philosophy has often been seen as pessimistic and nihilistic. However, Nietzsche and Heidegger, in the face of life's hardship, often emphasised gratitude as of central importance. Philosopher Gigla Gonashvili argues thought itself can be viewed as an act of gratitude, with the shared characteristic between thinking and thanking being a recognition of the unasked-for gift of Being itself. Philosophy can include gratitude among its fundamental visions. This is evident in none other than Nietzsche and Heidegger. Thus, it is not only religious or, more generally, mindful practices that teach us the value of gratitude, but also philosophy itself. In fact, we can even bring together the insights from these different fields.Gratitude expresses a profound relation not only with our fellow beings but also with being itself. The big, so-called metaphysical questions—what is the ground of be... Fri, 16 Jan 2026 10:15:07 +0000 Gigla Gonashvili https://iai.tvarticles/gratitude-is-the-antidote-to-pessimism-auid-3469 https://iai.tvarticles/to-defend-international-order-we-must-paradoxically-pursue-the-national-interest-auid-3468 Trump’s extraction of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, and the justifications used to support it, show an abandonment of the international rules-based order in favour of an America-First focus on national interests. However, Associate Professor at UCL Philip Cunliffe argues the Trump Administration has misjudged what "national interest" really means. A country’s national interest should be thought of in terms of whether or not it effectively channels the will of that nation's citizens. In an era dominated by geopolitical rivalry, the nation is now the unit that counts on the global stage. And, paradoxically, a focus on national interest is the only way to re-ignite international cooperation.  With the US raid on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president Nicolas Maduro, it is clear that US President Donald Trump has abandoned a strategy of maintaining US global leadership in favor of asserting regional hegemony over the Western hemisphere a... Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:11:01 +0000 Philip Cunliffe https://iai.tvarticles/to-defend-international-order-we-must-paradoxically-pursue-the-national-interest-auid-3468 https://iai.tvarticles/realitys-foundations-lie-beyond-reason-auid-3467 We like to think of the world as ultimately fully intelligible, a place that we will one day be able to make complete sense of, emotionally and rationally, a place where we might feel at home. But while this dream has seduced philosophers and scientists alike, it's ultimately a fantasy, argues G. Anthony Bruno. Whenever we try to make sense of the world—through experience, reason, art, or anything else—we find that our activity is shaped by certain brute conditions that are simply given, without reason. Philosophy’s task is not to dispel this strangeness, but to find how to live productively within it. 1. Is reality fully explicable?We experience the world as a place we can make sense of—as intelligible. But what conditions make this possible? Kant argued that the world’s intelligibility conditions cannot themselves be given in experience without pushing back the question. But are these conditions given to us without an... Wed, 14 Jan 2026 10:17:37 +0000 G. Anthony Bruno https://iai.tvarticles/realitys-foundations-lie-beyond-reason-auid-3467 https://iai.tvarticles/aliens-might-not-have-the-same-physics-as-us-auid-3466 If we ever meet aliens, would their physics be the same as ours? While this might seem like a purely hypothetical, abstract question, it has profound consequences for what the pursuit of scientific truth actually is. Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine, Daniel Whiteson, argues that if alien physics is different from ours, then our theories are not as objective and universal as we often believe. The boldest claim of modern physics is not due to Einstein or Heisenberg. It’s Newton’s great leap to extend the reach of physics from Earth to the heavens. The same laws of physics that apply to apples, he claimed, should also govern the motion of the moon and the planets. While biology is limited to de... Tue, 13 Jan 2026 10:37:52 +0000 Daniel Whiteson https://iai.tvarticles/aliens-might-not-have-the-same-physics-as-us-auid-3466 https://iai.tvarticles/the-james-webb-space-telescope-reveals-an-early-universe-much-stranger-than-we-thought-auid-3464 The James Webb Space Telescope's view of the infant universe has delivered genuine surprises: bright galaxies, rapid star formation, and evidence of accreting black holes only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. These findings have ignited debates about whether our best cosmological theories can survive new data. In this article, astrophysicist Sandro Tacchella argues the crisis lies in the simplified assumptions long used to model early galaxy and black hole growth. The tension exposed by the JWST, he suggests, is a productive one—forcing us to rethink how complexity emerged in the early universe. However, we shouldn't completely throw out our theories just yet! In its first four years of operation, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has transformed our view of the early universe. With unprecedented infrared sensitivity and spectroscopic capability, it allows us to observe galaxies and black holes as they were when the cosmos w... Mon, 12 Jan 2026 10:52:00 +0000 Sandro Tacchella https://iai.tvarticles/the-james-webb-space-telescope-reveals-an-early-universe-much-stranger-than-we-thought-auid-3464 https://iai.tvarticles/us-national-security-strategy-venezuela-and-why-the-world-just-turned-upside-down-auid-3463 The US’s National Security Strategy document lays out the Trump Administration’s guiding principles for the new world order. Drawing on the Monroe Doctrine, the Western Hemisphere, including Greenland, Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America, the US claim, is the US’s to expand into and enlist – recent actions in Venezuela display this theme already being actioned. Furthermore, Europe, the Trump Administration suggests, will no longer be seen as a close or important ally. The document, and the actions already carrying it out, lay the way for a decade of geopolitical upheaval and a new carving up of the world between the great powers across their spheres of influence. Former intelligence officer in the British Army, Andy Owen, outlines the geopolitical themes that will define 2026 and that will shape the next decade. The End of Ideology? With the rise of American hegemony at the end of the Cold War, Western liberal... Fri, 09 Jan 2026 10:43:16 +0000 Andy Owen https://iai.tvarticles/us-national-security-strategy-venezuela-and-why-the-world-just-turned-upside-down-auid-3463 https://iai.tvarticles/studies-reveal-the-real-political-divide-is-over-the-nature-of-morality-auid-3462 Today, many public debates escalate with striking speed — from whether a novel should be taught at school, to whether a statue should be torn down, or whether a public figure should be “cancelled”. We often take these clashes as the fight between conservatives and liberals. But social psychologist Namrata Goyal, drawing on research across 59 countries, argues that the real divide runs deeper: a psychological and philosophical split between moral absolutism and moral relativism. Understanding this divide, she suggests, is key to making sense of today’s culture wars — and for enabling effective dialogue between the left and the right. Why do so many disagreements today feel impossible to resolve? A debate over whether a novel should be taught in schools, whether a historical monument should stay or be removed, or whether a public figure deserves forgiveness can escalate rapidly. One person insists a line has been crossed and that certain actions... Thu, 08 Jan 2026 10:19:14 +0000 Namrata Goyal https://iai.tvarticles/studies-reveal-the-real-political-divide-is-over-the-nature-of-morality-auid-3462 https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-mechanics-works-but-it-doesnt-describe-reality-auid-3461 Physicists like Sean Carroll argue not only that quantum mechanics is not only a valuable way of interpreting the world, but actually describes reality, and that the central equation of quantum mechanics – the wave function – describes a real object in the world. But philosophers Raoni Arroyo and Jonas R. Becker Arenhart warn that the arguments for wave-function realism are deeply confused. At best, they show only that the wave function is a useful element inside the theoretical framework of quantum mechanics. But this goes no way whatsoever to showing that this framework should be interpreted as true or that its elements are real. The wavefunction realists are confusing two different levels of debate and lack any justification for their realism. The real question is: does a theory need to be true to be useful? 1. Wavefunction realismQuantum mechanics is probably... Wed, 07 Jan 2026 09:46:19 +0000 Raoni Arroyo https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-mechanics-works-but-it-doesnt-describe-reality-auid-3461 https://iai.tvarticles/everyones-a-nationalist-the-left-needs-to-accept-this-auid-3460 Nationalism tends to be seen as radical and is associated mainly with far-right politics. However, Siniša Malešević argues that this understanding of nationalism is narrow and misleading. In fact, nationalism is ubiquitous within our culture, from national pride to sport to religion. Progressives must therefore repurpose nationalism, not by copying the discourse of the political right, but by looking back to nationalism’s origins in the French Revolution and the ideas of liberté, égalité and fraternité. Progressives must focus on commonly built and used institutions, shared everyday values and practices, and the common lived experiences of citizens inhabiting the same nation-state.  In contemporary public discourse, nationalism is regularly associated with radical politics. This label is typically attached to far-right movements that deploy populist rhetoric and promote nativist ideas and militant anti-immigrant policies, such as the Sweden De... Tue, 06 Jan 2026 10:23:17 +0000 Siniša Malešević https://iai.tvarticles/everyones-a-nationalist-the-left-needs-to-accept-this-auid-3460 https://iai.tvarticles/europes-last-hope-in-the-ai-race-auid-3453 The global AI boom is built on staggering inefficiency: repurposed videogame chips, vast energy waste, and escalating costs. While the US and China race blindly ahead, philosopher of mind and the Founder and CEO at Euclyd, a Dutch company developing chips and systems for core AI datacentre compute, Bernardo Kastrup, argues that Europe has an overlooked opportunity to redesign AI hardware itself, and in doing so reclaim technological sovereignty. As a philosopher of mind and computer engineer, AI is the one topic that connects both of my professional aspirations. And since this powerful new technology is bound to shape the future of civilization, either supporting or undermining our ways of life, the survival of European values so consistent with my own idealist views—such as personal liberty, liberal democracy, human rights, equality of opportunity, consumer protections, distribution of power, etc.—will largely depend on how we manage the ongo... Mon, 05 Jan 2026 12:39:49 +0000 Bernardo Kastrup https://iai.tvarticles/europes-last-hope-in-the-ai-race-auid-3453 https://iai.tvarticles/the-ideas-that-will-transform-the-world-in-2026-auid-3449 What will matter philosophically in 2026 is not a single grand theory, but the ideas people are already using to make sense of a world under strain. As political authority weakens, technologies accelerate faster than our capacity to govern them, and scientific power shifts from explanation to intervention, familiar frameworks for knowledge, meaning and responsibility are beginning to fail.In this IAI News feature, a series of short reflections from across philosophy, science, politics and culture set out what their authors see as the most important ideas shaping the year ahead. Contributors Minna Salami, Cory Doctorow, Guy Standing, Paul Davies, Sophie Scott-Brown, Ivette Fuentes, and Nolen Gertz offer concise provocations rather than extended arguments.Many of these contributors will be joining us at H... Sun, 28 Dec 2025 19:00:00 +0000 IAI Editorial https://iai.tvarticles/the-ideas-that-will-transform-the-world-in-2026-auid-3449 https://iai.tvarticles/the-disunity-of-science-is-a-feature-not-a-bug-auid-3451 Mathematical models wield miraculous power, but mistaking them for reality has trapped science in a destructive quest for a “Theory of Everything.” Physicist and philosopher Ragner Fjelland argues that this leads to bloated, Frankenstein theories kept alive by clumsy, ad-hoc amendments, which reduce rather than boost science’s power. Fjelland calls for a radical shift in our attitude: we must reorientate towards creating entirely new theories, celebrating rather than lamenting disunity and diversity in science. Science, from the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century to the present day, has more or less developed in a “reductionist” way. The fundamental assumption is that all sciences may be ordered in a hierarchy that can be represented as an upside-down pyramid. At the top we find the human sciences, and at the bottom physics. Strong (or “ontological”) reductionism maintains that all theories at one level can be completely reduced ... Tue, 23 Dec 2025 12:44:49 +0000 Ragnar Fjelland https://iai.tvarticles/the-disunity-of-science-is-a-feature-not-a-bug-auid-3451 https://iai.tvarticles/ai-is-a-marketing-trick-auid-3450 Tech giants promise AI’s ability to “understand” and “reason,” and even the dawn of AGI. Yet philosopher and futurist, Aleksandra Przegalińska, argues that today’s models remain powerful pattern-matchers, not thinking machines. She warns that the collapse of conceptual precision in AI discourse has inflated expectations, obscured limitations, and encouraged dangerous deployments. To grasp what these systems can genuinely do—and what they fundamentally cannot—we must return to philosophical clarity about the nature of intelligence. When a chatbot passes a bar exam, tech companies announce the dawn of artificial general intelligence. When an algorithm recognizes cats in photographs, we’re told machines now “understand” visual information. ... Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:53:19 +0000 Aleksandra Przegalińska https://iai.tvarticles/ai-is-a-marketing-trick-auid-3450 https://iai.tvarticles/the-next-scientific-revolution-wont-come-from-scientists-auid-3448 Thomas Kuhn taught us that scientific revolutions arrive only in moments of a crisis of the paradigm. Now, as philosopher Steve Fuller argues, we may be able to intervene without having to wait for a Kuhnian paradigm shift. In a scientific world dominated by computer simulations and unread research, generative AI offers a radical solution. By mining the entirety of scientific knowledge and placing it in the hands of non-experts, AI could trigger a metascientific revolution—one that finally delivers on science’s promise of collective empowerment. The most influential work on the nature of science for at least the past fifty years has been The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, first published in 1962 by a young physicist-turned-historian, Thomas Kuhn. Although influential, the book has also been widely misunderstood. It is quite common to think—certainly b... Fri, 19 Dec 2025 11:26:37 +0000 Steve Fuller https://iai.tvarticles/the-next-scientific-revolution-wont-come-from-scientists-auid-3448 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-breaks-from-the-physical-world-by-keeping-the-past-alive-auid-3447 Conscious experiences of change, from seeing a bird take flight to listening to a melody, cannot be broken down into ever smaller units of experience. They must inhabit what William James called the “specious present,” a sliding window of time where the immediate past and present overlap. Philosopher Lyu Zhou argues that this exposes a deep rift between mind and matter. When the physical world undergoes change, it does so through succession – one physical state replaces another, and the past is gone – whereas consciousness requires the active retention of the past inside the present, revealing its fundamentally non-physical nature. 1. Consciousness, change and timeYou are now conscious as you read this article. Is your consciousness physical? Many today think it is. They claim that it either is a physical system made of matter – most likely the neural network of your brain – or is realized by matter through a physical p... Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:00:00 +0000 Lyu Zhou https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-breaks-from-the-physical-world-by-keeping-the-past-alive-auid-3447 https://iai.tvarticles/everything-in-the-universe-is-a-quantum-wave-auid-3446 A radical new interpretation of quantum mechanics is offered here. Professor of Quantum Information Science at the University of Oxford, Vlatko Vedral, argues that everything in the universe is a quantum wave. The difficulty of uniting the classical world and the quantum world is overcome; everything is quantum, and the quantum gives rise to the classical. His theory also overcomes the measurement problem, the observer problem, and the problem of quantum entanglement (spooky action at a distance). Poof goes the classical world! There are, I believe, two main reasons why physics seems stuck at present. The last revolution was quantum mechanics and it began with Heisenberg’s famous paper exactly 100 years ago. And since then, not a single experiment has challenged the quantum description of reality. Not one. The... Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:58:00 +0000 Vlatko Vedral https://iai.tvarticles/everything-in-the-universe-is-a-quantum-wave-auid-3446 https://iai.tvarticles/technology-is-the-only-thing-that-has-ever-reduced-poverty-auid-3445 Public debate increasingly casts technology as a threat — to jobs, to equality, even to civilisation itself. In this article, environmental activist Zion Lights challenges that narrative, showing that every major improvement in human wellbeing, from rising life expectancy to declining famine, has its roots in technological advance rather than moral evolution or political reform. Tracing developments from mechanised agriculture to AI-driven healthcare, Lights argues that technological innovation has quietly saved more lives than any social programme. Drawing on global evidence, it reveals why resisting technology out of fear risks entrenching the very poverty and vulnerability we seek to avoid. Without technology, we’d still be living in povertyCultural memory is selective. We romanticize earlier centuries as if comfort, stability, and abundance were their default conditions. We inhabit the best-documented improvement in human wellbeing ... Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:00:00 +0000 Zion Lights https://iai.tvarticles/technology-is-the-only-thing-that-has-ever-reduced-poverty-auid-3445 https://iai.tvarticles/the-psychedelic-turn-in-spirituality-auid-3444 Psychedelic churches, religious organizations that treat substances like ayahuasca or psilocybin as sacred tools for ritual practice, are rapidly proliferating across the United States, operating with varying degrees of legal protection. Eric Steinhart, author of Atheistic Platonism: A Manifesto, argues that their survival depends on philosophy. Drawing on ancient Platonism, modern jurisprudence and the emerging ethics of psychedelic practice, this article explores why these new psychedelic churches need philosophy as much as they need their sacraments. New psychedelic churches are appearing all over the United States. The term “church” is a legal convention – it doesn’t imply Christianity. It’s estimated that there are at least five hundred of these new psychedelic churches. They emerged through recent religious freedom laws and Supreme Court rulings. Four of them have explicit legal permission to use psychedelics in their rituals: t... Mon, 15 Dec 2025 12:00:00 +0000 Eric Steinhart https://iai.tvarticles/the-psychedelic-turn-in-spirituality-auid-3444 https://iai.tvarticles/we-must-fight-to-prevent-war-auid-3443 The prevalence of hybrid war is increasing. From Russian drones flying into NATO airspace, to cyberattacks and political interference, to the US seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker, war is now rarely black and white, but exists in the grey. Former British Intelligence officer Andy Owen argues the same game-theoretic logic we apply to hot wars needs to be applied in hybrid warfare too. Incursions should be responded to proportionally. If we don't respond, hybrid war will only spread and expand, and could even turn hot. As the US-backed “liberal international order” in place since the end of the Second World War is collapsing under the pressure of increasing geopolitical competition and internal fragmentation, so too is our understanding of the dichotomy of war and peace. Competition is manifesting in conventional wars, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but also an increasing number of “grey-zone confl... Fri, 12 Dec 2025 12:00:00 +0000 Andy Owen https://iai.tvarticles/we-must-fight-to-prevent-war-auid-3443 https://iai.tvarticles/following-your-passion-can-be-a-dangerous-mistake-auid-3442 “Follow your passion” has become the go-to message in nearly every commencement speech and career guide. But social psychologists Paul A. O’Keefe and E. J. Horberg argue this advice is not a universal truth but a cultural artefact — one rooted in Western individualism and sustained by economic privilege. In cultures that prize interdependence and pragmatism, passion is treated with caution. Drawing on new cross-cultural psychological studies, this article reveals the dangers when we mistake the passion narrative – which is a culturally specific ideal – for a universal human need. In 2005, Steve Jobs stood before a graduating class at Stanford University and delivered one of the most famous pieces of career advice in modern history. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life,” he told them, “and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love wh... Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:18:52 +0000 Paul A. O'Keefe https://iai.tvarticles/following-your-passion-can-be-a-dangerous-mistake-auid-3442 https://iai.tvarticles/the-selfish-myth-driving-modern-economics-auid-3441 Beneath the clash between selfishness and solidarity lies an evolutionary truth: humans survived not just by competing, but by caring. Yet neoliberalism has treated only one side of our nature as real, redesigning society around the fiction of the purely rational, selfish actor. Paul Deutchman of University of Pennsylvania, drawing on his research into evolutionary psychology and human behavior, explains how this misreading now underpins inequality, democratic decay, and a fraying sense of the common good. To rebuild institutions worthy of us, we must reclaim the cooperative instincts that shaped our minds and design a political economy that lets both sides of our nature work in tandem. There is a fundamental tension at the heart of human nature—we’re both inherently selfish yet also incredibly altruistic. We are capable of pillaging, oppression, and slaughter, yet we’re also capable of compassion, loving kindness, and self-sacrifice. While th... Wed, 10 Dec 2025 12:00:00 +0000 Paul Deutchman https://iai.tvarticles/the-selfish-myth-driving-modern-economics-auid-3441 https://iai.tvarticles/metaphysics-is-a-strange-but-essential-project-auid-3440 Metaphysics is both irresistible and absurd. It promises to reveal fundamental reality, yet makes no progress, forever circling back to millennia-old questions. Metaphysics cannot progress like an ordinary science, argues German metaphysician Sebastian Rödl, because its subject—being itself—isn’t one object among others. Yet it also cannot be dismissed as empty posturing, because every science presupposes a grasp of what it means to say that something is. Consciousness, on Rödl’s view, is not ultimately an awareness of separate objects, but rather an openness to being, from which we build the world of objects. Metaphysics is the project—strange but essential—of becoming aware of this openness. What is metaphysics?Metaphysics is Janus-faced. It is attractive, even seductive. It appears to concern itself with what ultimately matters, with what matters if anything does. Therefore even, or especially, outside academia, ther... Tue, 09 Dec 2025 10:27:15 +0000 Sebastian Rödl https://iai.tvarticles/metaphysics-is-a-strange-but-essential-project-auid-3440 https://iai.tvarticles/heidegger-poetry-and-the-cure-for-technology-auid-3439 Contemporary life is dominated by technology that makes it difficult to be present with one another, to take time to make decisions, to concentrate fully on others. Philosopher Mathilde Nielsen argues that we can look to Heidegger to make sense of this predicament. His turn to poetry in his later years allowed him to find a way to resist technology's dominance in his day. We can do the same. The simple act of reading poetry can expand our ethical horizons by requiring us to focus and care for something outside ourselves. Heidegger's idea of "dwelling" in poetry can teach us how to live more ethically. In his later years, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) turned to poetry as the best way to do philosophy, as he found in poetry what he was struggling to find elsewhere: a place where he could think deeply and meaningfully. He called this place “the clearing,” as in the clearing of a forest, and held that once one was there, one ... Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:12:18 +0000 Mathilde Nielsen https://iai.tvarticles/heidegger-poetry-and-the-cure-for-technology-auid-3439 https://iai.tvarticles/why-reason-must-destroy-society-auid-3438 Many have tried to ground social order in reason. But according to Steve Fuller, such attempts are bound to fail. Reason is inherently anti-social, Fuller argues, because it treats society’s institutions—whether they be a political regime or scientific paradigm—as temporary arrangements. Subjected to the critical eye of reason, the world as it is holds value only as a means to some higher end. As such, reason is not a vehicle for stability, but a catalyst for permanent revolution. Why is it that whenever highly rational beings are placed in charge of anything, there are likely to be disruptive social consequences?  The single-minded scientist, the efficiency expert, and the superintelligent machine stand out as exemplars familiar from both fact and fiction. Nowadays, it’s easy to reduce the problem to one of lacking “people skills,” which in the case of humans might be diagnosed along the autism spectrum. However, I believe that the problem li... Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:21:03 +0000 Steve Fuller https://iai.tvarticles/why-reason-must-destroy-society-auid-3438 https://iai.tvarticles/slavoj-zizek-on-quantum-history-and-the-end-of-the-past-auid-3437 Dismissing the hope that either science or democracy will deliver a coherent future, Slavoj Žižek argues that quantum mechanics demands a new philosophy of “quantum history,” in which reality is incomplete and events retroactively reshape the past they emerge from. In conversation with IAI Contributing Editor Omari Edwards, Žižek connects this ontological uncertainty to contemporary politics, from AI and climate change to Trumpism and thinkers such as Curtis Yarvin and Wang Huning, claiming that the collapse of the liberal center is ushering in a new authoritarian moment. Interviewing Slavoj Žižek is like trying to divert a crowd already surging toward violence. Not with authority, not with barricades, but by stepping into its path and hoping that a sudden question, a sharp interruption, or a desperate redirection might slightly bend its trajectory before impact. There is always the sense that, if you misjudge the timing or the angle, the whol... Thu, 04 Dec 2025 13:14:42 +0000 Slavoj Žižek https://iai.tvarticles/slavoj-zizek-on-quantum-history-and-the-end-of-the-past-auid-3437 https://iai.tvarticles/organisms-are-musicians-not-machines-auid-3436 The living cell, once thought to be a precise molecular factory, is turning out to be more like an improvising jazz ensemble. The old dogma—one gene, one protein, one function—has collapsed. Molecular biologist Ewa Grzybowska argues that recent discoveries show that proteins can switch folds, shift shapes, or even remain gloriously unstructured, improvising their roles as they go. Genes are not blueprints but texts, open to continuous interpretation by cells. Life, it turns out, is not built like a machine but is instead fluid, improvisational, and brimming with creative possibility.  1. The old paradigms in biologyWhen Watson and Crick decoded DNA in 1953 and the mechanism of protein-making was discovered, we obtained an extraordinary tool to explain the inner workings of life. The basic principle of maki... Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:02:06 +0000 Ewa Grzybowska https://iai.tvarticles/organisms-are-musicians-not-machines-auid-3436 https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-realism-is-impossible-auid-3432 Quantum mechanics started out by saying access to fundamental reality was impossible. And from the outset, some imagined that quantum mechanics would eventually eliminate the importance of human measurement in determining reality. Yet a century on, the measurement problem still refuses to disappear, and the new generation of quantum technologies, from quantum computers to quantum sensors, only makes it harder to ignore. As theory becomes engineering, Paul Davies argues that every attempt to “save” traditional views of realism fail, and that physics can no longer avoid confronting the role of observation in the structure of reality itself. Omari Edwards: Quantum mechanics is a century old this year, and you have been working in the field your whole career. Why did it feel like the right moment now to write a book explicitly about quantum mechanics and call it ... Tue, 02 Dec 2025 11:55:24 +0000 Paul Davies https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-realism-is-impossible-auid-3432 https://iai.tvarticles/science-must-move-from-materialism-to-mystery-auid-3430 Theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that modern science has become trapped in a framework that mistakes matter for the whole of reality. In this wide-ranging interview, Gómez-Marín challenges the foundations of materialism, defends the scientific study of near-death experiences, and calls for a new type of science grounded in mystery and a renewed sense of the sacred. He suggests that abandoning materialism could open the door to a deeper understanding of consciousness, death, and the purpose of human existence. Simon Custer: You are both a theoretical physicist and a neuroscientist, and you have also been fiercely critical of materialist theories of mind and consciousness. What do you think the ultimate nature of reality is?Àlex Gómez-Marín: I don't know what the ultimate nature of reality is, but what I try to first assess is whether the stories that they [mainstream science] have... Mon, 01 Dec 2025 10:43:45 +0000 Àlex Gómez-Marín https://iai.tvarticles/science-must-move-from-materialism-to-mystery-auid-3430 https://iai.tvarticles/emotion-and-memory-cant-be-safely-separated-auid-3429 Continuing the IAI’s current series on memory, ethicist and medical doctor Dominic Wilkinson critiques a fashionable new medical treatment, “memory reconsolidation,” which combines drugs with therapy to numb the emotional threads in painful memories. Since memory and emotion are fundamentally intertwined, Professor Wilkinson warns that this treatment could also edit the memories themselves, radically reshaping our identity. We must, he argues, place limits on the medicalization of our attempts to come to terms with emotional trauma. In my work as a specialist in newborn intensive care, I sometimes care for couples who have experienced one of the most distressing of life events—the loss of their loved newborn infant. The pain that they describe to me is all-consuming. Faced with such intense suffering, I often wish that I had something, anything, to assuage the... Fri, 28 Nov 2025 11:26:41 +0000 Dominc Wilkinson https://iai.tvarticles/emotion-and-memory-cant-be-safely-separated-auid-3429 https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-is-a-puzzle-that-fits-together-only-one-way-auid-3428 Heraclitus famously argued that you can't step into the same river twice. Here, philosopher JB Manchak argues that the whole universe is like that – and that such a universe has some interesting knock-on consequences. One being that although one can add more structure to a Heraclitus spacetime – by adding a big sign saying "here is the centre of the universe!" What one can’t do, Manchak argues, is reduce symmetries in a Heraclitus spacetime by adding such a sign. To illustrate the point, imagine the universe is a giant puzzle in which each event in space and time is a piece. In a non-Heraclitus universe, some pieces would be able to fit in several places. But in a Heraclitus universe, Manchak argues, there is exactly only one way to put the puzzle pieces of the universe together.  The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus is known for his theory of constant flux: “It is not possible to step twi... Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:16:04 +0000 JB Manchak https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-is-a-puzzle-that-fits-together-only-one-way-auid-3428 https://iai.tvarticles/anger-is-not-a-guide-to-truth-or-morality-auid-3427 In moments of anger, we often feel certain that our position is right, both morally and factually. Sometimes we even imagine we are right because we are angry. But as philosophers have long noted, anger is as prone to exaggeration, distortion, and self-justification as it is to truth. Philosopher Benjamin Matheson examines how anger can both reveal and obscure moral reality—and why treating anger as reliable, simply because it feels righteous, is a mistake. When we’re wronged, we often get angry. If someone cuts you off in traffic, you might angrily swear at them. If a friend betrays you, you might resent them and refuse to treat them with the same affection you once did. If a friend is violently attacked, you might feel indignant at the attackers. If your government is complicit in an atrocity, you might join with others in anger by protesting outside government buildings.But is such anger ever justified?It might at first seem strange to ask whe... Wed, 26 Nov 2025 11:45:01 +0000 Benjamin Matheson https://iai.tvarticles/anger-is-not-a-guide-to-truth-or-morality-auid-3427 https://iai.tvarticles/plato-vs-the-algorithm-beauty-is-the-path-to-virtue-auid-3426 In an age when beauty is shaped by algorithms and commercial pressure, it’s easy to dismiss it as shallow or morally corrosive. Yet, philosopher Panos Paris claims, this is a profound misunderstanding. For most of history, beauty was seen not as a trap, but as a necessary precondition for virtue: a capacity that, properly cultivated, could train our desires toward the good. If beauty shapes our desires from infancy, then rather than resisting its influence, we should harness it, rebuild our aesthetic taste, and even reshape our environments so that beauty becomes a compass for virtue rather than a force that deforms it. Over the last decade or so, I’ve been thinking about beauty, especially in relation to virtue and related values. Some of the evidence concerning the relationship between beauty and morality is truly eye-opening. People who are found more beautiful are treated better (and, unsurprisingly, those ... Tue, 25 Nov 2025 11:06:06 +0000 Panos Paris https://iai.tvarticles/plato-vs-the-algorithm-beauty-is-the-path-to-virtue-auid-3426 https://iai.tvarticles/beneath-the-us-china-rivalry-lies-a-battle-of-outdated-archetypes-auid-3425 The US-China rivalry runs deeper than trade wars and military posturing—it’s a clash of archetypes. America worships the Hero: the lone warrior chasing glory, battling rivals, and turning politics into spectacle. China, by contrast, venerates the Father: the steady ruler who prizes order, care and stability. Chinese philosopher Bella Pei Wang argues that these ancient archetypes still shape power in both societies—and that their excesses drive both nations’ dysfunction. To escape the cycle of conquest and control, she says, the world’s superpowers must rediscover a neglected force in politics: the feminine values of intuition and cooperation.The rivalry between the United States and China is not only about economic and military strength. It is also rooted in contrasting leadership styles. This contrast can be seen as a confrontation between two archetypes, ... Mon, 24 Nov 2025 11:19:12 +0000 Bella Pei Wang https://iai.tvarticles/beneath-the-us-china-rivalry-lies-a-battle-of-outdated-archetypes-auid-3425 https://iai.tvarticles/the-self-creates-itself-out-of-nothing-auid-3424 Debates about the self tend to fall into two opposing camps. Many today argue that the self is an illusion. Conversely, critics of this view argue the self is undeniable, claiming that the self is the one thing that cannot be an illusion. Here, philosopher Gabriel Gottlieb, drawing on the philosophy of Fichte, argues that the self posits itself into existence. In fact, the self is the very act of its own self-creation.    It has become fashionable to think that, at a fundamental level, there is simply no “self.” The self is merely an illusion of the brain’s activity, the narrative center of gravity, as Daniel Dennett has argued, or, if you are a Humean, a mere bundle of sensations, perceptions, or impressions. There is no substance to the self, and certainly no ghostly immateria... Fri, 21 Nov 2025 10:52:00 +0000 Gabriel Gottlieb https://iai.tvarticles/the-self-creates-itself-out-of-nothing-auid-3424 https://iai.tvarticles/africa-must-create-a-bloc-like-the-eu-to-have-real-global-power-auid-3423 As geopolitical competition increases, African states face growing pressure to pick sides. Sanusha Naidu, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Global Dialogue, argues that real agency will not come from choosing between external powers, but from strengthening Africa’s own regional institutions—especially the AfCFTA—to shape investment, bolster bargaining power, and build a coherent continental market.  In August 2025, Botswana’s state-owned development corporation signed a huge $12 billion investment deal with Qatar’s Al Mansour Holdings with the potential to reshape the African nation’s economy. The agreement promises investment in roads, farming, mining, diamond refinement, energy, defense, and cybersecurity.But there is also speculation that the proposed deal could allow the government of Botswana to purchase the 85% stake in the De Beers diamond company that its owner Anglo American is seeking to sell off. The government already owns... Thu, 20 Nov 2025 11:03:44 +0000 Sanusha Naidu https://iai.tvarticles/africa-must-create-a-bloc-like-the-eu-to-have-real-global-power-auid-3423 https://iai.tvarticles/its-time-to-dismantle-the-leviathan-auid-3422 For more than half a century, Western democracies trusted in a rules-based, technocratic machine to deliver stability and fairness. But the Great Financial Crisis revealed the limits of government by algorithm and exposed a deeper crisis of legitimacy at the heart of the liberal state. Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s unsettling account of sovereignty, author of After the Leviathan, Andreas Wesemann argues that Britain’s malaise lies not in weak leaders but in an over-centralized State-as-Computer, and that its renewal requires a radical redistribution of power rather than the search for a new strongman. After the Second World War, the European members of the Allied coalition embarked on a project of cooperation and integration to ensure that no single nation could again dominate the continent. This would yield economic benefits, but it also required a far greater codification of the “rules of the game”—a dense web of laws, regulations, and guidelines designed to ins... Wed, 19 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Andreas Wesemann https://iai.tvarticles/its-time-to-dismantle-the-leviathan-auid-3422 https://iai.tvarticles/dont-blame-ai-for-its-mistakes-auid-3421 As AI systems are increasingly used to inform major decisions, from AI ministers to the Swedish prime minister admitting to using it for a second opinion, some public figures have begun to imply that the technology itself is responsible for what it produces. Philosopher of technology Jan Wasserziehr argues this is a dangerous mistake. By treating AI as a moral agent, we forget that it is a tool built by people with clear interests, often corporate ones. The more we humanise these systems, the easier it becomes for their creators to dodge responsibility.  Earlier this year, I hosted a workshop on artificial consciousness and AI morality, a topic which is experiencing a certain degree of hype in AI ethics and has garnered some public attention, at the LSE. The event was streamed online and the first message in the ... Tue, 18 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Jan H. Wasserziehr https://iai.tvarticles/dont-blame-ai-for-its-mistakes-auid-3421 https://iai.tvarticles/memory-is-not-stored-in-the-brain-auid-3420 The leading theories of memory describe it as being stored in the brain – similarly, some argue, to the way a computer stores memory. But this assumption relies on materialist assumptions and problematically bypasses the hard problem of consciousness. Memory is not stored in space, but in time, argues philosopher Victoria Trumbull. From ancient times, philosophers have used the “storage” metaphor to describe the phenomenon of remembering. Memory is often pictured as a vast warehouse or library of experiences. In the past century, this “storage” metaphor has come to be taken literally: neuroscientists today maintain that a “memory” is simply a given pattern or collection of patterns of neural activity. This hypothesis forms a key part of the greater worldview known as “materialism” or “physicalism”: i... Mon, 17 Nov 2025 11:48:59 +0000 Victoria Trumbull https://iai.tvarticles/memory-is-not-stored-in-the-brain-auid-3420 https://iai.tvarticles/why-giving-up-truth-could-save-democracy-auid-3418 Philosophy once promised to reveal moral truth and anchor human life in reason or divine order. Richard Rorty—the leading pragmatist philosopher of the late 20th century—thought that promise had finally run its course. Philosophy and careful reasoning, he argued, can't ground any particular social order or moral ideal. George Scialabba presents Rorty's alternative vision for politics—one grounded not in truth but in solidarity. “Poetry makes nothing happen,” W.H. Auden wrote; and neither does philosophy, according to Richard Rorty (1931-2007), the most prominent pragmatist philosopher of the late 20th century. Rorty’s pragmatism was the culmination of a long devolution, which amounts to this: philosophically, less and less is at stake. Getting ontology and epistemology right was for most of human history considered essential to achieving one’s eternal salvation, and sometimes also had drastic consequences for one’s temporal well-being. When philosop... Fri, 14 Nov 2025 10:15:08 +0000 George Scialabba https://iai.tvarticles/why-giving-up-truth-could-save-democracy-auid-3418 https://iai.tvarticles/the-impossible-dream-of-a-world-independent-of-experience-auid-3417 We once thought philosophy could step beyond the limits of human perspective, describing the world as it exists in itself. Waves and Stones takes up that challenge, arguing that all things, from people to planets, exist on equal metaphysical footing. Philosopher Michael Kuznets argues that this attempt still ends up reaffirming the very human standpoint it seeks to escape. Even the boldest metaphysical systems remain trapped by our ways of seeing and valuing the world. This follows on from last week’s article “On the Ultimate Nature of Reality,” where Harman laid out his vision of reality as composed of objects rather than processes. Here Kuznets shows how that vision still bears the imprint of human experience.  When I was at university, a lecturer told the class that a philosopher should be interested in everything, since philosophy touches on everything. ... Thu, 13 Nov 2025 09:01:55 +0000 Michael Kuznets https://iai.tvarticles/the-impossible-dream-of-a-world-independent-of-experience-auid-3417 https://iai.tvarticles/too-much-choice-makes-us-less-free-auid-3416 A core value of Western liberal democracy is freedom, and we tend to assume that the more choice we have, the freer we are. But that’s a dangerous illusion, argues psychologist Barry Schwartz. There quickly comes a point when too much choice—over what we eat, what jobs we do, who we date—leads to paralysis, anxiety and misery. Yet we measure economic progress by how many new choices the market churns out. The million-dollar question, Schwartz urges, is whether we can we reintroduce healthy limits into our lives without undermining liberal-democratic ideology itself.  Alasdair Craig: Should we strive for the best in life, or is doing so making us miserable?Barry Schwartz: Well, it seems sensible that we should try for the best in life. But as an empirical matter, when we try for the best in life our standards for what counts as best keep going up, and even though we do better on Tuesday than we did on Monday, we don’t do as well ... Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:16:07 +0000 Barry Schwartz https://iai.tvarticles/too-much-choice-makes-us-less-free-auid-3416 https://iai.tvarticles/the-hype-behind-nuclear-energy-doesnt-match-the-reality-auid-3415 Nuclear power is now endorsed as carbon-free, abundant, clean energy, with 30 countries signing a pledge to triple nuclear power capacity. But author of Nuclear is not the solution M.V. Ramana argues strongly against this, claiming that nuclear promoters are ignoring the evidence. He argues, nuclear energy is not economically efficient. Even more importantly, the long timescales involved in expanding nuclear power potentially could make the climate crisis worse, not better. In the last few years, there has been a resurgence in talk about expanding nuclear power. One often hears that nuclear power is needed to supply energy to data centers or to mitigate climate change. Neither of these arguments makes any sense when one looks at actual trends in the energy sector. Nuclear energy has become less, not more, important to supplying electricity around the world. In the United States, which has the ... Tue, 11 Nov 2025 11:55:03 +0000 M. V. Ramana https://iai.tvarticles/the-hype-behind-nuclear-energy-doesnt-match-the-reality-auid-3415 https://iai.tvarticles/the-pursuit-of-beauty-is-fragmenting-the-self-auid-3412 Social media platforms don’t just change how we look, they change what a self is for. Author of Pixel Flesh, Ellen Atlanta, argues beauty culture intensifies and extends until our bodies fragment. Perfected images used to appear only occasionally, on Hollywood screens or in glossy magazines. Now Kylie Jenner inhabits the same screen as your cousin and the friend from school who became an influencer. The worry isn’t that beauty or vanity exists; it’s that our digitized beauty culture has weaponized them against the self.  In 1972, Susan Sontag wrote: “Men present themselves as face-and-body, a physical whole. Women are split, as men are not, into a body and a face—each judged by somewhat different standards.” Now, in the age of platform capitalism, it is so much worse than that.Platforms don’t just change how we look; they change what a self is for. In the economy of the industrialized digital gaze, people become sets of parts to be remo... Mon, 10 Nov 2025 10:19:17 +0000 Ellen Atlanta https://iai.tvarticles/the-pursuit-of-beauty-is-fragmenting-the-self-auid-3412 https://iai.tvarticles/remembrance-day-veterans-day-and-the-philosophy-of-forgetting-auid-3409 This Remembrance Day and Veterans Day, a minority of people will know someone who served in WWII. As time creates distance, many commentators fear the next World War is becoming increasingly likely. Who we remember is a political act, as shown by figures like Putin currently. But to truly honour the dead, former intelligence officer in the British Army Andy Owen, argues we must leave politics aside.  On 11th November, the UK will mark the eightieth Remembrance Day since the end of the Second World War (the same day the US will mark Veterans Day that honours all those who have served. However, Memorial Day, which commemorates America’s fallen military personnel across all i... Fri, 07 Nov 2025 10:35:41 +0000 https://iai.tvarticles/remembrance-day-veterans-day-and-the-philosophy-of-forgetting-auid-3409 https://iai.tvarticles/on-the-ultimate-nature-of-reality-auid-3408 Science tells us what things are made of, not what they are. For Graham Harman, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, named one of the 50 most influential philosophers today, the world’s ultimate nature can’t be captured by equations or unified theories. In his new book Waves and Stones, the leading figure in speculative realism, Graham argues that reality is made of objects that forever withdraw from our grasp, leaving philosophy to explore what science cannot reach. In this exclusive IAI interview, dive into how Graham sees the nature of ultimate reality.    Omari Edwards: Your new book looks at the distinction between Waves and Stones, the continuous and the discrete. What drew you to that as a philosophical problem?Graham Harman: Sometimes, when I write a book, it is... Thu, 06 Nov 2025 11:55:50 +0000 Graham Harman https://iai.tvarticles/on-the-ultimate-nature-of-reality-auid-3408 https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-a-new-american-dream-for-the-age-of-ai-auid-3407 At HowTheLightGetsIn London 2025, Aaron Bastani and Zoltan Istvan debated whether capitalism should be dismantled in an age of automation. As artificial intelligence transforms the foundations of work, we face the question of what will it mean to be human in a world of abundance. In this piece, Zoltan argues that we should reimagine the American Dream for the AI era.  It was a windy autumn Saturday afternoon at London’s fabled Kenwood House when I found myself standing beneath a 300-person tent called The Ring at HowTheLightGetsIn. The crowd had packed in shoulder to shoulder, leaving hardly any space to move. You could feel the hum of anticipation in the air, the kind that happens when people know they’re about to witness a real exchange of ideas—an argument not about the past, but about the shape of the future. I was there to ... Wed, 05 Nov 2025 11:30:00 +0000 Zoltan Istvan https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-a-new-american-dream-for-the-age-of-ai-auid-3407 https://iai.tvarticles/our-brains-evolved-to-survive-not-to-find-truth-auid-3406 We like to believe that reason is our pathway to truth. Yet from Popper’s demand for falsifiability to Darwin’s doubt about the mind’s origins, a more unsettling picture is emerging. Our brains were shaped not to perceive reality, but to survive within it. Evolution has optimized us for social cohesion rather than accuracy, leaving false beliefs not as evolutionary errors but as features of our survival. In an age that prizes truth, philosopher of science Samuel McKee argues that our greatest obstacle may be the very mind that seeks it. Karl Popper’s famous demarcation criteria helped shape how we assess true and false beliefs. In deciding whether to give the prestigious status of “science” to ideas such as communism, astrology, and psychoanalysis, Popper asked if they were falsifiable: could they be proven wrong? If not, they weren’t scientific. Epistemological claims, their truth value, and how we assess the veracity of someone’s ideas would never be ... Tue, 04 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Samuel McKee https://iai.tvarticles/our-brains-evolved-to-survive-not-to-find-truth-auid-3406 https://iai.tvarticles/existentialism-and-the-video-game-exposing-humanitys-fear-of-freedoms-auid-3405 What if our deepest desire isn’t to be free but to escape freedom itself? Philosopher Benjamin Carpenter, Visiting Fellow at UEA, argues that the Persona series — a globally successful role-playing video game franchise, having sold over 22 million copies worldwide — brings existential ideas to life by showing how our search for meaning is haunted by a longing to surrender the very freedom that defines us. In exposing our flight from freedom, Persona challenges us to confront the most uncomfortable truth of all: that our desire for control begins within ourselves   The Persona video game series has a reputation for exploring questions of personal and political identity. Who am I? What is the real me? What is the true self? These are all questions explored within these games. The series provides ripe contexts within which to discuss the self, identity, and the ways in which thes... Mon, 03 Nov 2025 10:33:51 +0000 Benjamin Carpenter https://iai.tvarticles/existentialism-and-the-video-game-exposing-humanitys-fear-of-freedoms-auid-3405 https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-freuds-forgotten-concept-to-understand-our-political-crisis-auid-3404 We associate Freud with the repression of thoughts and feelings. But he also described a subtler defense: recognizing an uncomfortable truth, yet acting as if it didn’t matter—a phenomenon he called disavowal. In this interview, philosopher Alenka Zupančič, a close collaborator of Slavoj Žižek, argues that disavowal is the key to understanding our political paralysis. From climate change to populism to the performative outrage of social media, Zupančič says the problem isn’t that we deny reality—it’s that we acknowledge it endlessly and keep doing nothing. Oliver Adelson: Your latest book spans politics, philosophy, psychology, and more, but there’s one concept that you think is essential for making sense of all these areas: disavowal. What is disavowal, and why is it so key for understanding our predicament?Alenka Zupančič: It’s something that I started to think about really intensely a few years ago. So it’s not that it’s bee... Fri, 31 Oct 2025 10:24:57 +0000 Alenka Zupančič https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-freuds-forgotten-concept-to-understand-our-political-crisis-auid-3404 https://iai.tvarticles/the-hidden-prejudice-tearing-society-apart-auid-3403 We tend to think of prejudice as just being about sexism, racism, and classism. But could this be too narrow a view? LSE professor Paul Dolan argues many of us practice a subtler kind of discrimination—beliefism—where we judge people's entire character on the basis of a single opinion. In an age of culture wars and social media echo chambers, beliefism fuels division and moral certainty. But if we learn to recognize it, Dolan argues, we can begin to build tolerance for those we most disagree with. “Some of my best friends are black.” This was a phrase used by white people until a decade or so ago against accusations of being racist. It had the opposite effect. But perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it. I think it’s fair to say, all else equal, that a white person with black friends would be less racist than a white person with no black friends. Having black friends is a behavior that signals relatively more tolerance than having no black friends at al... Thu, 30 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Paul Dolan https://iai.tvarticles/the-hidden-prejudice-tearing-society-apart-auid-3403 https://iai.tvarticles/the-radical-independent-thinking-in-chinese-philosophy-auid-3402 We tend in the West to think of Chinese Confucianism as dominated by obedience, conformity and tradition. But this is a misleading caricature. As Hong Kong philosopher Justin Tiwald argues, many Confucian philosophers celebrate independent thinking and moral autonomy. Indeed, Zide–“getting it oneself”—is a core Confucian value, a call to think and act for oneself. Western observers have been blindsided by China’s tech boom, surprised by its reliance on decentralization and local initiative. But once we abandon the cliché of Chinese culture as inherently deferential, China’s entrepreneurial dynamism may be less of a surprise.I was going to wear a t-shirt celebrating my favorite rock band to my grandfather’s funeral, but my aunt tells me that it’s inappropriate for the occasion, so I change to a dress shirt with a tie. My child is getting married, and after consulting a book about wedding etiquette, I volunteer to pay for the rehearsal dinner. I don’t know why ... Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Justin Tiwald https://iai.tvarticles/the-radical-independent-thinking-in-chinese-philosophy-auid-3402 https://iai.tvarticles/if-we-look-too-hard-for-reality-well-fall-into-a-black-hole-auid-3401 Try to measure an object’s location too precisely, and you’ll collapse into a black hole. Physicist Daniel Carney highlights this overlooked consequence of quantum mechanics and general relativity, suggesting that it reveals many basic physical quantities to be fundamentally approximate. The path to a theory of quantum gravity, he argues, hinges on confronting the limits of measurement and observation—and perhaps leads to the realisation that ultimate reality lies forever beyond observation. Measurement in quantum mechanics and general relativity Our understanding of the universe is limited by how precisely we can measure physical systems. Without the microscope, the cellular underpinnings of life could never have been learned; without the telescope, determining if the dots of light in the night sky are stars or some kind of celestial lightning bug would have been impossible. In practice, we make better measurements by developing new te... Tue, 28 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Daniel Carney https://iai.tvarticles/if-we-look-too-hard-for-reality-well-fall-into-a-black-hole-auid-3401 https://iai.tvarticles/the-fate-of-the-world-may-rest-on-humanitys-most-boring-invention-auid-3400 In an uncertain world, it can be difficult to know who to trust and which voices to listen to. In the face of such uncertainty, perhaps the best people to look to are those who have been containing risk in a chaotic world all along, the insurers. Professor Louis Pauly argues that amid high profile examples of the state of Florida being largely uninsurable and Australia being described as “fast becoming an uninsurable nation”, we need to look to this industry to cut through the political noise and build solutions based on shared risk, joint responsibility, and cooperation before we all pay a premium on catastrophe. We have always lived in an uncertain world. But, amidst the uncertainty surrounding us, human beings have become quite adept at carving out zones of risk that can potentially be governed. The social and financial technology of insurance developed on the foundation of this experience-based ingenuity. Today, when political polarisation makes it ever mo... Mon, 27 Oct 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Louis W. Pauly https://iai.tvarticles/the-fate-of-the-world-may-rest-on-humanitys-most-boring-invention-auid-3400 https://iai.tvarticles/reality-closure-and-the-illusion-of-truth-auid-3399 We assume reality consists of objects, stars and atoms, tables and chairs, animals and people.  But citing contemporary neuroscience, philosopher and closure theorist, Hilary Lawson, argues that it is we who are responsible for the objects that we take to be reality. From the firing of neurons in our sensory response to the world to our theories of the cosmos, our minds close and hold the unfathomable openness of the world, forming rather than discovering a world of things. Though constrained by reality, these closures are not descriptions of reality but are powerful tools for acting within it. Providing a new way to make sense of science, knowledge and the unknown.  We see the world as divided into objects and things. People and houses, tables and chairs, trees and mountains, planets and stars. And we assume our theories and accounts of the world are true to the extent that they correctly identify these objects, their characteristics and their relations w... Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Hilary Lawson https://iai.tvarticles/reality-closure-and-the-illusion-of-truth-auid-3399 https://iai.tvarticles/transhumanism-and-enhanced-longevity-risks-a-new-age-of-inequality-auid-3398 Future technologies could change what it means to be human. A life lived without the prospect of death is an unimaginably different life. The changes will be vast, and they will not only affect individuals; they will change geopolitics. Nayef Al-Rodhan argues we must prepare for the transhumanist age of longevity and the possible elimination of death to prevent a new era of inequality from coming into being. Can we truly outpace our genetic inheritance? Is it possible to rewrite the biological script that governs ageing or genetic capacity? How will the possibility of radical longevity reshape our societies and the frameworks of global governance? And how might the pursuit of a longer life and transhumanist interventions – enhancing cognition, physiology, or emotional regulation – further blur the boundary of what it means to be human? ... Thu, 23 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Nayef Al-Rodhan https://iai.tvarticles/transhumanism-and-enhanced-longevity-risks-a-new-age-of-inequality-auid-3398 https://iai.tvarticles/the-idea-of-the-universal-good-is-dangerous-auid-3397 We think morality must be necessarily universal and apply to everyone equally. But, following his debate with Alain de Botton at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival, philosopher Tommy J. Curry argues that universal moral concepts like democracy, equality, and liberty conceal deep-rooted racial and political hierarchies. Far from protecting the dignity of all, these ideals often reinforce the dominance of kinship groups, marginalize outsiders, and rationalize violence in the name of progress. I. Philosophers and the illusion of the universal goodIt is often the prerogative of philosophers to claim that they possess somewhat magical, if not prophetic, insight into the primordial order of the world. The academic philosopher, drawing from the mythos of a time more ancient, refined by analytic specters such as reason, proclaims to t... Wed, 22 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Tommy J. Curry https://iai.tvarticles/the-idea-of-the-universal-good-is-dangerous-auid-3397 https://iai.tvarticles/the-divide-between-belief-and-emotion-is-an-illusion-auid-3396 We like to think belief and emotion belong in different boxes—one ruled by evidence and truth, the other by feelings and moods. But that divide is an illusion, argues philosopher Miriam Schleifer McCormick. We’d do better to think of beliefs as emotions, because believing involves feeling something to be the case, and the worth of a belief depends not just on the evidence for it but on whether it helps us live well. The ideal believer is not, as the AI industry might have us think, a flawless information-processing system, but a being whose reason breathes with emotion.Beliefs figure prominently in how we understand each other, are essential for navigating the world, and help define our characters and motivations. But what are beliefs? According to standard philosophical theories of belief, an ideal believer is a flawless information-processing system. Of course, we fail to live up to this ideal because of our human limitations. We ge... Tue, 21 Oct 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Miriam Schleifer McCormick https://iai.tvarticles/the-divide-between-belief-and-emotion-is-an-illusion-auid-3396 https://iai.tvarticles/iris-murdoch-and-why-the-wests-spiritual-crisis-wont-be-solved-by-religion-auid-3395 Belief in God is on the rise among young people in the West. As many seek meaning beyond digital life and consumer culture, old theologies are in vogue. But Iris Murdoch warned against seeing religious faith as the only route to a spiritual life. In this article, Miles Leeson argues for Murdoch’s third way—grounded in transcendence without dogma—as a solution to the West’s spiritual crisis.  News stories focusing on the rise of religious belief, and crucially religious activity, in the UK are perhaps not surprising. The think tank Theos recently highlighted an article in The Times suggesting that those in Gen Z were less likely to identify as atheists than their parents, and the most recent YouGov data show that belief in God for those aged between 18 and 24 has risen from 16% in August 2021 to 45% in January of this year. While this may seem as... Mon, 20 Oct 2025 10:18:56 +0000 Miles Leeson https://iai.tvarticles/iris-murdoch-and-why-the-wests-spiritual-crisis-wont-be-solved-by-religion-auid-3395 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-is-not-fundamental-auid-3394 In order to know anything, we must be conscious of it. This simply idea, combined with a recent modern move away from metaphysical physicalism, has led many to claim that consciousness itself is fundamental; fundamental not only to our experience of reality, but fundamental to reality itself. But, argues neuroscientist James Cooke, this is to mistake the foundations of knowledge with the foundations of the world.  For centuries, philosophers have wrestled with a simple but unsettling question: if all we ever know of the world comes through consciousness, how can we be sure there is anything beyond it? If reality comes to us through the filter of our fallible minds, how can we know that we are actually experiencing something real in this moment? How do you know that this is not a dream that you are about to wake up from?In light of this possibility for doubting reality, how can we begin to assess what is real? One approach is to throw out everything that... Fri, 17 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 James Cooke https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-is-not-fundamental-auid-3394 https://iai.tvarticles/the-musical-structure-behind-quantum-physics-auid-3393 Long before physicists defined energy as coming in discrete packets, musicians had already been working with quantised waves. The same idea that underpins quantum mechanics — energy existing in fixed intervals — also governs the harmonic relationships between musical notes. Harvard researcher Bridget Queenan argues that the first discoverers of the quantised nature of the universe may have not been scientists at all, but composers.   As the 19th century drew to a close, a gifted musician ran the only scientific experiments of his career addressing a fundamental concern: Are singers rational or irrational? To answer this question, the musician analyzed the waves of various frequencies radiating from the physical body known as a “choir” and listened for the underlying mathematical patterns. From studying the spectral distributions of choirs under various conditions, Max Planck ... Thu, 16 Oct 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Bridget Queenan https://iai.tvarticles/the-musical-structure-behind-quantum-physics-auid-3393 https://iai.tvarticles/its-dictators-not-democracies-that-are-vulnerable-to-subversion-auid-3390 We live in hostile times, confronted by the ugly resurgence of war in Europe, the threat of a clash with China over Taiwan, and the lasting effects of a devastating conflict in Gaza. But alongside this growth in current and potential conflicts, we’ve also seen a meteoric rise in measures short of war: information ops, foreign political meddling, and sabotage. Subversive tactics are ramping up, and we’re all in the crosshairs. Historian Jill Kastner argues our democracies aren’t as susceptible to subversion as we may think, and everyone has a part to play when it comes to countering international espionage. We Need to Talk About SubversionThe relative peace of the post-Cold War era has long receded in the rear-view mirror. Russia’s war on Ukraine is entering its third winter.  Russian drones and fighter jets are probing NATO airspace, while European nations are boosting their defense spending back to Col... Wed, 15 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jill Kastner https://iai.tvarticles/its-dictators-not-democracies-that-are-vulnerable-to-subversion-auid-3390 https://iai.tvarticles/how-transhumanism-dangerously-ignores-human-nature-auid-3389 At this year’s HowTheLightGetsIn Festival, transhumanism faced its reckoning. Once hailed as the next step in human evolution, the idea of transcending biology through technology now divides its own believers. In a fiery exchange between Zoltan Istvan, Àlex Gómez-Marín, Susan Schneider, and Adam Goldstein, IAI Contributing Editor Omari Edwards captures a movement in crisis, where the dream of digital immortality collides with the fear of losing what makes us human. Few ideas have divided thinkers more sharply than transhumanism. For some, it represents humanity’s next evolutionary step, the promise of overcoming disease, aging, and even death. For others, it marks the point where human ambition turns self-destructive, mistaking technological power for moral progress. As advances in AI and biotec... Tue, 14 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Omari Edwards https://iai.tvarticles/how-transhumanism-dangerously-ignores-human-nature-auid-3389 https://iai.tvarticles/emergence-explains-nothing-and-is-bad-science-auid-3385 Scientists and philosophers have fallen for a seductive buzzword: “emergence.” It’s invoked to explain life, consciousness, and the flow of time: when simple parts combine, it is claimed, they sometimes produce new entities with powers their parts could never predict. But philosopher John Heil calls this out as an intellectual sleight of hand. “Emergence,” he argues, doesn’t reveal hidden truths—it masks our ignorance, mistaking gaps in explanation for gaps in reality. It’s time to drop the magic word and face the real challenge: uncovering, in concrete detail, how simple parts can give rise to complex wholes. 1. The so-called “emergence” of life and particlesEmergence was ... Mon, 13 Oct 2025 11:00:00 +0000 John Heil https://iai.tvarticles/emergence-explains-nothing-and-is-bad-science-auid-3385 https://iai.tvarticles/space-is-a-critical-battlefield-and-the-west-is-losing-auid-3384 As wars wage around the world our attention is rightfully directed to these theatres, but perhaps our attention should really be towards the stars. Professor Albert Chapman argues that the Outer Space Treaty and the lofty ideas it was founded upon are dead, and space is better thought of as a battlefield. The nature of space conflict blurs the line between overt and covert activity, and therefore the US needs strong alliances and a strong military presence in order to dominate the area between Earth and Mars, even if that comes to the cost of day-to-day spending and short term priorities. If the West loses space, it may well lose the world. We think of space as a place of wonder—Neil Armstrong’s inspirational Moon landing, or the serene blue marble of Earth suspended in the sky—rather than warfare. But, whether we pay attention or not, the geopolitics of space threatens to become a key part of our everyday lives. The following scenario may occur now or in the ... Fri, 10 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Bert Chapman https://iai.tvarticles/space-is-a-critical-battlefield-and-the-west-is-losing-auid-3384 https://iai.tvarticles/in-a-post-truth-world-truth-seeking-is-more-important-than-ever-auid-3382 The age of 'post-truth' has jumped off the philosophical page and come to life. With almost every news story today, there are competing perspectives, with competing truths. Many have simply given up in their quest for knowledge. In such a world, philosopher Jason Baehr argues, knowledge is a survival skill. One that societies must cultivate to sustain trust and democracy in the digital age. While technology has expanded access to information, it has also eroded our ability to think well. The antidote, he suggests, lies not in more data or smarter algorithms, but in cultivating the intellectual virtues that make genuine understanding possible: persistence, rigor, and humility.   As humans, we care about forming true beliefs and avoiding false beliefs. We want to know, understand, get things right. We want to avoid cognitive error and ignorance. These are our twin epi... Wed, 08 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jason Baehr https://iai.tvarticles/in-a-post-truth-world-truth-seeking-is-more-important-than-ever-auid-3382 https://iai.tvarticles/heisenberg-meets-william-blake-the-danger-of-sciences-single-vision-auid-3379 William Blake and Werner Heisenberg, radical poet and pioneering quantum physicist, shared the same fear: that science, while enabling us to intervene in the world ever more powerfully, was at the same time cutting us off from reality itself. Science works by inferring general categories and laws from individual observations. This potent method, left unchecked, locks us into a generalizing model, which Blake calls a “single vision” and in which, Heisenberg says, “reality is lost.” For both poet and physicist, only through poetry and imagination can we reconnect with reality’s vivid particulars, argues psychotherapist and writer Mark Vernon. The poet William Blake is often thought to be anti-science. Consider one of his best-known phrases: “Single vision and Newton’s sleep.” That sounds like a criticism. “Reductive” would be the modern word: science produces a limited perception of things, an accusation firmly pinned to the standout genius of early-modern scien... Tue, 07 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Mark Vernon https://iai.tvarticles/heisenberg-meets-william-blake-the-danger-of-sciences-single-vision-auid-3379 https://iai.tvarticles/hawking-radiation-and-the-messy-truth-behind-black-hole-physics-auid-3378 Over the last century, science’s understanding of black holes has grown. What was thought to be an exotic speculation of theory is now a key test subject for modern physicists. However, as philosopher of physics Eugene Chua argues, the models we use to study black holes are shrouded in as yet untested assumptions. Most crucially, those that allow us to define energy conservation, which formed the basis of Hawking’s argument for black hole evaporation. Only as we de-idealize our perfect models, removing our misplaced assumptions to better align them with our imperfect world, can they become meaningful descriptions of a very messy reality. 1. Perfect black holes and spherical horsesIn his 1983 Mathematical Theory of Black Holes, physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar remarked that “the black holes of nature are the most perfect macroscopic objects there are in the universe.” How... Mon, 06 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Eugene Chua https://iai.tvarticles/hawking-radiation-and-the-messy-truth-behind-black-hole-physics-auid-3378 https://iai.tvarticles/occams-razor-is-leading-cosmology-astray-auid-3377 Is simplicity the path to truth, or a dangerous illusion? Occam’s razor is often taken as a guiding principle of science and rational thought, but theoretical physicist Jim Al-Khalili argues that its appeal conceals a deeper problem. From cosmic models to political debate, the desire for tidy explanations can obscure the messy, complex reality and lead us astray.This essay was inspired by his book, The Joy of Science (Princeton University Press) for OpenMind. We hear all the time that the simplest explanations are usually the right ones. This truth-testing idea—known as Occham’s razor, after the English medieval philosopher William of Occham—has been embraced by no less authorities than Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Today scientists invoke Occham’s r... Fri, 03 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jim Al-Khalili https://iai.tvarticles/occams-razor-is-leading-cosmology-astray-auid-3377 https://iai.tvarticles/humanity-is-no-less-superstitious-now-than-in-the-past-auid-3376 We tend to believe that the human race has become increasingly rational over time; that the superstitions of the past – such as the Ancient Greek superstition that important decisions should be made based on the direction birds fly in the sky or alternatively by reading the entrails of a sacred bull – are no longer believed in. But Rami Gabriel, author of A Suspicious Science: The Uses of Psychology, argues we have modern superstitions of our own. We all have beliefs that we hold on insufficient evidence, that other or future cultures will almost certainly call superstitious. Belief in theories such as the Big Bang theory may even be among them.  Belief is our best tool to assuage doubt. It provides a seemingly solid foundation for our actions. Now, what we believe in could be anything; from free trade to aliens, from the causes of Alz... Thu, 02 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Rami Gabriel https://iai.tvarticles/humanity-is-no-less-superstitious-now-than-in-the-past-auid-3376 https://iai.tvarticles/climate-politics-is-currently-just-hot-air-auid-3374 The climate has become imprisoned in academia, jargon, and empty rhetoric. In this piece, sociologist Onofrio Romano denounces his own discipline's hollow attempts to make a difference to the planet. He proposes a complete overhaul to its approach, dropping its tendency for hollow claims and demanding a focus on measurement and implementation instead. We should not be afraid of the "boring" sites of change. At the local and national levels, concrete carbon budgets and more must be implemented with severe punishments for those who violate them. Setting limits and brakes should be prioritized over constant innovation.  Everyone now knows the script. We need new narratives, more‑than‑human perspectives, decentred subjectivities, ecologies of care. In the last decade, Environmental Humanities (EH) has grown fast, institutionalising journals, centres, and syllabi to meet the demand. ... Tue, 30 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Onofrio Romano https://iai.tvarticles/climate-politics-is-currently-just-hot-air-auid-3374 https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-to-stop-talking-about-politics-auid-3375 Studies show political debates rarely change minds. A cornerstone of a thriving democracy is meant to be free and fair debate. Indeed, for most democratic nations around the world a highlight of an election cycle are leadership debates that are often widely viewed and discussed. But what if these political debates don't change people's minds, nor allow people to access new information or arguments in a useful way? Author of Don't Talk About Politics, Sarah Stein Lubrano, argues that for our politics to change people's minds it needs to create the social conditions for people to have meaningful conversations naturally. Whether we revive the cafe or pub culture that many people are priced out of, or recognise the promise of social media beyond profit motives to bring disparate people together. A healthy political culture doesn't just happen, it needs to be built. Debate doesn’t workA friend of mine has often been a radio panelist... Tue, 30 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Sarah Stein Lubrano https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-to-stop-talking-about-politics-auid-3375 https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-not-made-up-of-objects-auid-3373 Quantum mechanics doesn’t just challenge our intuition; it reshapes what counts as an object. Philosopher of science, Dennis Dieks, explains why at the fundamental level there are no discrete particles. Instead, objects like electrons or photons emerge only under special conditions, much like units of money appearing from a single bank balance. Our everyday world of things is a macroscopic illusion built on an undivided quantum reality. The world we perceive every day is full of things, objects, which we can distinguish from one another, follow in time, and often grasp and manipulate. This experiential fact so imposes itself on us that it is hard to imagine a world without objects. How could we reach out and make contact with the external world if there were no things to touch and see? It is no wonder, then, that from the very beginning of natural science, objects have been considered fundamental constituents of reality. It was already suggested in cl... Mon, 29 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Dennis Dieks https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-not-made-up-of-objects-auid-3373 https://iai.tvarticles/a-life-fully-lived-paradoxically-reduces-the-fear-of-death-auid-3372 You might think that having a meaningful life makes you more afraid to lose it. But studies show the opposite; the more fully alive we feel, the more meaning we have in our life, paradoxically, the more ready we are to die. Psychotherapist Julie Hannan argues that we fear death because we fear losing the opportunity to live the life we have always wanted to, but have lacked the courage to. If you're already living a fully meaningful life, the fear of death simply loses its sting.  When Australian nurse Bronnie Ware worked with patients in the last weeks of their lives, she noticed recurring themes in their reflections. She gathered them into what became a bestselling book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. The most common regrets were: not having the courage to live a life true to oneself; working too hard; not expressing feelings; losing touch with friends; and not allowing oneself to be happier.Each of these... Fri, 26 Sep 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Julie Hannan https://iai.tvarticles/a-life-fully-lived-paradoxically-reduces-the-fear-of-death-auid-3372 https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-good-and-evil-only-better-and-worse-auid-3371 We should stop worrying about what’s right or wrong, or about reaching moral perfection. Instead, University of Colorado at Boulder philosopher, Alastair Norcross argues we should focus on how we can do better and avoid doing worse. Figures like Peter Singer make ethical demands of us that can be overwhelming. We must remember that every small step toward better counts. A little over fifty years ago, the philosopher Peter Singer published an article that changed the way philosophers think and talk about the morality of helping others. In it, he appealed to a hypothetical example to motivate his claims. Here’s a version of it: On our way to give a lecture, we come across a small child, drowning in a shallow pond. No one else is in sight, and the child will be dead within minutes without our help.We all agree that we should save... Thu, 25 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Alastair Norcross https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-good-and-evil-only-better-and-worse-auid-3371 https://iai.tvarticles/the-potential-and-danger-behind-the-rise-in-spirituality-auid-3370 Spirituality is no longer a fringe pursuit but a force shaping health, ethics, and politics in late modern societies. Once dismissed as private and unserious, it now permeates wellness industries, youth culture, and ecological movements, offering new ways to live and heal in an age of polycrisis. Yet its growing influence also carries risks: from exploitation and misinformation to conspiracy and abuse. Understanding spirituality’s complexity is crucial to navigating its role in shaping the future of care, community, and planetary survival. Significant studies have focused on the decline of Christianity, and the rise of religious diversity and of the non-religious, in so-called Western societies over the past 50 years. Far less scholarly attention has been paid to parallel trends of increasing interest in spirituality, and nature-connection as often, but not always... Wed, 24 Sep 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Anna Halafoff https://iai.tvarticles/the-potential-and-danger-behind-the-rise-in-spirituality-auid-3370 https://iai.tvarticles/progress-is-humanitys-worst-idea-auid-3369 The normal history of humanity is a relatively slow upward crawl in mortality, population and wealth, and with the advent of capitalism, and enormous upward spike in all measures of progress. But what if capitalism did not produce this spike in growth, and instead we've got the causality wrong? Samuel Miller McDonald argues that far from a driver of growth, capitalism used the veil of progress to justify the ravaging of the earth and corruption of anything done for anything apart from the all consuming growth imperative. Until we interrogate the history of growth and the turmoil it has spread along the way, we will be forever chasing an illusion that holds back societies and misses the true drivers of social progress.  Growth! That compounding increase in surpluses. The tasty profit icing that accrues glacially, layer by layer. The heavy fruit hanging off a neatly ordered orchard. The hectares cordoned off by state or corporate bureaucracies. Led... Tue, 23 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Samuel Miller McDonald https://iai.tvarticles/progress-is-humanitys-worst-idea-auid-3369 https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-copenhagen-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-auid-3368 The so-called Copenhagen interpretation has long been taught as quantum physics’ reigning orthodoxy, a neat tale of collapsing wavefunctions and observer-dependent reality. But the history tells a stranger story. Noemi Bolzenetti, Utrecht University Historian and Philosopher of Science, reveals the patchwork of competing ideas, stitched together into a myth that still dominates textbooks and surveys today. Unpacking Bohr and Heisenberg’s actual disagreements reveals not closure, but a richer set of puzzles still waiting to be faced. 1. IntroductionWhat if the most famous interpretation of quantum physics never actually existed? We have been taught to picture Niels Bohr as the father of a mysterious doctrine called Copenhagen interpretation, where quantum reality collapses under the gaze of an observer. But dig into the historical record and a very different picture emerges: not a single doctrine, but a patchwork of views occasionally in... Mon, 22 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Noemi Bolzonetti https://iai.tvarticles/there-is-no-copenhagen-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-auid-3368 https://iai.tvarticles/the-real-political-divide-is-establishment-vs-anti-establishment-auid-3367 Left vs right, democrats vs socialists - political economist Jonathan Hopkin makes the argument that the most significant distinction in today's political landscape is that between those who support a system, and those who identify as anti-system. Establishment vs anti-establishment. If we want to move past this division and re-embrace liberal democracy, the political system must decrease its technocratic tendencies, and bring some of the anti-system into the system itself. Let’s talk about your book Anti-system politics. First of all – why is the dichotomy system-anti-system so important in this moment? What does it mean?This anti-system concept wasn’t invented by me. It dates back to Giovanni Sartori, the Italian political scientist... Fri, 19 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jonathan Hopkin https://iai.tvarticles/the-real-political-divide-is-establishment-vs-anti-establishment-auid-3367 https://iai.tvarticles/the-flaws-in-the-blueprint-of-life-auid-3366 For twenty years, we’ve been promised that the key to who we are lies in our DNA. But as contributing editor Omari Edwards argues, the dream of a genetic blueprint has failed to deliver and may never have made sense to begin with. In one of the most anticipated debates at this year’s HowTheLightGetsIn London 2025 Festival, three pioneering thinkers, Denis Noble, Stuart Kauffman, and Joanna Moncrieff, will dismantle the myth of genetic determinism and clash over what should replace it. Is life encoded in our genes, or is the very idea of a biological script a scientific detour and a political danger? For two decades, we have been told that our genes are our destiny, the master script from which every trait, every strength, every flaw could be read. When the Human Genome Project was unveiled, it was hailed as the “... Thu, 18 Sep 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Omari Edwards https://iai.tvarticles/the-flaws-in-the-blueprint-of-life-auid-3366 https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-a-creation-of-consciousness-auid-3365 When we see, hear, smell and touch, we’re not receiving reality—we’re creating it. Consciousness is a tapestry of predictions and fantasies, stitched together in the brain. A world outside of our heads may exist but is forever out of reach. These are radical conclusions of the world’s most influential and highly cited neuroscientist, Karl Friston. In this exclusive interview with the Institute of Art and Ideas, he explains how his Free Energy Principle unifies physics and psychology, explains agency and dreaming, and promises new ways to understand and treat mental illness. Alasdair Craig: You say that conscious experience is a prediction generated by the brain. What does this mean?Karl Friston: You could probably trace that back to the days of Plato, but to my mind it was beautifully articulated by the German physicist and physician Hermann... Wed, 17 Sep 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Karl Friston https://iai.tvarticles/reality-is-a-creation-of-consciousness-auid-3365 https://iai.tvarticles/materialism-is-holding-science-back-auid-3364 The philosophy of materialism has dominated theoretical physics and neuroscience for decades. In this article, theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that scientific gatekeeping of alternatives to materialism is the most dangerous type of pseudoscience. To make progress, he argues, we need to examine what we don't understand in our current theories. This article is presented in association with Closer to Truth, an award-winning broadcast and digital media series that has run continuously since 2000. Closer to Truth's mission is to explore humanity's deepest questions with the world's leading thinkers and scientists. Closer to Truth is also a partner of the upcoming HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London this September 20-21, next weeke... Tue, 16 Sep 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Àlex Gómez-Marín https://iai.tvarticles/materialism-is-holding-science-back-auid-3364 https://iai.tvarticles/religions-dangerous-return-to-politics-must-be-resisted-auid-3363 We used to take it for granted that religious arguments should be kept out of political debates. But from fervently Christian Trump supporters to religious members of Europe's far right and Modi's Hindu nationalists, religion is back in politics. Philosopher Jonas Jakobsen argues we must stop this rise of religious contamination in the political sphere if we want to hold onto our democracies.  Donald Trump’s return to political prominence has coincided with the resurgence of religion as a weapon of identity politics. In the United States, Christian nationalism has become a rallying cry, presenting “true American” identity as synonymous with a particular brand of evangelical conservatism. In Europe, far-right populists increasingly invoke “Christian heritage” not as a faith but as a cultural boundary marker, often against Muslim minorities. Acros... Mon, 15 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jonas Jakobsen https://iai.tvarticles/religions-dangerous-return-to-politics-must-be-resisted-auid-3363 https://iai.tvarticles/new-theory-of-gravitational-waves-holds-key-to-the-early-universe-auid-3362 10 years ago, the detection of gravitational waves from a pair of colliding black holes revolutionised astronomy. Now, a team of physicists from Europe are proposing a new theory of gravitational waves with the potential to disrupt one of the key ideas in modern cosmology. Theoretical physicists Daniele Bertacca and Raul Jimenez argue the cosmic inflation paradigm has too many free parameters, and we are expanding the limits of our theories to fit the data. Bertacca and Jimenez propose a radical alternative: gravitational waves and their dynamics were key to the early universe and ultimately gave rise to galaxies, stars, and planets.This article is presented in association with Closer to Truth, an award-winning broadcast and digital media series that has run continuously since 2000. Closer to Truth's mission is to explore humanity's deepest questions with the world's leading thinkers and scienti... Fri, 12 Sep 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Daniele Bertacca https://iai.tvarticles/new-theory-of-gravitational-waves-holds-key-to-the-early-universe-auid-3362 https://iai.tvarticles/wittgenstein-heidegger-and-the-language-of-silence-auid-3361 We think we communicate and understand most deeply using language. But how can we say what words cannot express? Silence. Drawing on Wittgenstein and Heidegger, philosopher Steven Bindeman argues that language often keeps us separated from the world and is fundamentally incapable of describing it. Only silence can bridge the gap between the self and world.This article is presented in association with Closer to Truth, an award-winning broadcast and digital media series that has run continuously since 2000. Closer to Truth's mission is to explore humanity's deepest questions with the world's leading thinkers and scientists. If it is possible to mean more than we can say, then we will need to make use of silence. We can all recognize times when we were unable to articulate something important. Such moments place us in a situation of uncanniness, facing the disconnec... Thu, 11 Sep 2025 10:20:00 +0000 Steven Bindeman https://iai.tvarticles/wittgenstein-heidegger-and-the-language-of-silence-auid-3361 https://iai.tvarticles/technology-to-fashion-originality-is-a-myth-auid-3360 In a world that constantly craves the "next big thing," every fresh idea carries whispers of the ages past. In this article, Narain Batra argues that new trends in fashions and even technology, are remixes of ancient concepts, rather than innovations that spring up from nowhere. Last year, at The Institute of Arts and Ideas, prominent thinkers including Stanley Fish a literary critic, legal scholar, and public intellectual; Claire Hynes, Associate Professor in Literature & Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia; and Martin Puchner Harvard Professor and philosopher, debated whether in the grand symphony of human creativity, is anything truly new, or are we merely remixing the echoes of the past?From fashion and fantasy to business and art, it can feel like every “new” idea has a familiar echo, a déjà vu of something that came before. Our hunger for originality meets the reality that... Wed, 10 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Narain D. Batra https://iai.tvarticles/technology-to-fashion-originality-is-a-myth-auid-3360 https://iai.tvarticles/putin-xi-and-the-mistaken-quest-for-immortality-auid-3358 After a hot-mic caught Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussing organ transplants and even immortality last week, the two leaders joined the long list, stretching back through history, of those in search of eternal life. An immortal dictator would have overcome their last political opponent – time itself. But author and former intelligence officer Andy Owen argues the denial of death can only lead to more suffering, the loss of meaning and the self, and the loss of all that is truly valuable in life. The quest for eternal life is a dangerous mistake. Andy Owen will be in conversation with philosopher John Gray at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival this September 20-21, alongside hundreds of other world-leading thinkers, musicians, comedians, and more. Book your place now. Whil... Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Andy Owen https://iai.tvarticles/putin-xi-and-the-mistaken-quest-for-immortality-auid-3358 https://iai.tvarticles/aristotle-reality-tv-and-why-fiction-reveals-more-than-fact-auid-3357 Reality TV - from The Rehearsal to Love Island to The Traitors - blurs the line between fiction and reality. While often seen as lowbrow, our other modes of storytelling that blur this line, namely myth, are considered some of our deepest, most profound stories. Philosopher Karen Simecek argues that when it comes to storytelling truth is far from the most important aspect. Fiction allows us to discover what is meaningful to us, whether that thing is based in reality or not. “Popular reality TV show exposed as fake in shocking behind-the-scenes video ... and fans aren't happy.” Headlines like this have become commonplace since the early 2000s, when shows like Big Brother helped launch the global reality TV boom. Viewers often express concern over whether what they’re watching is real or fake. But this raises a deeper question: why do we care – and should we? Sometimes, of course, the concern is ethical: viewers are right to be troubled by the mistreatm... Mon, 08 Sep 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Karen Simecek https://iai.tvarticles/aristotle-reality-tv-and-why-fiction-reveals-more-than-fact-auid-3357 https://iai.tvarticles/the-japanese-philosophy-that-could-save-us-from-ai-auid-3356 AI researchers warn AI could take our jobs, replace creatives, and even take away the sense that our lives have meaning. Japanese scientist Ken Mogi, argues that the Japanese philosophy of ikigai can help overcome these threats from AI. Ikigai, which Mogi argues is wrongly translated as "purpose in life", has entered the global conversation with best-selling books highlighting the connection between ikigai and well-being, and even life expectancy. By escaping the idea that meaning in life is measurable or based on productivity, ikigai could prevent the AI we build from falling into that same trap. In recent years, the Japanese word ikigai has come to be widely known in the world. Typically translated as purpose of life, ikigai is deeply embedded in the life of the Japanese people. I have written a book on ikigai in 2017, and i... Fri, 05 Sep 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Ken Mogi https://iai.tvarticles/the-japanese-philosophy-that-could-save-us-from-ai-auid-3356 https://iai.tvarticles/farage-deputy-richard-tice-some-of-our-policies-are-a-form-of-socialism-auid-3355 Right-wing populism is surging across the West, from Trump’s election to Reform UK’s rise, to the spread of nationalism in Europe. In this challenging interview, Reform’s former leader Richard Tice, now deputy to Nigel Farage, is pressed on the philosophical foundations of the movement, challenged to locate it on the political spectrum, and asked whether the historical parallels with national socialism are dangerous. Interviewed by philosopher Hilary Lawson.The full video interview will be released on the IAI next week. Subscribe now or sign up to our newsletter for updates. Hilary Lawson: Where do you think Reform fits on the political spectrum from right to left? Your critics often describe you as “far right.” Would you agree with that description?Richard Tice: I think ... Thu, 04 Sep 2025 12:00:00 +0000 Richard Tice https://iai.tvarticles/farage-deputy-richard-tice-some-of-our-policies-are-a-form-of-socialism-auid-3355 https://iai.tvarticles/truth-is-dead-and-thats-a-good-thing-auid-3354 For millennia, from Plato to the Politburo, media has served the powerful—all preferring readers to consume, not write themselves. But social media has flipped the script. In a world where tweets compete with treatises for authority, expertise no longer rules. Philosopher Steve Fuller argues this "post-truth" moment isn't a crisis. It's democracy finally taking itself seriously. We have grown accustomed to the “democratizing” character of social media, with its bewildering proliferation of alternative points of view, any of which seems capable of commanding the collective imagination—at least for a brief period. While everyone still claims to be seeking the truth, expertise matters less than ever before. Easily accessed information on user-friendly platforms potentially renders anyone an “authority” on something of current interest—at least for a brief period. Regardless of what you make of this situation, it marks a distinct moment in media history that may b... Wed, 03 Sep 2025 11:03:00 +0000 Steve Fuller https://iai.tvarticles/truth-is-dead-and-thats-a-good-thing-auid-3354 https://iai.tvarticles/following-the-science-is-a-dangerous-illusion-auid-3353 When politicians insist that they’re “following the science”—as if it reveals impersonal, unquestionable truths—they promote a dangerous illusion. Evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer warns that, like traditional diviners reading horoscopes or entrails, leaders invoke “the science” to offload responsibility, avoid conflict, and cloak decisions in inevitability. But science is no oracle: it is a human process of debate, judgement and dissent. Framing it as divine revelation betrays science’s spirit. Divination’s ubiquity in traditional societies suggests it serves deep social functions, and that humans are wired to seek impersonal truths. But we must resist the urge to turn science into an oracle.  Truth is in the pebblesHow do you find out the truth? One recommended procedure, at least in some parts of the world, consists in throwing pe... Tue, 02 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Pascal Boyer https://iai.tvarticles/following-the-science-is-a-dangerous-illusion-auid-3353 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-cant-be-uploaded-auid-3352 Uploading minds to computers isn’t just technically impossible—the whole idea rests on a deep misconception of consciousness and our place in reality. So argues William Egginton, whose recent book explores the relationships between the philosophies of Kant, Heisenberg and Borges. Drawing a parallel between minds and spacetime singularities inside black holes, he argues that to try to know such things involves trying to go beyond mere appearances to reality as it is in itself—a futile project, he claims. And if minds cannot be truly known, they certainly can’t be copied or uploaded to computers. Futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Dmitry Itskov, who aim for cybernetic immortality, are chasing a metaphysical mirage. Uploading mindsPhilosophers often talk about consciousness as if it were a problem. Better yet, two problems: a hard one ... Mon, 01 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000 William Egginton https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-cant-be-uploaded-auid-3352 https://iai.tvarticles/what-einstein-got-wrong-about-a-black-holes-point-of-no-return-auid-3351 The event horizon of a black hole marks the point of no return. Once someone has passed it, even though spacetime in its vicinity is quite regular, they can no longer escape. Einstein and a roster of his leading contemporaries in mathematics and physics, however, in direct contradiction with our modern understanding, regarded spacetime there as breaking down, as ‘singular’, where terms in the equations disappear to zero or blow up to infinity. As University of Pittsburgh historian and philosopher of science John Norton explains, Einstein's concern about these terms now appears to us as a puzzling novice error. But a closer look at Einstein and the mathematical methods used reveals a different story.  The momentIt is a moment in every introductory class on general relativity. The simplest, Schwarzschild black hole is introduced. Here is the singularity at its center. Here is the event horizon. Once it is passed... Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000 John D. Norton https://iai.tvarticles/what-einstein-got-wrong-about-a-black-holes-point-of-no-return-auid-3351 https://iai.tvarticles/utilitarians-are-wrong-morality-requires-treating-people-unequally-auid-3350 In a world obsessed with fairness and impartiality, is it really wrong to favor those closest to us? Traditional moral theories like utilitarianism demand that we count everyone equally, from strangers on the other side of the globe to our next-door neighbors. But for moral sentimentalists, this is a radical mistake. Morality isn’t about abstract and detached reasoning, moral sentimentalists argue —it is about empathy and care. In this article, Michael Slote draws on David Hume, Carol Gilligan, and other moral philosophers to argue that prioritizing neighbors isn’t just natural —it’s a moral obligation. The idea that the moral individual should judge situations impartially and act accordingly, and the more specific idea that everyone should count equally in such a reckoning, are probably familiar to most of you. In moral and political philosophy, this idea goes under the name of con... Thu, 28 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Michael A. Slote https://iai.tvarticles/utilitarians-are-wrong-morality-requires-treating-people-unequally-auid-3350 https://iai.tvarticles/languages-are-social-tools-not-windows-onto-reality-auid-3349 Languages aren’t real—at least, not in the way we’re taught they are. From Swiss German to Sanskrit, our neat linguistic categories are less about grammar and vocabulary than power, identity and social engineering. Vuk Vukotić, a theorist of ideologies of language, dismantles the myths of both linguistic realism and relativism, revealing how distinct languages are not natural entities but rather artificial tools—often monopolized by elites—for sorting people into tribes, nations and other social groups. Instead of speaking about languages as distinct systems, we should see language as a fluid, amorphous practice in which we all participate. Languages simply exist, don’t they? There is clearly an English and a German and a Thai language. This might seem an obvious fact in the modern world. Relativists—those who support the Sapir-Whorf linguistic relativity thesis—believe not only that languages are real and exist, but that they somehow express the worldview of ... Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Vuk Vukotić https://iai.tvarticles/languages-are-social-tools-not-windows-onto-reality-auid-3349 https://iai.tvarticles/the-self-exists-and-it-is-an-illusion-auid-3347 From modern figures like Sam Harris to philosophers like David Hume, many claim that the self is an illusion. However, what this claim amounts to continues to puzzle and confuse us. The reality of some kind of self seems self-evident. And yet, many appear sure the self is illusory. Contributing Editor Ricky Williamson argues that both things are true: the self exists, and it is an illusion. The answer depends on our understanding of the structure of consciousness and the nature of the self in question.For more on this topic, the HowTheLightGetsIn festival will be debating The Structure of Consciousness, featuring Julian Baggini, Susan Schneider, Karl Friston, and Alex O'Connor this September 21st. Book your tickets now. From spiritualists to neuroscientists to philosop... Tue, 26 Aug 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Ricky Williamson https://iai.tvarticles/the-self-exists-and-it-is-an-illusion-auid-3347 https://iai.tvarticles/pragmatic-politicians-are-doomed-to-fail-auid-3346 Political leaders seem to come in two flavors. On the one hand, you have ideological figures concerned with grand narratives and broad issues. And on the other you have politicians who avoid ideology for pragmatism, analysis, and bureaucracy. KCL political theorist Steven Klein argues that to understand the second politician, we must look to Max Weber. From Starmer to Carney, competent politics may seem preferable to blind ideology, but these politicians betray a fatal flaw by abandoning conviction and relying on rules and bureaucracy. For these politicians to be successful, they need to learn from Weber that politics is as much about holding convictions as it is about accepting unintended consequences. It can be hard to figure out exactly what Keir Starmer stands for, but if there is anything, it’s this: sober, realistic, and responsible political leadership. In the history of political ideas, the most famous defender of sober-minded political leadership is t... Fri, 22 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Steven Klein https://iai.tvarticles/pragmatic-politicians-are-doomed-to-fail-auid-3346 https://iai.tvarticles/the-mental-health-industrial-complex-has-manufactured-a-crisis-auid-3345 The Mental Health Industrial Complex has manufactured a mental health crisis to sell medication, to blame the individual for societal problems, and to function as a final act of destruction as the Western neoliberal hegemony collapses. This is according to psychiatrist and author of Searching for Normal, Sami Timimi. Diagnoses of ADHD, autism, depression, and anxiety disorders are all on the rise. But, to focus on one example, the expansion of what counts as ADHD, the idea that ADHD is a lifelong condition, and the notion that medication should be a common treatment for it, are all modern phenomena that lack any scientific basis.  The architecture of neurodiversity and the mental health crisis, in decaying capitalismIn the last few decades, a mutation of constructs has allowed labels such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disor... Thu, 21 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Sami Timimi https://iai.tvarticles/the-mental-health-industrial-complex-has-manufactured-a-crisis-auid-3345 https://iai.tvarticles/lionel-shriver-we-live-in-an-age-of-political-mania-auid-3344 From #MeToo to Black Lives Matter, COVID lockdowns to climate change, modern political culture is increasingly driven by manias, so argues author of We Need To Talk About Kevin and political commentator Lionel Shriver. Shriver argues that these collective hysterias share a dangerous pattern: rational debate is shut down, dissent is punished, and conformity becomes a survival strategy. Shriver explores how intelligent societies can succumb to irrational movements, why labels like 'left' and 'right' have lost meaning, and why manias are not a partisan problem but a human one.  You’ve stated that your book Mania was inspired by recent social manias. Can you explain what these are and how they catch on in society?The #MeToo movement definitely had a manic element. It was striking partly because of how internat... Wed, 20 Aug 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Lionel Shriver https://iai.tvarticles/lionel-shriver-we-live-in-an-age-of-political-mania-auid-3344 https://iai.tvarticles/how-mahlers-symphonies-reclaimed-nietzsche-from-the-far-right-auid-3342 Nietzsche’s philosophy has long been associated with far-right ideologies. Yet Gustav Mahler’s musical engagement with Nietzsche offers a radically different vision. Drawing on Nietzsche’s perspectivism, Übermensch, and Eternal Recurrence, Mahler’s symphonies reinterpret Nietzsche’s ideas through a pluralistic and progressive lens. In this piece, musicologist and curator Leah Batstone details Mahler’s engagement with Nietzsche, arguing that music has the potential not only to mirror political and philosophical debates, but also offer original insight into the defining ideas of an epoch. The inherent embeddedness of politics and philosophy in music is not always readily apparent or accepted. Indeed, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the consequent decision by some institutions to cut ties with artists supporting and supported by Putin, for example, has led to outraged claims that art is beyond politics and artists are apolitical. Yet music is... Mon, 18 Aug 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Leah Batstone https://iai.tvarticles/how-mahlers-symphonies-reclaimed-nietzsche-from-the-far-right-auid-3342 https://iai.tvarticles/science-is-a-method-not-a-worldview-auid-3341 The view of reality created by scientism is that of “bits of stuff pushing each other around in a void”. Such a worldview not only flies in the face of contemporary physics, chemistry and biology, and is therefore wholly unscientific, it is also a worldview that is actually based on religion, argues philosopher and Žižek collaborator, John Milbank. To overcome the disenchantment and lack of meaning this worldview creates, Milbank argues we must rediscover the natural magic of the universe and see science as part of a poetic project.  In the world of today, only science is held to be sacred. It is regarded as the holy guardian of “fact” and all legitimate public imperatives are increasingly supposed to be derived from “fact,” with everything else belonging to a domain of private freedom in which we are free to range within a playground of private and ungrou... Fri, 15 Aug 2025 11:00:00 +0000 John Milbank https://iai.tvarticles/science-is-a-method-not-a-worldview-auid-3341 https://iai.tvarticles/chinas-radical-philosophy-of-action-free-will-and-the-self-auid-3340 Chinese philosophy offers a radical rethinking of human action, not as an outcome of the self’s conscious deliberation, but as a spontaneous, effortless process, utterly in tune with nature. Daoist texts like the Zhuangzi describe agency without a reflective self—no weighing options, no detached rationalizing. Philosopher of cognitive science Brian Bruya argues that this Chinese vision not only captures how we experience our actions, but also more deeply resonates with breakthroughs in recent cognitive science than the Western ideal of action as the product of reasoned choice, which is rooted in mistakes that go all the way back to Aristotle.  Human action is part of natureA tree branch falls on you. You don’t blame the tree. A stranger pushes you over. You sue.The classic approach to this difference in attitude is to view nature as determined (and therefore blameless) and humans as free (and therefore accountable... Thu, 14 Aug 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Brian Bruya https://iai.tvarticles/chinas-radical-philosophy-of-action-free-will-and-the-self-auid-3340 https://iai.tvarticles/new-political-parties-wont-save-democracy-auid-3339 Across the world, we are witnessing the birth of new political parties, on both the left and right. With polarisation and populist governments gaining power across the world, some lay the blame at the feet of the two-party system. Yet political scientist Marta Lorimer argues this is mistaken thinking. The two-party system has never been the only game in town and the political system is not to blame; our politics is. Parties need to make an ideological argument, not pander to what they think voters want. And parties need to set the agenda, not take their lead from the narratives driven by the populist right. Let’s start with a broad question. Why do you believe the two-party system has been threatened for the past couple of decades, seemingly in many places across the world? What has changed?I think there are things that have changed and things that have stayed t... Wed, 13 Aug 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Marta Lorimer https://iai.tvarticles/new-political-parties-wont-save-democracy-auid-3339 https://iai.tvarticles/neuroscience-needs-a-new-paradigm-the-brain-is-not-a-machine-auid-3338 Brain researchers are overturning decades of dogma. Forget simple causal chains from genes to brain to behavior. Instead, argues award-winning neuroscientist Nicole Rust, the brain is a dynamic complex system—like the weather or a megacity—whose parts interact via feedback loops that are impossible to study in isolation from each other. And the revolution isn’t just theoretical: a bold cohort of experimentalists is uncovering mental health treatments that go beyond traditional drugs like SSRIs—such as psychedelic therapy, which may be able to rewire brains trapped in destructive loops. A remarkable 20% of adults will suffer from a mood disorder such as depression. For those who try antidepressant medication, it will not work for half. We still don’t understand what's happening in... Tue, 12 Aug 2025 09:26:22 +0000 Nicole Rust https://iai.tvarticles/neuroscience-needs-a-new-paradigm-the-brain-is-not-a-machine-auid-3338 https://iai.tvarticles/schopenhauer-and-how-to-overcome-your-negativity-bias-auid-3283 We tend to notice pain more than we notice pleasure, at least argued the philosopher Schopenhauer. We don't notice all the parts of our body that feel healthy; instead, we notice the slight pain in our big toe, for example. Writer and author of Altered Perspectives, Sam Woolfe, argues that this occurs because humans are willing, desiring animals. We are always in pursuit of something. And therefore, anything that obstructs this pursuit is highlighted. This leads to pain and negativity often being our focus in life. Woolfe argues that only by cultivating gratitude, not only in success, but in the midst of our pain, can we hope to escape our negativity bias. One of my favorite insights from the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer relates to the human negativity bias—that is, our tendency to focus on what bothers us. As Schopenhauer writes:Just as a brook forms no eddy so long as it meets with no obstructions, so human nature... Mon, 11 Aug 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Sam Woolfe https://iai.tvarticles/schopenhauer-and-how-to-overcome-your-negativity-bias-auid-3283 https://iai.tvarticles/your-body-thinks-as-much-as-your-mind-auid-3282 We often think of the mind as housed in the brain, with the body as its vehicle—a view shaped by Western philosophy’s emphasis on the mental over the physical. But Stanford psychologist Barbara Tversky disagrees. In this exclusive IAI interview, Tversky argues thinking is not just something the mind does; it’s something the body is. The movements of our limbs, the gestures we make, even our orientation in space, don’t just support thought—they are its architecture. Charlie Barnett: You argue that thinking is fundamentally spatial and embodied. Can you explain how this changes how we understand the mind?Barbara Tversky: Our spatial thinking takes up half our cortex and it evolved long before language. We communicate, create, and so forth with our bodies, and again it goes back evolutionarily to one-celled creatures that either approached things which were attractive or nutritious and avoided things that were noxious. And that was the fir... Fri, 08 Aug 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Barbara Tversky https://iai.tvarticles/your-body-thinks-as-much-as-your-mind-auid-3282 https://iai.tvarticles/spacetime-is-an-idea-not-a-reality-auid-3281 Physicists often describe spacetime as a container in which the universe unfolds, but this metaphor is misleading and even obstructive. Philosopher of physics Eleanor Knox dismantles the classical view and argues for an alternative: spacetime should be understood functionally, as whatever plays the right theoretical roles in our best physical models. From string theory to emergent quantum realms, Knox shows how this shift opens the door to a deeper and more flexible understanding of reality. What comes to mind when you think about space? By this I don't mean the nothingless void of outer space, but rather the more abstract, and yet ever present, notion - the space in which things live. That is, the space of the room you're sitting in, in which the earth resides and in which the galaxy sits. This is the space we’re talking about when we ask how many dimensions space has, or whether space is infinite.[related id=3008] What kind of ... Thu, 07 Aug 2025 09:59:00 +0000 Eleanor Knox https://iai.tvarticles/spacetime-is-an-idea-not-a-reality-auid-3281 https://iai.tvarticles/creating-populist-martyrs-is-a-dangerous-game-auid-3277 Many people believe that the use of the courts backfired for the Democrats. But does strategy point to a more fundamental flaw? Indeed, does it merely make martyrs out of populists around the world? Alasia Nuti and Gabriele Badano, both lecturers in politics at York University, argue liberals need to avoid using the courts to disallow their opponents and instead look beyond the state to advocate ideas that inspire grassroots politics with a positive vision of the future. Liberals rely too much on the state to fight illiberal and anti-democratic forces and this is a strategy that is doomed to fail. In March 2025, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far-right party Rassemblement National, was prosecuted for the embezzlement of European parliamentary funds through an unprecedented fake jobs scheme. Found guilty of those charges, Le Pen was not only sentenced to four years in prison (with two years to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet, and the... Tue, 05 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Alasia Nuti https://iai.tvarticles/creating-populist-martyrs-is-a-dangerous-game-auid-3277 https://iai.tvarticles/is-your-brain-really-necessary-for-consciousness-auid-3280 We think that the bigger the brain, the more developed the consciousness. Humanity prides itself over the rest of the animal kingdom for having larger brains, but neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga and his colleague Bridget Queenan explore cases of people living full lives with shockingly little brain matter. Challenging the “more is better” bias, they suggest consciousness may be less about structures, and more about harmony and improvisation.  In 2007, a strange headline made its way around the world: the mysterious case of the white-collar worker “without a brain.” On the outside, a normal 44-year-old: employed, married, with two children and an acceptable IQ. On the inside, a gaping fluid-filled cavity where a brain would normally be. There was a hole in this story: How can a person lead a full and functional life while missing mo... Tue, 05 Aug 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Michael Gazzaniga https://iai.tvarticles/is-your-brain-really-necessary-for-consciousness-auid-3280 https://iai.tvarticles/truth-is-deeper-than-mathematics-auid-3278 Mathematics is a powerful tool. But increasingly, maths is being mistaken for reality. From fitness trackers to large language models, we're increasingly ruled by systems that quantify without understanding. In this incisive and darkly comic article, novelist and essayist Joanna Kavenna explores the rise of cyber-Pythagoreanism—the belief that reality can be captured through numbers—and argues that when we mistake data for truth, we risk replacing the real world with algorithmic fiction. "Oh, Wise One, your step count today is 210. Your step distance is 0.15KM. Your moves are 3/220KCAL."This article is about mathematical idealism: the idea that mathematical entities and/or concepts are the fundamental units of reality. The philosopher, scientist, and poet Raymond Tallis calls this ‘industrial-strength Pythagoreanism’. The phrase draws on a remark attributed to ... Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Joanna Kavenna https://iai.tvarticles/truth-is-deeper-than-mathematics-auid-3278 https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-is-not-made-of-information-auid-3274 Many physicists and computer scientists, from John Wheeler to Google Deepmind's Demis Hassabis, have argued that reality is fundamentally made of information. Wheeler called this "it from bit". But this is mistaken, argues Boston University physicist and philosopher of science, Gregg Jaeger. Information supposes a relation between the information itself and its physical encoding. Reality cannot be made of information, because without already existing physical objects to encode it, information does not exist.  Is the universe made of bits of information? Physicist John Wheeler took this radical idea extremely seriously. His interest in it can be traced at least as far back as his time as a post-doctoral scientist in Copenhagen under one of the founders of quantum theory, Niels Bohr. Wheeler supported Bohr’s view of quantum events an... Fri, 01 Aug 2025 17:18:09 +0000 Gregg Jaeger https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-is-not-made-of-information-auid-3274 https://iai.tvarticles/dostoevsky-nihilism-and-the-fight-for-human-nature-auid-3273 Science will usher in a utopia and should be worshipped, so believed the 19th-century Russian nihilists. Their ideas would later inspire the Bolsheviks—Lenin even used the title of Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done? for his own revolutionary pamphlet. But in seeking to explain away human complexity with scientific certainty, did the Russian nihilists radically misunderstand human nature? And are we repeating their mistakes today? In this article, Slavist and literary critic Gary Saul Morson contrasts the science-worshipping Russian nihilists with Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky, who, he argues, revealed a world too intricate and mysterious to ever be fully understood. “Nihilist” and “nihilism”—terms typically attributed to novelist Ivan Turgenev—originally referred to a group that arose in Russia around 1860. Today we often call people nihilistic if they extend no hope that conditions can improve. Unqualified pessimists, they regard all grounds fo... Thu, 31 Jul 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Gary Saul Morson https://iai.tvarticles/dostoevsky-nihilism-and-the-fight-for-human-nature-auid-3273 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-cosmology-and-the-collapse-of-common-sense-auid-3272 Philosophers are making a mistake when they try to tame reality’s paradoxes—when they try to make consciousness, free will and the cosmos itself fit neatly within common sense. In fact, when it comes to reality, the one thing we can be certain of, argues philosopher of psychology Eric Schwitzgebel, is that it is deeply weird and contrary to common sense. Attempts to evade this weirdness by, for example, framing everything in terms of scientific materialism, cannot succeed—for monsters lurk even within materialism. When it comes to fundamental theories of consciousness and cosmology, common sense fails spectacularly. Every serious theory of the nature of reality and the role of the mind within it is, in some respects, jaw-droppingly bizarre. And where the truth lies, among the various weird possibilities, is beyond our capacity to know—now and... Wed, 30 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Eric Schwitzgebel https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-cosmology-and-the-collapse-of-common-sense-auid-3272 https://iai.tvarticles/you-cant-test-your-way-to-health-auid-3271 More tests, more scans, more treatments—we’re told this is the road to health. It’s not. In our obsession with early detection, we’ve built a system that over-diagnoses the well, chases harmless cancers, and pours billions into treating problems that were never really problems. Pharma companies profit; doctors feel virtuous; and grateful “cancer survivors” promote the myth—yet in many cases their cancers were never destined to cause them harm. In this final article in his series on screening, leading physician and health policy researcher H. Gilbert Welch delivers a stark message: health isn’t constant vigilance. It’s knowing when to stop looking. You can’t test yourself to wellbeing.This is the third in a series of three articles for the IAI by Dr Welch on screening. Read part 1, “We are overcounting cancer cases by vast amounts... Tue, 29 Jul 2025 09:00:00 +0000 H. Gilbert Welch https://iai.tvarticles/you-cant-test-your-way-to-health-auid-3271 https://iai.tvarticles/language-alienates-us-from-the-self-auid-3270 The self is always alienated from itself. Even Descartes' “I think, therefore I am” suggests a form of alienation because it is unclear who or what the “I” is that is thinking. For this reason, we are always, in a sense, inauthentic and performing as a kind of character. University of Wuppertal philosopher, Gigla Gonashvili, argues that even though our thoughts are not our own, we should allow them to play spontaneously, and through writing, attempt to carve out a more authentic self by attempting to find a language that is authentically our own.  Alienation is not merely a psychological or social phenomenon, but rather something that emerges within thinking itself, inasmuch as it expresses a truth about the thinking subject. In fact, the Cartesian “I think, therefore I am,” despite being ultimately put forward as an absolute certainty, contains within it the possibility of spontaneous alienation – precisely because it is not clear who this “I” is that thinks ... Mon, 28 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Gigla Gonashvili https://iai.tvarticles/language-alienates-us-from-the-self-auid-3270 https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-physics-reveals-there-is-no-such-thing-as-things-auid-3267 Quantum physics doesn’t just rewrite our equations; it dismantles our ontology. From uncertainty to entanglement, the theory breaks the classical idea of the world as made of individual objects with identities and properties. In the quantum realm, philosopher of science Olimpia Lombardi argues, there are no separate things, only an undivided whole. On the most fundamental level, there is no individual. When we talk about what it is that makes up the world, we tend to talk of the “building blocks” of reality. When we ask what kind of thing those things are—the question of their ontology—and what properties they possess, we might picture solid, distinct individual pieces, like particles, that make up the fabric of reality. It is precisely these features that break down when we talk about quantum systems. Can we still underst... Fri, 25 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Olimpia Lombardi https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-physics-reveals-there-is-no-such-thing-as-things-auid-3267 https://iai.tvarticles/john-gray-and-the-end-of-the-wests-utopian-dream-auid-3266 John Gray prophetically called the end of liberalism. Criticising liberalism's universalism, egalitarianism, hyper-individualism (which became identity politics), and its belief in moral progress, Gray sees liberalism as a hangover from religion. But it is now crumbling. China, Russia, and the US are fighting to lead the new world order. In this piece, former intelligence officer Andy Owen argues that it is liberalism's utopian notions that ultimately led to its demise, and that this too is a hangover from religion in that it reflects a search for salvation. Instead, he argues, with Gray, that we should give up on looking for utopia, or meaning in life at all. It was in a warzone that I first read John Gray’s work. His words cut through the silence of the still, mid-afternoon heat of Helmand Province, Afghanistan. They helped me make sense of the political ideology that I had unknowingly become a missionary for: liberal humanism. In ... Thu, 24 Jul 2025 09:46:02 +0000 Andy Owen https://iai.tvarticles/john-gray-and-the-end-of-the-wests-utopian-dream-auid-3266 https://iai.tvarticles/thomas-mann-and-the-fall-of-the-west-auid-3265 Over three decades ago, Francis Fukuyama famously announced “the end of history,” declaring Western liberal democracy the final form of human government. But liberalism has failed to spread to the East and is now under threat in the West. In this article, contributing editor Oliver Adelson turns to Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, arguing that its explosive philosophical battles anticipated the current crisis of liberalism and what might come next.  After the First World War, Bertrand Russell became convinced of the need for international governance and sought to establish a “League for Peace and Freedom.” Russell’s protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein purportedly rebuked him so severely for the proposal that Russell snapped, “I suppose you would rather establish a League for War and Slavery.” Wittgenstein’s reply: “Yes, rather that, rather that.”At the cen... Wed, 23 Jul 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Oliver Adelson https://iai.tvarticles/thomas-mann-and-the-fall-of-the-west-auid-3265 https://iai.tvarticles/cancer-screening-harms-more-people-than-it-saves-auid-3264 This is the second in a series of three articles for the IAI by Dr Welch on screening. Read part 1, “We are overcounting cancer cases by vast amounts”, and part 3, "You can’t test your way to health".When leading physician and health policy researcher H. Gilbert Welch reviewed 30 years of data from a landmark cancer screening trial, he was stunned: screening hadn’t helped people live longer. Not even a bit. In this article, Welch delves deep into the data to show that vested interests seriously overplay cancer screening’s benefits, while its harms are real and too often ignored. Rather than saving lives, it’s more likely to draw healthy people into unnecessary medical interventions. The massive amounts of money we spend on... Tue, 22 Jul 2025 09:30:00 +0000 H. Gilbert Welch https://iai.tvarticles/cancer-screening-harms-more-people-than-it-saves-auid-3264 https://iai.tvarticles/truth-is-the-most-dangerous-fantasy-our-species-ever-invented-auid-3263 For centuries, the Western intellectual tradition has pursued a single, seductive dream: that the truth is out there, waiting to be discovered. But what if this quest has led humanity into great danger? In this provocative essay, philosopher Manuel Delaflor challenges the Enlightenment ideal of objective truth, arguing that our models don’t represent reality but rather that they create it. The result is a radical rethinking of knowledge, meaning, and what it means to know anything at all. Just a few days ago, a colleague cornered me after a talk on the plausibility of artificial consciousness. “But, surely,” she said, “we can at least agree on what we mean by reality?” Her earnestness was touching. It reminded me of my younger self, back when I believed that philosophy's great project, “making sense of it all,” was not only possible but inevitable. We just needed the right facts, better arguments, clearer thinking, more rigorous definitions.... Mon, 21 Jul 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Manuel Delaflor https://iai.tvarticles/truth-is-the-most-dangerous-fantasy-our-species-ever-invented-auid-3263 https://iai.tvarticles/obamas-chief-economist-neoliberalism-is-the-only-game-in-town-auid-3262 Neoliberalism is often used as a slur by critics. Indeed, the blame for just about every major political crisis we live within is placed at the feet of neoliberalism. But, is neoliberalism really to blame? And what exactly are we blaming? In this recent IAI Live interview, Jason Furman, Obama's chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, argues that it was Biden's break with neoliberalism into unpopular, expensive, industrial policy such as the Inflation Reduction Act that cost him the election. With Trump deploying a similar 'spend now, fix later' approach to government, Jason argues that both parties' break with neoliberalism could sow the seeds for a US version of a Liz Truss moment. In a recent IAI Live opening interview, the New York Times’ Eshe Nelson interviewed Harvard Professor and former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama, Jason Furman about the s... Fri, 18 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jason Furman https://iai.tvarticles/obamas-chief-economist-neoliberalism-is-the-only-game-in-town-auid-3262 https://iai.tvarticles/against-the-pursuit-of-happiness-auid-3261 From the US founding fathers to utilitarianism, hedonism, and today's self-help, philosophers and thinkers have strived to articulate why we should place happiness and well-being above other things and how we can achieve them. Professor Lorraine Besser, on the contrary, argues that we should stop seeking happiness. Whether we are happy or not is largely out of our control. Instead, we should try to achieve different interesting and valuable experiences that we can control, and just enjoy happiness when it comes. Happiness. The very word strikes a chord. We wish we could have it. We think about what’s holding us back from it and the “if-only” tracks start to fly: if only I had more money, a different job, fewer responsibilities, a house with more room or a bigger yard, the perfect partner or the perfect children. We read all the news articles about ... Thu, 17 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Lorraine Besser https://iai.tvarticles/against-the-pursuit-of-happiness-auid-3261 https://iai.tvarticles/50-of-some-cancers-diagnosed-by-screening-are-better-left-untreated-auid-3257 This is the first in a series of three articles for the IAI by Dr Welch on screening. Read part 2, "Cancer screening harms more people than it saves is available"  and part 3, "You can’t test your way to health".We’re vastly overcounting cancer cases. In 2020, President Joe Biden urged Americans to get cancer screenings, backing a $43-billion-a-year screening effort. But Dr H. Gilbert Welch, a leading physician and health policy researcher, argues that such well-meaning campaigns are creating more problems than they solve. Up to 90% of thyroid cancers diagnosed due to screening would never have caused any harm if left untreated; and overdiagnosis of breast, skin and prostate cancers is also rife. This fools us into thinking that we’re curing more peo... Tue, 15 Jul 2025 11:00:00 +0000 H. Gilbert Welch https://iai.tvarticles/50-of-some-cancers-diagnosed-by-screening-are-better-left-untreated-auid-3257 https://iai.tvarticles/the-fragility-of-goodness-auid-3255 Why do we sometimes act against reason, even to our own detriment? Yale Psychologist and author Paul Bloom highlights the paradoxical virtues of perversity, the limits of rationality, and what it really means to be human. In conversation with Charlie Barnett, he reflects on Augustine, algorithms, and the fine line between madness and autonomy.  In this wide-ranging interview, Paul Bloom explores how our best qualities, reason, morality, and compassion, can be paradoxically undercut by the very forces meant to protect them. Looking at his work on Perversity, he reveals the tightrope between chaos and autonomy, making human goodness not just aspirational but fragile, easily distorted, often misunderstood, and vulnerable to both logic and emotion when taken to extremes.You’ve said that perversity can be both a good and an optimal strategy. Can you explain what you mean by that?  For the sake of being bad or silly or unreasonabl... Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:09:27 +0000 Paul Bloom https://iai.tvarticles/the-fragility-of-goodness-auid-3255 https://iai.tvarticles/wars-are-not-about-winning-auid-3254 In war, it is often said, there are no winners. But, in fact, wars are often not even about winning and losing at all. They are about reaching an equilibrium. Author and former intelligence officer Andy Owen argues that what has changed in the world today – in part due to the chaos of Trump's second term, but also due to events well preceding him – is that the world has been thrown out of this equilibrium. And if geopolitics is indeed a kind of game, the referee – the US – and the rules of the game – international law – have come unstuck. The result is a dangerous free for all, where might equals right. Owen argues, in order to survive in such a world, smaller nations need to build coalitions to have any chance of repelling the power of larger nations – and they need to be smart in playing the game.  Playing games is a universal part of human experience. The British Museum has a board from the third millennium BC, from the Mesopotamian strateg... Fri, 11 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Andy Owen https://iai.tvarticles/wars-are-not-about-winning-auid-3254 https://iai.tvarticles/humanitys-ancient-tribalism-is-causing-its-modern-problems-auid-3252 The mind that helped hunter-gatherers to survive could be causing modern society’s downfall. University of Oxford anthropologist, Harvey Whitehouse, argues that the same ancient psychology that once scaled up human cooperation now risks tearing our world apart. However, if we can harness the primal forces of conformism, religiosity, and tribalism, rather than erasing them, we might just be able to rewrite our future. (Based on abridged text from the Epilogue of Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World, by Harvey Whitehouse)In March 2022, psychology students at the University of Melbourne helped me strap on a virtual reality headset as part of an experiment they had designed to evoke feelings of ‘awe’ in the lab. As soon as they pressed the start button, I found myself surrounded by other astronauts, gazing throu... Thu, 10 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Harvey Whitehouse https://iai.tvarticles/humanitys-ancient-tribalism-is-causing-its-modern-problems-auid-3252 https://iai.tvarticles/the-first-great-joke-told-by-ai-might-be-the-last-one-humans-hear-auid-3251 AI creating, telling, and understanding a genuinely funny joke may signal the onset of true artificial general intelligence, and possibly AI consciousness, argues computer scientist and writer of Can we hack our way out of the universe?, Roman Yampolskiy. But the onset of funny AI may be no laughing matter. If we fail to align AI properly, we may be the butt of a joke that ends humanity – well, at least we might all die laughing.  “In a theatre, it happened that a fire started offstage. The clown came out to tell the audience. They thought it was a joke and applauded. He told them again, and they became still more hilarious. This is the way, I suppose, that the world will be destroyed-amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it is all a joke” – Søren Kierkegaard “I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it.” – Fr... Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Roman Yampolskiy https://iai.tvarticles/the-first-great-joke-told-by-ai-might-be-the-last-one-humans-hear-auid-3251 https://iai.tvarticles/the-high-priests-of-science-are-holding-it-hostage-auid-3250 Science is ruled by a small club of insiders who decide what kinds of research are getting us closer to the truth—and they’re getting it wrong. Brilliant ideas are shut out, innovation is stalled, and billions are wasted chasing safe bets. If we want real progress, from cancer research to cosmology, we should move to a radically egalitarian method of funding scientists, argues philosopher of science Jamie Shaw. We need to break the monopoly, spread the funding more widely, and start trusting scientists to be as wild, diverse and unpredictable as the world they seek to explain. Science funding is brokenIn 2022, the US, China, the EU, Japan, and Russia together spent around two trillion dollars on science. While this may make one think that scientists are spoiled with riches, this is far from enough to go around. Scientists often clamor for funds, with one estimate suggesting that they ... Tue, 08 Jul 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Jamie Shaw https://iai.tvarticles/the-high-priests-of-science-are-holding-it-hostage-auid-3250 https://iai.tvarticles/piketty-insists-its-time-for-western-countries-to-take-the-brics-seriously-auid-3248 Western countries have ignored the BRICS for too long. As we witness the start of the 17th annual BRICS conference, what was once dismissed as a marketing term invented by Goldman Sachs now finds itself producing 32% of global GDP and with an ever-growing waitlist of countries seeking to join. Far from an opponent of the West, Thomas Piketty argues the West needs to seriously engage with the BRICS if we are to rein in multinational corporations and have any chance of controlling the global economy. The war in Gaza threatens to widen the gap between North and South. For many countries in the South, and not only in the Muslim world, the thousands of civilian deaths caused by Israeli bombardments in the Palestinian enclave, 20 years after the tens of thousands of deaths caused by the United States in Iraq, will doubtless embody the West’s double standards for a long time to come.All this is... Mon, 07 Jul 2025 10:01:25 +0000 Thomas Piketty https://iai.tvarticles/piketty-insists-its-time-for-western-countries-to-take-the-brics-seriously-auid-3248 https://iai.tvarticles/pinker-vs-nietzsche-is-music-the-basis-of-language-auid-3247 According to psychologists like Steven Pinker, music is a peripheral part of our humanity. If music vanished overnight, Pinker argues, "the rest of our lifestyle would be virtually unchanged." For Nietzsche, this is a radical mistake. In this article, Kathleen Higgins presents Nietzsche's argument for music being the foundation of language, without which our lives would not be recognizably human at all. Far from being peripheral, music is essential to our humanity. As Nietzsche wrote late in life: "Without music, life would be a mistake." Music is a pervasive presence, not only marking special occasions like birthdays and weddings, but also serving as background for daily activities like driving, exercising, or watching a show. So prevalent is music in our ordinary routines that it is hard to imagine what our lives would be like without it.But cognitive psychologist ... Fri, 04 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Kathleen Higgins https://iai.tvarticles/pinker-vs-nietzsche-is-music-the-basis-of-language-auid-3247 https://iai.tvarticles/the-internet-is-broken-heres-how-to-fix-it-auid-3246 AI and the internet have given us more access to data than ever before. Yet we sit on this wealth of knowledge and do nothing with it. Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris argues for a radical reform of the internet grounded in his new realist philosophy. He proposes a system of "webfare" where institutions cash in on the data troves they posses and redistribute profits to those in need. The digitalisation of everything in the modern world can often feel like a curse. Yet Ferraris offers hope for a future in which the internet can become the basis for a decentralized and more equitable society.  Let’s start with the metaphysics behind your theory. What is a social ontology?It is an ontology that takes this interview, for instance, seriously. An interview is not something that we can touch. It exists only if it is recorded. If the recording of an interview does not work, ... Thu, 03 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Maurizio Ferraris https://iai.tvarticles/the-internet-is-broken-heres-how-to-fix-it-auid-3246 https://iai.tvarticles/naming-wont-solve-mortality-auid-3245 From tech moguls like Bryan Johnson chasing immortality with potions and pills to overreliance on antidepressants, we often see healthcare as simply about finding the right drug – but this is a mistake. While these treatments have their place, philosopher Ian James Kidd argues we’re too quick to reach for invasive scans and prescriptions, which can do more harm than good. In our rush to diagnose, we’ve reduced health to biological functioning alone, seeking neat definitions of disease as mechanical failure. A wider understanding of health, as involving subjective experience and the ways that we make life meaningful, will better prepare us to deal with the uncertainties about our own bodies that come with our mortality. Scientific medicine has transformed how we experience, understand and cope with our mortality. By “mortality,” I mean the truth that aging, illness, dying, and death are integral to human existence. Our bodies and minds are vulnerable to injury ... Wed, 02 Jul 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Ian James Kidd https://iai.tvarticles/naming-wont-solve-mortality-auid-3245 https://iai.tvarticles/hegel-vs-marx-ideas-change-the-world-not-economics-auid-3244 Marx thought he turned Hegel on his head, ditching ideology for class struggle as the driver of human history. But in writing off the state, war, and law, Marx missed something crucial. Yale philosopher Jacob McNulty argues for reviving a tougher, more realist Hegel, in line with the realist school of international relations, one that sees history not just as a battle of classes, but of states. Marx and Engels criticize Hegel for his idealist account of history as driven by the world spirit, a godlike rational force seeking self-knowledge. They advocate replacing it with a materialist account of history as the history of class struggle. Yet historical materialism is unconvincing in its treatment of the state, war, and law. To solve this problem, I recommend returning to the “realist” branch of Hegelian thought.In the... Tue, 01 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jacob McNulty https://iai.tvarticles/hegel-vs-marx-ideas-change-the-world-not-economics-auid-3244 https://iai.tvarticles/humans-arent-special-and-why-it-matters-auid-3242 Humans think they are special, unique, and the pinnacle of life, but according to Timothy Morton, this is a dangerous delusion. Because evolution is random and not goal-driven, humans are necessarily a part of nature, not superior to it. Anthropocentrism and humanism deny this basic fact and cause much misery and destruction in the process. Letting go of this belief isn't anti-human—it's the only possible way for the human species to survive on earth. I’m going to convince you that it’s wrong to think that humans are the pinnacle of life on Earth—that they are special and different. I’ll also convince you that knowing this is a very, very good thing. Ready? You won’t be able to un-read this. I’ve been writing about it since I started in grad school in 1989.A century before I went to Oxford, William Morris (he of the wallpaper designs) published ... Fri, 27 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Timothy Morton https://iai.tvarticles/humans-arent-special-and-why-it-matters-auid-3242 https://iai.tvarticles/there-are-no-particles-or-fields-only-structure-auid-3243 Particle physics isn’t really about particles. Nor, it turns out, is it about fields—at least not in any traditional sense, argues NYU philosopher Jon Bain. Despite the name, the theories at the heart of modern physics describe a reality where the classical idea of discrete, localizable, countable particles collapses—and fields fare no better. For Bain, making sense of particle physics means abandoning these outdated intuitions and embracing a more radical view: the properties we associate with particles or fields don’t exist absolutely, but emerge only in specific regimes. What, then, underlies reality? Not objects, but structure—relations, observables, mathematical frameworks. If there’s anything fundamental, it may not be a thing at all. To what extent is particle physics about particles? This is an important question for a naturalist who looks to science for the answers to philosophical questions about the nature of reality. When a philosopher ask... Fri, 27 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Jonathan Bain https://iai.tvarticles/there-are-no-particles-or-fields-only-structure-auid-3243 https://iai.tvarticles/the-way-human-life-is-created-is-changing-and-the-world-isnt-ready-auid-3241 We come into this world via pregnancy and birth. The emergence of new reproductive technologies promises that this will not always be the case. But many aspects of society and law are yet to catch up with the lived realities of diverse family formations that currently exist—let alone reflect how they might further diversify as a result of future technologies. This article explores the position of pregnant men and birthing fathers within changing legal landscapes, highlighting the regressive ideologies that are in tension with the present diversity of life. Feminist theorist Suki Finn argues we are exceedingly unprepared for today’s world, let alone equipped for future trajectories of new assisted reproductive technologies. The proposal: we shouldn't force people’s experiences to fit rigid frameworks, we should instead look at the experiences first, and build our philosophical concepts and legal definitions from there. Becom... Thu, 26 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Suki Finn https://iai.tvarticles/the-way-human-life-is-created-is-changing-and-the-world-isnt-ready-auid-3241 https://iai.tvarticles/if-we-insist-on-growth-we-will-need-autocracy-auid-3240 If we want to continue the materially comfortable lifestyles of our parents, we will have to turn to a more authoritarian government, argues the Roma Tre University's Onofrio Romano. Fukuyama's end of history has self-evidently turned out to be wrong. But it has identified a key insight. What came to dominate the world over the last few decades was not liberal democracy, but rather a desire for an idealized Western lifestyle: consumeristic, pleasure-seeking, technology-loving. However, as the first quarter of the 21st century comes to a close, we are discovering that Western liberal democracy-style governments may not be the best suited to provide such a lifestyle. If we do not want autocracy – and Romano argues we should not – we must dial back our desires for immediate pleasures and comforts.For more on this topic, join the debate at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival, in the debate 'The Iron Fist vs ... Wed, 25 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Onofrio Romano https://iai.tvarticles/if-we-insist-on-growth-we-will-need-autocracy-auid-3240 https://iai.tvarticles/lifes-mysteries-cannot-be-explained-away-they-are-to-be-lived-auid-3238 What if the goal of philosophy isn’t to resolve life’s mysteries, but to live with them? In a world shaped as much by experience as by abstract thought, Cambridge University Fellow Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis argues for rejecting the reductionist view of thinking. Rather than competing with the richness of lived reality, he proposes that our concepts are tools, not total truths. And that philosophy is at its best when it helps us inhabit life more fully, not explain it away. In an open, uncertain world, life can be a journey—and a mystery—without anything needing to be left behind. You may have heard this before: life is a journey. But is this assertion conceptually sound? Going on a journey is something that people do as part of their lives. It cannot possibly be that you can describe life in terms of just one aspect of human experience. From this p... Tue, 24 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Orfeas Chasapis Tassinis https://iai.tvarticles/lifes-mysteries-cannot-be-explained-away-they-are-to-be-lived-auid-3238 https://iai.tvarticles/why-we-live-in-alternate-political-realities-auid-3239 When almost any event happens, people on opposing political sides reach wildly different conclusions about what actually happened. So much so that it feels like we are living in alternate realities. Steven Sloman, Professor of Cognitive and Psychological Science at Brown University, argues that in politics, we rely too much on our own sets of sacred values when we interpret political events. We need to understand the psychology that drives our political convictions, and discover how we can use consequences to bridge the gap between each of our sacred values, if we are ever to find common ground. When a military helicopter fatally crashed into an American Airlines plane in January, President Donald Trump pl... Tue, 24 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Steven Sloman https://iai.tvarticles/why-we-live-in-alternate-political-realities-auid-3239 https://iai.tvarticles/to-solve-quantum-gravity-we-must-go-beyond-the-physical-auid-3237 Physicists have so far failed to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. As attempts to unite them into a quantum theory of gravity mount up, philosopher of physics Dean Rickles argues that the assumption of materialism is the problem. We need to look beyond the physical—beyond space, time and matter—to something primordial out of which minds can construct physical reality, and which explains both general relativity and quantum mechanics. Pioneers like John Wheeler and David Bohm have already begun to chart what such a realm of “pre-physics” might look like—it’s high time physics took their ideas more seriously. A pair of recent physics Nobel prizes (2020 and 2022) were awarded for basic research in general relativity (Einstein’s theory of gravitation that explains gravi... Fri, 20 Jun 2025 09:45:44 +0000 Dean Rickles https://iai.tvarticles/to-solve-quantum-gravity-we-must-go-beyond-the-physical-auid-3237 https://iai.tvarticles/how-to-really-make-europe-great-again-auid-3229 In a post-Trump world, many commentators point to this moment as the opportunity for Europe to coalesce around a shared vision. But is this really a time for optimism, or is this hope misplaced? Head of the LSE's European Institute, Simon Glendinning, argues that instead of optimism for Europe’s renewal, we should look to the interwar German philosopher Oswald Spengler as a prophetic guide to our new age of strongmen. If we are to navigate our new world of Caesars, we should look to Spengler and his record of uncomfortably accurate predictions.  As a preference for so-called ‘strongman’ leaders begins to grow again across the European-West, a preference for leaders with the authority to ignore or override democratic institutions, Oswald Spengler’s writings on world history once again look increasingly prophetic. Spengler’s perspective certainly goes against the grain. Attempts to understand what is going on in the present generally only have a... Thu, 19 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Simon Glendinning https://iai.tvarticles/how-to-really-make-europe-great-again-auid-3229 https://iai.tvarticles/the-us-iran-israel-and-the-future-of-the-middle-east-auid-3214 The Middle East is ablaze. But with the recent escalation between Iran and Israel, where do the sources of escalation lie? And what historical mistakes do we need to understand to forge a path to peace? University College London's, Christian Emery, argues that this escalation is a failure of America's restraint. The US's rightful fear of a regional war has restrained its might. But now is the time for Trump to make a firm commitment in either direction. Strategic ambiguity has failed, and the world now waits for Trump to decide its fate.  What began as a devastating but targeted Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear programme and senior military leadership on 13 June has, with bleak predictability, escalated into both sides striking densely populated areas indiscriminately. Israel is now issuing an impossible warning to Tehran... Wed, 18 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Christian Emery https://iai.tvarticles/the-us-iran-israel-and-the-future-of-the-middle-east-auid-3214 https://iai.tvarticles/water-not-silicon-has-to-be-the-basis-of-true-ai-auid-3200 AI needs to be water-based in order to become truly intelligent. AI will never be able to think as human beings do so long as its physical basis is silicon, argue pioneering systems biologist and Dawkins-critic Denis Noble, and Royal Society of Biology fellow, Raymond Noble. Real intelligence isn’t just fast computation—it’s fluid, flexible and fuelled by randomness. That’s why all living organisms are water-based. Water is a virtually unlimited source of the random motion which drives creativity, consciousness and thought. Unless AI can be built out of water, it will stay merely clever, rather than a truly creative form of intelligence. Could AI ever replace humans? Not so long as the physical basis of AI is solid-state silicon chips. Only liquid-based computation, preferably with water as the solvent, could enable AI to achieve human-like intelligence. This, of course, w... Tue, 17 Jun 2025 09:38:05 +0000 Denis Noble https://iai.tvarticles/water-not-silicon-has-to-be-the-basis-of-true-ai-auid-3200 https://iai.tvarticles/a-universe-without-dark-matter-auid-3196 The standard cosmological model, critics argue, is built on unobserved phenomena like dark matter, but is defended by the mainstream despite mounting contradictions. However, physicist Martín López Corredoira argues that there is no elusive dark matter particle waiting to be found that would explain the Big Bang. Instead, we may need a patchwork of explanations: modified gravity, baryonic matter, and contextual fixes. It’s time to abandon the search for a one-size-fits-all cosmic theory. Our current picture of the cosmos is one of an expanding universe governed by gravity, born from a hot beginning and stretched uniformly across vast scales. But this vision only holds together when we invoke mysterious unseen forces—inflation, dark energy, and more. This prevailing cosmological model—also known as the Big Bang or Lambda-CDM (ΛCDM)—has countless problems, but it i... Mon, 16 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Martín López Corredoira https://iai.tvarticles/a-universe-without-dark-matter-auid-3196 https://iai.tvarticles/the-delusion-behind-upgrading-humanity-or-ending-it-auid-3195 Some believe we can and should extend life indefinitely through technology. Others that this is a hopeless enterprise, and human suffering means we should not have children. Both are based on a delusion, argues Michael Hauskeller. Suffering and setbacks are parts of life of which we want a healthy dose, not the complete elimination. Both ideologies have reached such pessimistic conclusions about human nature not because they are hard-headed realists, Hauskeller argues, but because they don’t understand it. Transhumanism and antinatalism are two separate contemporary movements with seemingly very different agendas. Transhumanists want to radically enhance human nature to improve human lives, while antinatalists want people to stop reproducing and having babies. However, they both share the same basic conviction that life as it is now is not good enough to be truly worth living. While the cure they propose might differ, the diagnosis and underlying worldview are... Fri, 13 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Michael Hauskeller https://iai.tvarticles/the-delusion-behind-upgrading-humanity-or-ending-it-auid-3195 https://iai.tvarticles/the-rules-of-war-are-a-collective-myth-auid-3193 From ancient times until the present day the weak have had to suffer the whims of the strong. The question of whether that still remains the case today was the subject of the debate held at HowTheLightGetsIn Festival in Hay-on-Wye this past May, which has been released in full on iai.tv today. The discussion centred around international law and what, if any, efficacy it has. Former Labour politician Jeremy Corbyn, former Conservative Minister Malcolm Rifkind, hero of the Left Yanis Varoufakis, and CEO of Chatham House Bronwen Maddox debated this question. Alyssa Erspamer here analyses their divergent, and sometimes opposed, perspectives, all of them however ultimately defending the necessity of our rules-based international order. She questions, instead, whether it itself is merely another tool for the strong.   “The strong do what they ... Thu, 12 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Alyssa Erspamer https://iai.tvarticles/the-rules-of-war-are-a-collective-myth-auid-3193 https://iai.tvarticles/the-planck-scale-isnt-the-limit-physicists-think-it-is-auid-3188 Science's current best theory of reality, low-energy quantum gravity, takes the form of an effective field theory – one that is only valid up until a certain limit. Physics takes it as gospel that this breakdown occurs at the Planck Scale, but as theoretical philosopher Caspar A. Jacobs argues this is a mistake. Many have assumed that not only the same methods that took us from general relativity to low-energy quantum gravity will also take us to a grander theory, but also that this grander theory will cut up reality in ultimate units of the Planck constant. Unfortunately, given that this breakdown and the Planck scale lie far outside of our range of observable energies, we cannot say where our theories fail to match an unknown reality. It is well-known that our two most fundamental theories in physics—quantum field theory and general relativity—are irreconcilable. It is perhaps less well-known that this is not the case in every circumstance. For ... Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Caspar A. Jacobs https://iai.tvarticles/the-planck-scale-isnt-the-limit-physicists-think-it-is-auid-3188 https://iai.tvarticles/dont-despair-about-being-a-pessimist-auid-3187 Modern society prizes hope and activism, treating optimism as a moral ideal and pessimism as a flaw. Drawing on Buddhist thought and contemporary philosophy, Nottingham philosopher Ian James Kidd challenges this cultural habit, inviting us to explore forms of pessimism that resist despair, without collapsing into false hope. A curious feature of pessimism is that there are many reasons to be pessimistic and yet many people condemn being pessimistic. It only helps a little to point out that pessimism can apply to all sorts of things. I could be pessimistic about my meeting this afternoon, my financial future, the prospects for peace in the Middle East, or the prospects for humankind surviving into the next century. This includes specific and general concerns (the meeting; humankind), short- and long-term concerns (this afternoon; the 22nd century), and the different sorts of concerns (financial; existential). In these examples, we a... Tue, 10 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Ian James Kidd https://iai.tvarticles/dont-despair-about-being-a-pessimist-auid-3187 https://iai.tvarticles/the-psychedelic-origins-and-future-of-western-thought-auid-3186 It is now widely accepted by researchers such as Michael Pollan and Brian Muraresku that the Ancient Greeks took a psychedelic-like narcotic at their Eleusinian mysteries, which were annual ritual initiations. The taking of this narcotic led to what William James called ‘the mystical experience’. Plato is known to have attended these mysteries and would have taken this psychedelic-like narcotic, named Kykeon. The influence this had on Plato, and as a result, Western culture as a whole, was seen by Nietzsche, in ideas like Plato’s cave and in religion more broadly. In this piece, philosopher Ricky Williamson argues that Nietzsche's critique of Plato, Christianity, and the morality that still shapes our lives today, all have the psychedelically-induced mystical experience at their core. The modern psychedelic prohibition has left thinkers afraid to draw this clear and obvious conclusion in Nietzsche’s thought, argues Williamson. Western thought was shaped and has ... Mon, 09 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Ricky Williamson https://iai.tvarticles/the-psychedelic-origins-and-future-of-western-thought-auid-3186 https://iai.tvarticles/our-universe-is-inside-of-a-black-hole-auid-3185 We think our universe began with a bang. But what if it actually began with a bounce inside of a black hole? Physicist Nikodem Poplawski argues for a revolutionary rethinking of cosmology where every black hole births a new cosmos. The current theory of the origin of our Universe, which is based on Einstein's general theory of relativity (or general relativity), assumes that our Universe started from an extremely hot and dense state called the big bang. The big-bang cosmology successfully describes primordial nucleosynthesis (production of the lightest elements in the early Universe) and predicts the cosmic microwave background radiation, which we observe coming from all directions in the sky. In order to explain why the Universe that we observe today appears spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic at the largest scales, the theory of cosmic inflation... Fri, 06 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Nikodem Poplawski https://iai.tvarticles/our-universe-is-inside-of-a-black-hole-auid-3185 https://iai.tvarticles/aim-at-decency-not-sainthood-auid-3184 In a world of vast inequality, morality demands more than good intentions. Is giving just 1% of your income to effective charities the minimum for being a decent person? Most of us like to see ourselves as good, morally decent individuals. What’s more, we largely agree on what it means to be a decent person. You don’t just have to pay your taxes and not harm others. You have to go beyond that by, for instance, being kind, treating others with respect, and supporting your friends, family and neighbours.What our modern secular society lacks, however, is a clear idea of how a decent person should give to charity. We live in a world of staggering inequality and extreme need. There will always be more we could do. When have we given enough - not to be a saint, but to clear the bar of decency?One extreme view comes from the philosopher Peter... Thu, 05 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Michael Plant https://iai.tvarticles/aim-at-decency-not-sainthood-auid-3184 https://iai.tvarticles/anime-is-the-philosophical-medium-of-our-time-auid-3183 Anime is philosophical in its very form. In this article, philosopher and novelist Mike Benett argues that anime’s distinctive visual style and narrative structure embody a phenomenological approach to experience, staging the instability of identity, memory, and the self. From Spirited Away to Neon Genesis Evangelion, viewers are drawn into shifting, subjective perspectives, inviting a mode of reflection more often found in philosophy than in popular culture, but far more in keeping with the modern age.  Anime has a strange new grasp on the world, not just in its surging global popularity, but in the surreal, stylized tropes that define its genres. From apocalyptic science fiction to quiet, introspective dramas, anime had often been dismissed in the West as a niche fandom. Yet beneath it... Wed, 04 Jun 2025 12:05:58 +0000 Mike Benett https://iai.tvarticles/anime-is-the-philosophical-medium-of-our-time-auid-3183 https://iai.tvarticles/alasdair-macintyre-the-man-who-declared-morality-a-fiction-auid-3182 Alasdair MacIntyre, who has died aged 96, was one of the most influential and unpredictable moral philosophers of the last century. In After Virtue, he argued that our moral language has become hollow, disconnected from the traditions that once gave it meaning. Rather than offer easy solutions, MacIntyre called for a radical rethinking of the ethical life. His proposal centred on virtue, community, and the long memory of tradition. Contributing Editor of IAI News, Omari Edwards, reflects on his life and the power of his thinking. Alasdair MacIntyre wasn’t your typical philosopher. He never earned a PhD, changed intellectual traditions more than once, and spent a career defying ideological boxes. He began as a Marxist in the orbit of the British New Left, dabbled in analytic philosophy, and ended up a Thomist and Catholic, lecturing for decades at Notre Dame. But his journey wasn’t a series of rebrandings. It was the mark of a thinker constantly circling a sing... Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Omari Edwards https://iai.tvarticles/alasdair-macintyre-the-man-who-declared-morality-a-fiction-auid-3182 https://iai.tvarticles/cultural-memory-should-not-keep-us-stuck-in-the-past-auid-3181 The past is alive and well among us. It lives in the different forms of remembering we give it – from public monuments to anniversary celebrations. In this piece, Cambridge archaeologist and heritage researcher Marie Louise Stig Sørensen questions our approach to memorialization over the centuries, revealing how the ways we remember the past are never neutral, but actually reflective of the present’s priorities, structures, and power systems. She argues in favor of moving towards a structure of memorializing that privileges reflection on past events rather than the taking of strong positions. Various forms of public memorialization have become ubiquitous, a taken-for-granted, unreflected part of our cultural toolkit and habitus. They have become overwhelmingly naturalized. They inhabit our spaces and dot our calendars. ... Mon, 02 Jun 2025 09:51:02 +0000 Marie Louise Stig Sørensen https://iai.tvarticles/cultural-memory-should-not-keep-us-stuck-in-the-past-auid-3181 https://iai.tvarticles/identity-politics-is-not-over-its-going-to-intensify-auid-3180 Is the dominance of identity politics over? Yesterday, we published an article which claimed that it is. But today pioneering political scientist Jean-Paul Faguet argues that we should expect identity politics to get even more intense and dangerous. Class-based politics is giving way to identitarian politics, and the rise of a tribal, nativist populism is only accelerating this shift. This should be no surprise, he argues: politics organised around class interests which cut across ethnic boundaries was always a historical anomaly. In the broad sweep of human history, identity politics has been the norm.The end of left-right politicsThe era of left-right politics, which came to dominate political systems throughout much of the world, is arguably drawing to close... Fri, 30 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jean-Paul Faguet https://iai.tvarticles/identity-politics-is-not-over-its-going-to-intensify-auid-3180 https://iai.tvarticles/identity-politics-is-over-heres-what-will-replace-it-auid-3179 Is the age of identity politics in the West over—or just mutating into something fiercer and more dangerous? As Trumpism rages in the US and populism gains ground in Europe, we asked three leading thinkers for their views. Sociologist Andreas Wimmer argues that disillusionment with the global liberal order is fueling a rejection of identity politics and its replacement with a new form of nationalism—inter-ethnic and driven by economic anxiety and national self-interest. Critical theorist Richard Ford, meanwhile, sees identity politics giving way to a deeper ideological divide: not black vs. white or male vs female, but tradition vs. progress and cultural nostalgia vs. progressive modernism. You can read Jean-Paul Faguet’s response here. Andreas WimmerHas identity politics peaked? It may very well have... Thu, 29 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Andreas Wimmer https://iai.tvarticles/identity-politics-is-over-heres-what-will-replace-it-auid-3179 https://iai.tvarticles/against-efficiency-auid-3178 Should and can one single value reign supreme in societies and consciousness? Or would this automatically denote excess and idolatry? Political scientist and leisure researcher Jacob Snyder analyses the ideology of the current moment and identifies its obsession with efficiency. He argues against efficiency's place as the supreme value in our personal lives and in our politics. While efficiency can be useful, an obsession with it leads us to forget the reasons why we needed it in the first place, turning conversation away from such reasons, such as democratic government or a fulfilling leisure time. Efficiency, in both the political and personal realm, is often a tool of unwarranted destruction. In our contemporary culture, however, it is largely seen as the supreme value that excuses and explains different social structures and political choices. Instead of b... Wed, 28 May 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Jacob Snyder https://iai.tvarticles/against-efficiency-auid-3178 https://iai.tvarticles/relationships-are-more-important-than-pleasure-auid-3177 In this exclusive IAI Live Interview, Massimo Pigliucci makes the case for virtue ethics against establishment beliefs coming from modern neuroscience and psychology and argues that human relationships are more important to living a good life than physical pleasure.  Charlie Barnett: Your new book, Beyond Stoicism, illuminates various insights from the Stoics and other Greco-Roman philosophers about how to philosophise and how one lives a good and flourishing life. If you were to take one or two of the greatest misconceptions that people have about Stoic and Greco-Roman philosophy more generally, what would you say they'd be? Massimo Pigliucci: Good question. So the title of the book actually in the American version, which is th... Tue, 27 May 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Massimo Pigliucci https://iai.tvarticles/relationships-are-more-important-than-pleasure-auid-3177 https://iai.tvarticles/sapolsky-vs-sartre-the-free-will-debate-is-not-over-auid-3176 Are your thoughts truly your own, or the product of forces beyond your control? In this article, Omari Edwards, Contributing Editor of the IAI, uncovers the arguments behind on the Freedom and Fate debate at this year’s HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2025 ideas and music festival, tracing arguments from neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. From Robert Sapolsky’s determinism to Paul Bloom’s compatibilism and Lucy Allais’s Kantian dualism, he explores what’s really at stake in the free will debate: not just metaphysics, but how we live, judge, and take responsibility. Whether free will is fact or fiction, the question remains urgent. And in Hay-on-Wye, these three minds will be asked if they were ever free to answer otherwise. So much of the way we think about the free will debate is coloured not by science or even culture, a rare ... Fri, 23 May 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Omari Edwards https://iai.tvarticles/sapolsky-vs-sartre-the-free-will-debate-is-not-over-auid-3176 https://iai.tvarticles/morality-must-always-come-before-the-law-auid-3174 Most people think that the law safeguards morality. Some even argue that since morality is subjective, and our legal system is a record of this, the law cannot be wrong. But in this article, philosopher Michael Huemer argues that the law is often morally wrong, and morality must always come before the law. In 2007, a man named Anthony Crutcher was arrested in Mississippi for selling a total of about $40 worth of cocaine (in multiple transactions) to a police informant. Per federal sentencing guidelines, in view of his two prior drug convictions, Mr. Crutcher was sentenced to 60 years in prison. It is hard to believe that anyone would deem this a just sentence. It is, indeed, questionable whether any punishment is merited for such a crime: after all, individu... Wed, 21 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Michael Huemer https://iai.tvarticles/morality-must-always-come-before-the-law-auid-3174 https://iai.tvarticles/a-theory-of-everything-will-never-work-at-all-scales-auid-3175 Physicists have long hoped to discover a single, all-encompassing theory of everything that would unlock the secrets of the universe. But, as LMU Munich philosopher of science, Stephan Hartmann, argues, a new picture is emerging—one where no single framework reigns supreme. Effective field theories are transforming how we understand science itself. Rather than reducing everything to fundamental laws, they offer a patchwork of powerful, scale-sensitive models that reflect the layered structure of reality. What, if the most reliable truths are not universal, but local, scale-dependent and context-dependent? For centuries, science has pursued the dream of a “Theory of Everything,” a single, elegant framework explaining the universe, from the tiniest particles to the grandest galaxies. Writing in 1980, Stephen Hawking predicted this ... Wed, 21 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Stephan Hartmann https://iai.tvarticles/a-theory-of-everything-will-never-work-at-all-scales-auid-3175 https://iai.tvarticles/chinese-philosophys-attack-on-realitys-foundations-auid-3173 From Plato to particle physics, the search for reality’s ultimate building blocks has long been seen in the West as promising to reveal life’s deepest truths. But this approach has run into all sorts of trouble. Chinese Huayan philosophers see this search for one fixed fundamental ground of reality as a mistake. Philosopher of science Nicholaos Jones here uses the Huayan idea of “partial truth” to argue that there are multiple ways to conceive of reality’s foundations, each of which illuminates a different aspect of a complete truth which no single mind can ever fully grasp. Instead, by learning to move freely between these different partial truths, we can take pleasure in their kaleidoscopic variety. 1. The structure of reality and the meaning of lifePlato imagined ordinary objects as combinations of air, ... Tue, 20 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Nicholaos Jones https://iai.tvarticles/chinese-philosophys-attack-on-realitys-foundations-auid-3173 https://iai.tvarticles/without-philosophy-einstein-said-he-would-have-contributed-nothing-auid-3172 Without philosophical thought, Einstein claimed he “would have contributed nothing to science.” And yet, modern science popularizers like Neil deGrasse Tyson dismiss philosophy as largely irrelevant to scientific inquiry. In this article, philosopher and biologist Massimo Pigliucci sides with Einstein and argues for the importance of philosophy in making true scientific progress. Pigliucci shows how Einstein’s sophisticated philosophy, which transcended the rationalism-empiricism dichotomy, allowed him to break free of existing paradigms to revolutionize physics. When Einstein gazed at the universe, he didn’t just see equations floating in abstract space. He saw a reality that existed independently of human thought, yet one that could be grasped through a delicate dance between reason and experience. In 1934, he crystallized this approach with remarkable clarity: “... Mon, 19 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Massimo Pigliucci https://iai.tvarticles/without-philosophy-einstein-said-he-would-have-contributed-nothing-auid-3172 https://iai.tvarticles/the-big-bang-cant-escape-its-religious-beginnings-auid-3171 We tend to think our scientific and cosmological theories are devoid of religious thinking. But it was actually a priest, George Lemaître, who originally proposed the Big Bang theory. In this extract from their new book, Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins, Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper argue that some of our cosmological models have taken on creation myth status and attract very religious styles of thinking in the scientific community. The religion within cosmologyLooking back on my own past, my memories are filled with the imagery of my youth, from waking up to sounds of prayer calls at dawn to the terrifying encounter with the morality police at my college campus, when Ghazal and I were escorted to the security headquarters for the “crime” of speaking together in a classroom. This ba... Fri, 16 May 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Niayesh Afshordi https://iai.tvarticles/the-big-bang-cant-escape-its-religious-beginnings-auid-3171 https://iai.tvarticles/eurovision-is-more-important-than-you-think-auid-3168 On the eve of the Eurovision Song Contest, Europe finds itself in a precarious place. But this contest is more than mere glittery pop escapism, it is the most recent in a long line of events that have influenced politics both within and beyond Europe. Professor Galia Press-Barnathan argues major international events can be the glue that holds political groups together, which in these precarious times is more important than ever. Many people think that cultural events like the Olympics or Eurovision Song Contest should be detached from politics – in the same way individuals find refuge in music, or film, or watching football, or reading books, as a way to ‘escape’ the often complicated or boring political life. Do states host or take part in international cultural gatherings as an escape from complex political relations elsewhere? In this view, international cultural events are a social glue holding the international society of states together, even in difficul... Thu, 15 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Galia Press-Barnathan https://iai.tvarticles/eurovision-is-more-important-than-you-think-auid-3168 https://iai.tvarticles/black-holes-zeno-and-the-end-of-reality-auid-3167 Black holes aren’t just cosmic oddities—they’re cracks in our idea of reality. So argues Johns Hopkins University philosopher William Egginton, whose work explores the connections between Kant, Heisenberg and Borges. He proposes that singularities lurking in Einstein’s equations—the mysterious centers of black holes—are echoes of the notorious paradoxes of the ancient philosopher Zeno. Both the singularities and the paradoxes are what the Argentine poet Borges called “crevices of unreason” in the realities we’ve built, revealing to us, like glitches in the matrix, that our world of space and time is not real. Rather, we have “dreamt the world.” Languishing on the killing fields of the First World War, Karl Schwarzschild obsessively worked out the ramifications of his friend Albert Einstein’s recently published equations of general relativity. Einstein had redefi... Wed, 14 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 William Egginton https://iai.tvarticles/black-holes-zeno-and-the-end-of-reality-auid-3167 https://iai.tvarticles/trump-china-and-the-end-of-western-dominance-auid-3166 Some are arguing that with the US-China tariff deal now in place, this is a victory for Trump. But Harvard China specialist, Rana Mitter, warns this is not necessarily the case. Instead, we will move to a multipolar world. Mitter warns that while the deal may have shifted trade dynamics, relations in both Europe and Asia have been further strained. Mitter argues that we are witnessing a shift toward a world where the US is just as vulnerable to retaliatory economic threats as China. Washington and Beijing seemed locked in an ideological duel. Pundits spoke of a new Cold War. Tariffs piled up, diplomatic barbs flew, and each side cast the other as a civilizational adversary. And yet, more recently, a subtle shift has been underway. The United States and China are gingerly t... Tue, 13 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Rana Mitter https://iai.tvarticles/trump-china-and-the-end-of-western-dominance-auid-3166 https://iai.tvarticles/russell-vs-american-philosophers-and-the-attack-on-truth-auid-3165 Bertrand Russell was famously critical of American philosophers like William James and their radical theories of truth. According to Russell, James and the other American pragmatists defined truth in terms of what is momentarily useful or comforting, when truth is really about correspondence to an objective reality. But Russell’s attack rests on a caricature, argues philosopher John Kaag. James and the American pragmatists had a far more sophisticated account, one grounded in the recognition that we can never arrive at a final truth or confront reality as such. Instead we engage with reality through experience, in a continual negotiation with a world that resists us. The quarrel between William James and Bertrand Russell over the nature of truth is a spectacle in the history of philosophy, the drama of which rests on a caricature: James, the American pragmatist, supposedly reduces tru... Mon, 12 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000 John Kaag https://iai.tvarticles/russell-vs-american-philosophers-and-the-attack-on-truth-auid-3165 https://iai.tvarticles/spacetime-is-not-a-substance-auid-3164 What is real in our fundamental physical theories? University of Pittsburgh historian and philosopher of science, John D. Norton, argues answers lie in Einstein’s “hole argument.” Upon realizing his own argument’s error, Einstein came to emphasize a powerful method for distinguishing physical reality from mathematical redundancy: only elements of a theory that remain unchanged when we alter our mathematical descriptions correspond to real things in the world. Norton argues we also learn that the events of spacetime don’t form a “substance,” something with independent existence to other things in the world. Only by also specifying times and distances between events do we have the spacetime of our physical world. What is real? What is not real? These simple questions have long exercised philosophers of science. Are there quarks? Are there black holes at the centers of galaxies? Really? If they weren’t real, wouldn’t the enduring successes of their sciences be so... Fri, 09 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 John D. Norton https://iai.tvarticles/spacetime-is-not-a-substance-auid-3164 https://iai.tvarticles/biology-not-physics-holds-the-key-to-reality-auid-3163 Three centuries after Newton framed reality in fixed laws and deterministic equations, science has reached a radically new frontier, argue biochemist and complex systems theorist Stuart Kauffman and computer scientist Andrea Roli. The biosphere – life’s evolving web – is not a clockwork mechanism but a self-creating, unpredictable system. Organisms constantly repurpose their worlds in ways that cannot, even in principle, be foreseen or captured in a mathematical framework. Science must now confront a bold idea: reality is not fully governed by any law – and biology, not physics, holds the key to its deeper mysteries. Three centuries after Newton we are at a third major transition in science.Newton inaugurated the first major transition by inventing the differential and integral calculus, and classical physics. It is no overstatement to say that Newton taught us how to think. Call this “... Thu, 08 May 2025 09:28:41 +0000 Stuart Kauffmann https://iai.tvarticles/biology-not-physics-holds-the-key-to-reality-auid-3163 https://iai.tvarticles/all-rebels-risk-being-tyrants-auid-3162 The spirit of rebellion stirs. From Musk and Milei wielding chainsaws to Trump hanging his police mugshot outside the Oval Office, populists are embracing rebel aesthetics. Meanwhile, quite different sorts of rebellion against tyranny are intensifying from Myanmar to Serbia. Chilean-born philosopher Pedro Tabenksy, drawing on theorists of rebellion Frantz Fanon and Albert Camus, warns that all rebels—righteous or not—risk becoming the tyrants that they claim to resist if they adopt a cold, utilitarian ethics, indifferent to the suffering their victory requires. To resist this, rebellion must be tempered by regret, even when violence is necessary. Rebellion is in the air. Elon Musk and Javier Milei wield chainsaws against established institutions like horror movie villains. Trump hangs his glowering police mugshot ... Wed, 07 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Pedro Tabensky https://iai.tvarticles/all-rebels-risk-being-tyrants-auid-3162 https://iai.tvarticles/lions-can-speak-and-we-must-try-to-understand-them-auid-3161 Multiple studies now point towards the idea that animals have language and speak to each other, sometimes in great detail. In this interview, University of Amsterdam philosopher, Eva Meijer, argues we should include animals and other species as political actors, with voices, in a democratic community. Drawing on Wittgenstein, political philosophy and philosophy of language, Meijer argues for the need to continue expanding our notion of politics to include animals, plants, and other natural entities on moral grounds and in order to make better decisions in an age threatened by climate disaster. We are here to discuss your recent book, which has a proposal for an experimental new way of organizing humans and other species for poli... Tue, 06 May 2025 09:00:00 +0000 Eva Meijer https://iai.tvarticles/lions-can-speak-and-we-must-try-to-understand-them-auid-3161 https://iai.tvarticles/cooperation-not-competition-is-the-key-to-our-survival-auid-3160 Many claim ours is a new era of the so-called ‘strongman’, where zero-sum, realist, competitive politics and culture rules the day. But philosopher of science Manuel Delaflor argues this will be the final act of the worldview based on competition, survival of the fittest, and ‘might is right’. Through examples stretching from biology to game theory, Delaflor argues that cooperation, not competition, is the optimal strategy to adopt throughout our lives and societies. For millennia, our dominant narrative has cast human progress as an arena of winners and losers, a relentless struggle where only the victorious should stand tall. History books lionize conquerors, empires, the victors. This drama has shaped how we imagine success: survival of the fittest, richest, strongest, a cultural mythology so pervasive that we rarely question its foundations or validity. We've learned that excelling means surpassing others. Children are pushed into competitive games, reward... Mon, 05 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Manuel Delaflor https://iai.tvarticles/cooperation-not-competition-is-the-key-to-our-survival-auid-3160 https://iai.tvarticles/the-marketplace-of-ideas-must-embrace-the-irrational-auid-3159 The idea that truth emerges through the rational deliberation of a marketplace of ideas is central to liberalism. “The ultimate good…is better reached by free trade in ideas” claimed Oliver Wendell Holmes, the most influential Supreme Court Justice of all time. Such a view, however, is flawed argues contributing editor, Charlie Barnett. It assumes more rationality wins and less rationality loses in a marketplace, which, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Black Swan” showed, is erroneous. Liberals should embrace the irrational, the messy, and the non-orderly as vital and necessary elements of a functioning society. The “marketplace” of ideas is often seen as a centrepiece of liberalism. The assumption that truth emerges through the free competition of ideas was the basis of Mill’s justification for freedom of speech. And Steven Pinker, one o... Fri, 02 May 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Charlie Barnett https://iai.tvarticles/the-marketplace-of-ideas-must-embrace-the-irrational-auid-3159 https://iai.tvarticles/to-defeat-populism-the-left-must-focus-on-work-auid-3158 The left in America has been almost silent following their defeat to Donald Trump in the US election. While the left in the UK has been pragmatist, lacking a clear vision. In this interview, Matt McManus argues that liberal socialism should be the new guiding vision of the left. Liberal norms such as the rights of the individual and modern liberal institutions should all be maintained. But the workplace, which currently functions as an autocratic space carved out in societies that elsewhere challenge autocracy, must be re-imagined. Ordinary people, ordinary workers, must be protected from the ills of capitalism. Harry Carlisle: To open, what is liberal socialism?Matt McManus: Well, liberal socialism, as portrayed in my book, is a tradition that can be dated back to the 19th century, although it has antecedents in the 18th century and it consists of this drive to extend liberal principles about self-governance and equality into the econo... Thu, 01 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Matt McManus https://iai.tvarticles/to-defeat-populism-the-left-must-focus-on-work-auid-3158 https://iai.tvarticles/experience-can-move-beyond-the-self-and-beyond-time-auid-3156 The creation of the self brings with it the creation of linear time; the self lives towards death. And by imagining her own death, writer Clarice Lispector, escapes the self and the pull of time. Michael Marder argues that Lispector is calling for us to open ourselves to the world and embrace an existentialism that extends beyond the human. Until 2009, the name of Clarice Lispector was virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, except for a few connoisseurs of Brazilian literature. That year, the publication of Benjamin Moser’s biographical study of Lispector, titled Why This World, became a watermark moment if not in her posthumous popularity, then in a wider recognizability. I will not revisit the cliché designations of the author as “the Brazilian Kafka” (I find it highly suspicious when critics transpose the name of an iconic E... Wed, 30 Apr 2025 11:01:45 +0000 Michael Marder https://iai.tvarticles/experience-can-move-beyond-the-self-and-beyond-time-auid-3156 https://iai.tvarticles/no-one-escapes-their-perspective-auid-3154 We like to believe we’re on the side of reason, that our politics follow from facts, while others are trapped in their blinkered perspective. But what if that’s the greatest illusion of all? In this article, Contributing Editor of IAI News, Omari Edwards, speaks with political philosopher Jason Blakely, who argues that no one escapes their perspective: not policy-makers, not political commentators, not even you. Our beliefs, Blakely contends, are shaped not by truth alone but by deep, often invisible forces: identity, power, fear, and historical accident. Blakely calls for a radical shift: expose ideology wherever it hides, dismantle the myths of neutrality, and build a politics that begins with the admission that everyone is navigating in the dark.​ At the heart of Blakely’s latest book, Lost in Ideology, is a deceptively simple claim: ideology is a cultural tradition.... Tue, 29 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Jason Blakely https://iai.tvarticles/no-one-escapes-their-perspective-auid-3154 https://iai.tvarticles/science-is-not-objective-there-are-theories-only-some-can-access-auid-3153 Scientific knowledge is often seen as objective, rooted in evidence available to all. But standpoint epistemology challenges this idea, arguing knowledge is shaped by social position and power, and that there is knowledge directly accessible only to those who have been oppressed. MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger goes further, suggesting science doesn’t just need diverse perspectives. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory, she argues that questioning the dominant societal structure can lead to deeper, more reliable scientific knowledge.  Epistemology is the study of knowledge, episteme. Plausibly, there are many kinds of knowledge. You can know that the cat is on the mat. You can know that water is H2O. You can know how to knit or how to drive a car. You can know your mother or your best friend. Philosophical inquiry into knowledge in the “Western” tradition has focused on ‘knowing that’, or ‘propositi... Mon, 28 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Sally Haslanger https://iai.tvarticles/science-is-not-objective-there-are-theories-only-some-can-access-auid-3153 https://iai.tvarticles/the-man-who-mistook-reality-for-a-fantasy-auid-3152 What if the world didn’t feel real to you – and what if it never had? Italian philosopher Gabriele Ferretti argues that our deepest beliefs about reality, knowledge and science depend not on logic or reason alone, but on a fragile, evolved mental state: the feeling that the world is real and independent of our minds. People with derealization disorder lose this sense altogether, and their condition reveals just how contingent our sense of reality really is. It’s time for an evolutionary psychiatry of philosophy and science, which confronts the psychological foundations of our most basic assumptions about the world. “Now he begins to wonder if also the World, indeed the World, is a Thing that does not exist.” If I had to choose a phrase that sums up the entire work of the philosopher, this elegant sentence by the Italian writer Giorgio Manganelli would be my first choice.Humans have... Fri, 25 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Gabriele Ferretti https://iai.tvarticles/the-man-who-mistook-reality-for-a-fantasy-auid-3152 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-reveals-reality-cannot-be-described-auid-3151 Does reality contain only physical things? Or could everything be conscious, as panpsychists claim? Philosopher Christian List argues it’s time to move beyond both sides of this debate. Consciousness reveals something far more radical: reality cannot be captured by a single, objective description. Dualists, panpsychists and materialists all assume that there’s one unified reality that science and philosophy can aim to describe. But the deep subjectivity of consciousness shows this can’t be right. Reality cannot be contained in a single book – only a whole library of perspectives will do. Science has been hugely successful at explaining many phenomena, from the motion of the planets to the functioning of biological organisms. But despite advances in neuroscience, explaining how consciousness fits into the world remains elusive. Why do some organisms have experiences, feelings, subjective perceptions, and so on? The hallmark of consciousness is that ... Thu, 24 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Christian List https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-reveals-reality-cannot-be-described-auid-3151 https://iai.tvarticles/iran-is-the-enemy-the-west-created-auid-3149 The Middle East is ablaze with conflict. From Israel and Palestine, to Yemen and the recent collapse of the Syrian government, when there is crisis in the region fingers usually point in one direction. Towards Iran. But what is Iran's grand strategy? Vali Nasr, professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins and described as "a leading world authority on Shia Islam" by The Economist, argues Iran is best not thought of as a theocracy, but instead a security state. If the West is to pursue peace in the region, outside intervention is merely fuel for the revolutionary fire and true change can only come from within.  For over four decades, Iran’s policies have posed serious challenges to its neighbors and the West. The threat of Iran’s nuclear program and its far reach across the Middle East through a chain link of well-armed allies has grown in magnitude as the Islamic Revolution of 1979 has receded in the rear view mirror. Still, desp... Wed, 23 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Vali Nasr https://iai.tvarticles/iran-is-the-enemy-the-west-created-auid-3149 https://iai.tvarticles/wittgenstein-and-the-paradoxes-at-the-limits-of-language-auid-3146 In the penultimate line of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein famously declared the book itself to be nonsense. According to Graham Priest, this kind of self-referential contradiction is not peripheral, but rather central to philosophy when it reaches the limits of language. In this IAI interview, Oliver Adelson sat down with Graham Priest to discuss Wittgenstein, truth, paradox, and non-Western philosophy. Oliver Adelson: Thank you very much for joining me, Graham Priest. You’ve written about various contradictions in philosophy and your own dialetheist approach to handling them. Could you give a brief overview of the sort of self-referential contradictions that you see running through the work of Kant, the early Wittgenstein, and other philosophers?Graham Priest: There’s this phenomenon you get in philosophy from all the traditions I'm aware of – analytic, co... Tue, 22 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Oliver Adelson https://iai.tvarticles/wittgenstein-and-the-paradoxes-at-the-limits-of-language-auid-3146 https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-a-new-political-theology-auid-3145 Italian legal and political philosopher Geminello Preterossi argues that, as Trump and others’ victory around the world shows us, the liberal political project has failed. He ascribes this to liberals’ own blindness to the effects of their politics on the world around them. His suggestion to those who want to overturn Trump and co. is twofold: firstly, we must engage in a rigorous and merciless self-critique, which he begins in this piece; and secondly, we must rediscover a political theology that can unite large groups of people around a new political project, starting from the small examples of sacredness we see in our world now.  We live in a special time: while history is kicking back into gear thanks to the great geopolitical transformations of our moment, Western elites seem to live in a closed-off aquarium of oft-repeated clichés considered to be liberal and “progressiv... Fri, 18 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Geminello Pretrossi https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-a-new-political-theology-auid-3145 https://iai.tvarticles/how-quantum-mechanics-changed-science-forever-auid-3144 Quantum mechanics is extremely successful and extremely weird. Its weirdness has made it controversial. It doesn’t even try to do what we often think scientific theories must do: it doesn’t try to describe reality. Karl Popper thought this went against science’s very essence. But philosopher Marij van Strien argues here that quantum mechanics’ success shows that science has no fixed rules: progress is often made by breaking from conventional standards of rationality. This needn’t leave us in anarchy, unable to distinguish between good and bad science, as some fear: we just need to be more pragmatic when it comes to judging whether a theory is any good.  The theory of quantum mechanics is extremely successful: it accounts for a large range of experimental results, enables highly accurate predictions and has led to many technolo... Thu, 17 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Marij van Strien https://iai.tvarticles/how-quantum-mechanics-changed-science-forever-auid-3144 https://iai.tvarticles/gender-is-decided-by-experience-not-biology-or-choice-auid-3143 Are gender and sexuality genetically determined, or do we construct and perform them? For too long, debates about gender and sexuality have swung between the idea that our identities are biologically fixed and the claim that they’re freely chosen or socially constructed. Philosopher of gender and sexuality Helga Varden offers a striking alternative. Drawing on Kant’s theory of human nature, she argues that gender and sexuality aren’t chosen or hardwired – they emerge from the inner texture of our conscious, embodied experience of the world.   Simone de Beauvoir’s (1949) The Second Sex was nothing less than a philosophical revolution in the philosophy of sex, love and gender. When I started studying philosophy in the 1990s, over forty years after its publication, the theory that spoke the most directly to me was still Beauvoir’s. I loved teaching it and my students loved learning it.Today, one of the reasons I believe Beauvoir’s framework was so... Wed, 16 Apr 2025 10:37:03 +0000 Helga Varden https://iai.tvarticles/gender-is-decided-by-experience-not-biology-or-choice-auid-3143 https://iai.tvarticles/the-politics-of-fear-is-in-full-effect-auid-3140 It seems like our politics is designed to make us fearful at every turn. In an age of polycrisis with threats around every corner, some politicians are more than willing to direct this state of fear to their advantage. But far from being just an emotion, fear should be thought of as a liquid, which is channelled and dammed by politicians to invent fears where previously there weren't any and dam them before they threaten the powerful. Nicolai Gellwitzki and Charlie Price argue that fear is so dominant because we lack a clear positive political vision, to move forward we must utilise and transform our fear in the pursuit of a better future. Fear and anxiety dominate our time. From climate anxiety to the more general mental health crisis that is ever-present in the news. These feelings are either discussed sympathetically as a medical problem or dismissed as just that, feelings. But imagining fear and anxiety as just mere emotions hides a web of political manipu... Tue, 15 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Nicolai Gellwitzki https://iai.tvarticles/the-politics-of-fear-is-in-full-effect-auid-3140 https://iai.tvarticles/david-deutsch-there-is-only-one-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-auid-3139 The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics says that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realised in different worlds. These many worlds have proved extremely contentious, with critics arguing that they are mere fantasy. In this IAI interview, David Deutsch explains the philosophy behind the many-worlds interpretation and argues that not only is it the best interpretation of quantum mechanics – it is the only interpretation.  Charlie Barnett: You said during a previous interview on the multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics that “to do proper science, you have to be a realist.” Could you outline what you mean by this specifically? Professor David Deutsch: Traditionally, science was just straightforwardly understood – and I think this is the only reasonable thing to do – as being a project of understanding the world. Understanding what there is and how it behaves. And, crucially, what ther... Mon, 14 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 David Deutsch https://iai.tvarticles/david-deutsch-there-is-only-one-interpretation-of-quantum-mechanics-auid-3139 https://iai.tvarticles/annaka-harris-consciousness-is-fundamental-auid-3136 For decades, our best intuitions have told us that consciousness is a product of complex brain processes, creating the taste of coffee or the smell of a rose. However, New York Times bestselling author, Annaka Harris, argues this view has been shattered by modern neuroscience. In this exclusive, in-depth article Harris draws from her recent documentary, Lights On, taking inspiration from the work of leading physicists, like Carlo Rovelli and Lee Smolin, and explains why consciousness is the most fundamental thing in the universe.  I made the case in my book, Conscious, that the assumption that consciousness arises out of complex processing in the brain is likely false, and the reality may be that consciousness runs deeper in nature than the sciences have previou... Fri, 11 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Annaka Harris https://iai.tvarticles/annaka-harris-consciousness-is-fundamental-auid-3136 https://iai.tvarticles/the-cultural-case-for-saving-endangered-languages-auid-3135 The idea of linguistic purism, or of resisting the excessive encroachment of foreign words in local languages, is often disparaged as ignorant nationalism and stultifying to change. But here Welsh Philosopher Rhianwen Daniel defends the concept, arguing that it has been misunderstood. Linguistic purism actually helps cultures preserve themselves against colonialism and speakers feel more at home in their language, among other benefits.  In the mid-19th century, the Grimm Brothers began assembling the Deutsches Wörterbuch, the most comprehensive and authoritative dictionary of the German language, eventually spanning 32 volumes. So forensic was the brothers’ tracing of word etymology, history, and usage, that they died before its completion.Even more painstaking, however, was their austere purging of French loan words, which they believed to b... Thu, 10 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Rhianwen Daniel https://iai.tvarticles/the-cultural-case-for-saving-endangered-languages-auid-3135 https://iai.tvarticles/trump-tariffs-and-the-lessons-to-learn-from-machiavelli-auid-3134 In the post-Liberation Day world of Trump, tariffs, and the trade war that has begun in response to them, a new realist politics has emerged. Power alone rules the day. In such a world so-called ‘shared values’ mean nothing. Author and former intelligence officer, Andy Owen, argues that Trump is Machiavellian, but we must also be more Machiavellian in our response. To avoid a military war in which everybody loses, we must accept the new realist political landscape ruled by power, but we must also argue and stand for the idea that the best results for all on the international stage come as a result of democracy and peace.  In February, former head of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, Alex Younger, claimed that, “we are in a new era where… international relations aren’t going to be determined by rules and multilateral institutions, they're going to be determined by men and deals.” He went on to draw a parallel with the Yalta conference of 19... Wed, 09 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Andy Owen https://iai.tvarticles/trump-tariffs-and-the-lessons-to-learn-from-machiavelli-auid-3134 https://iai.tvarticles/white-lotus-and-the-age-of-anxiety-as-entertainment-auid-3133 What did we do, in some past life, to deserve the karmic force that is the TV show The White Lotus? This show goes beyond watching for pleasure, ‘hate-watching’, or watching while we scroll on our phones… this is anxiety as entertainment. Philosopher Dylan Skurka argues The White Lotus refuses to deliver the catharsis we crave. Instead, he argues, we should embrace what the Buddhists call emptiness. For ourselves, as well as for the guests at the White Lotus, it’s our attempts to escape the nothingness at the heart of everything that most often leads to our most profound suffering. Karma’s a b****. Karma’s a saint. Karma is many things, but karma isn't the mysterious cosmic scoreboard it’s often assumed to be. The Sanskrit word simply means ‘deed’ or ‘action,’ as predictable as rain drops splashing in a puddle. What makes karma interesting is not the act itself, but the cognitive dissonance that often facilitates it — that jarring human blindne... Tue, 08 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Dylan Skurka https://iai.tvarticles/white-lotus-and-the-age-of-anxiety-as-entertainment-auid-3133 https://iai.tvarticles/information-and-data-will-never-deliver-creativity-auid-3132 Many claim informational systems cannot be truly creative in the way human artists are because they lack human emotion and originality. But philosopher and cognitive scientist, Hanne De Jaegher, argues the issue is deeper still: AI is not alive. It has no will to live and to ensure its survival. Unlike humans, AI doesn’t desire, need, relate, or make sense of the world and what matters in it. True creativity arises from things mattering; even when – especially when – those things are contradictory, nonsensical and ambiguous. Dutch musician Eric de Jong (Spinvis) is on the Belgian classical radio, giving an in-depth interview about his lifelong love of music and music-making, in one of those programs centred around favourites from the interviewee’s record collection. Towards the end of the two-hour program, de Jong annou... Mon, 07 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Hanne De Jaegher https://iai.tvarticles/information-and-data-will-never-deliver-creativity-auid-3132 https://iai.tvarticles/einstein-vs-bohr-quantum-reality-is-still-up-for-grabs-auid-3131 For decades, the story went that Bohr’s anti-realism triumphed over Einstein’s quest for a deeper reality. Physicists were told to "shut up and calculate" and metaphysical debates were dismissed as distractions. But today, realist interpretations of quantum mechanics constantly emerge and the anti-realist position is far from the mainstream – so if Bohr won, why does almost no one take his side? University of Massachusetts Boston physicist Jacques Pienaar argues that we’ve been wrong all along – Bohr was not an anti-realist after all, and Einstein's apparent realism is not on sure-footing. One grey morning in Vienna in 2014, I paused on the steps of the historic Strudlhofstiege. Its emblem, a fish-head that spouted water into an algae-stained basin, stared back at me with melancholy century-old eyes. I passed this spot every day on my way to work... Fri, 04 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Jacques Pienaar https://iai.tvarticles/einstein-vs-bohr-quantum-reality-is-still-up-for-grabs-auid-3131 https://iai.tvarticles/science-gets-sexual-experience-dangerously-wrong-auid-3129 Today’s science of sex often reduces arousal and pleasure to pulse rates, brain waves, vaginal lubrication and other bodily metrics, prioritizing quantifiable data over subjective experience. This framework originated in the progressive sexual revolution of the 1960s – yet, as philosopher Paul Giladi argues, far from contributing to sexual emancipation, it risks leading us to disbelieve what people, and especially women, say about their own states of arousal. For true sexual liberation, we need to reclaim the erotic from scientific imperialism. Scientific naturalism is the idea that reality is just what the natural sciences deem it to be, and the ways in which we make sense of things are justifiable only by the methods of the natural sciences. Part of what makes scientific naturalism so interesting is that some philosophers seem to regard developments in physics, chemistry, and biology with envy. In the Western European context, the spectacula... Wed, 02 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Paul Giladi https://iai.tvarticles/science-gets-sexual-experience-dangerously-wrong-auid-3129 https://iai.tvarticles/francis-fukuyama-warns-trump-is-not-a-realist-auid-3128 Francis Fukuyama, in The End of History and the Last Man, predicted that liberal democracy would be humanity's final stage of ideological evolution. But with rising autocratization across the world, the ascent of China, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many argue this hypothesis is now false. In this exclusive IAI Live Special interview, Fukuyama defends his account of “the end of history” from critics, explains why John Mearsheimer’s realism is flawed, and uncovers what Trump’s Greenland and Canada statements mean for global relations. Charlie Barnett: You famously wrote in The End of History that liberalism normatively satisfies the most basic human longings and, therefore, can be expected to be more universal and durable than other principles. Is this still a fair characterisation of your position today? Professor Francis Fukuyama: Just to state the obvious, we're in a very different period than when my original article and... Tue, 01 Apr 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Francis Fukuyama https://iai.tvarticles/francis-fukuyama-warns-trump-is-not-a-realist-auid-3128 https://iai.tvarticles/theres-more-to-evolution-than-genes-auid-3126 Neo-Darwinian orthodoxy holds that life’s immense variety emerged through the action of natural selection on random genetic mutations. But, argues microbiologist James Shapiro, there is strong evidence that the mutations driving evolution are not random at all, but rather are the result of organisms modifying themselves. This upends the orthodox picture of life’s complexity as emerging out of simpler, lower-level physics, in a bottom-up direction. Instead, to understand complex living organisms we need to see biology as influencing the level of physics, in a top-down direction. Since the mid-20th century, the neo-Darwinian explanation of evolution has been scientific orthodoxy for the public: change comes from the gradual accumulation of random small mutations resulting from accidents in genome replication, and natural selection favors the survival of organisms with the “fittest” combination of mutations that permit them to reproduce more successful... Mon, 31 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 James A. Shapiro https://iai.tvarticles/theres-more-to-evolution-than-genes-auid-3126 https://iai.tvarticles/kant-vs-hume-can-we-access-reality-auid-3125 David Hume and Immanuel Kant were almost contemporaries, but they reached radically different conclusions on the nature of reality and our ability, or lack thereof, to access it. Hume cast doubt on humans’ ability to ever really know the reasons or fundamental truths behind our experience. Kant, in response, proposed a revolution in our understanding of our relationships to ourselves and to the outside world, and in doing so offered a way to maintain knowledge of the physical world. What is the relationship between our understanding of the physical world, and the physical world itself? Does our ability to reason somehow give us direct access to external objects? Or is our understanding particular to our psychological makeup? And, if the latter: how can we know that the ideas we form about the physical world bear any resemblance to the “real thing” as it is “out there”?In fact, how is it possible that thoughts and things can resemble one another at all, ... Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Emily Fitton https://iai.tvarticles/kant-vs-hume-can-we-access-reality-auid-3125 https://iai.tvarticles/why-the-10th-commandment-about-jealousy-is-wrong-auid-3124 Since the 10th commandment was inscribed in stone over 3,000 years ago, we have assumed jealousy is always a vice. But according to Kristján Kristjánsson, this clear-cut assumption masks the true complexities of jealousy. We need first to understand the nature of jealousy as an emotion and its relation to other emotions like envy. In this article, Kristjánsson argues that some forms of jealousy can even be considered virtuous and necessary. Negative emotions?Psychologists typically divide emotions into “positive” versus “negative,” or more technically framed as “positively or negatively valenced.” This is just a fancy way of saying that emotions feel either pleasant or painful. That said, theorists dating back to Aristotle have pointed out that most, if not all, emotions have mixed valence. In any case, compassion is “negative,” in this sense, by being at least more painful than pleasant, and schaden... Thu, 27 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Kristján Kristjánsson https://iai.tvarticles/why-the-10th-commandment-about-jealousy-is-wrong-auid-3124 https://iai.tvarticles/the-reality-gap-auid-3123 Our brains do not just passively perceive the world—they construct it. Research shows that imagined and real experiences can produce strikingly similar neural activity, raising deep questions about the nature of reality itself. As the line between perception and imagination blurs, what determines our sense of what is real? In this first HowTheLightGetsIn pre-festival interview, we speak with Nadine Dijkstra, a UCL cognitive neuroscientist whose research seeks to reveal the brain’s “reality threshold,” the role of vividness in hallucination, and what this means for mental health and future technologies.  At the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival, taking place from May 23-26, 2025, the debate, Imaginat... Wed, 26 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Nadine Dijkstra https://iai.tvarticles/the-reality-gap-auid-3123 https://iai.tvarticles/the-metaphysics-behind-putins-war-on-liberalism-auid-3120 As Putin and Xi push for a “multipolar” world where liberal democracy is just one model among many, their challenge to Western Enlightenment ideals is gaining momentum – fueled by Trump’s second presidency and surging “radical conservativism” in Europe. Finnish philosopher Jussi Backman argues that an anti-liberal theory of reality is on the rise, providing a wide-ranging metaphysical underpinning for would-be geopolitical revolutionaries. Drawing on Heidegger, figures like Aleksandr Dugin – sometimes described as Putin’s philosopher – portray liberal metaphysics as inevitably leading to nihilism, posing a serious ideological challenge that liberals and the left need to take seriously. In Weimar-era Germany, a loosely connected group of writers, theorists and activists challenged the rise of liberal democracy, individualism, materialism, egalitarianism, and socialism. Heirs to the German tradition of Counter-Enlightenment, with its skepticism regarding univers... Tue, 25 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Jussi Backman https://iai.tvarticles/the-metaphysics-behind-putins-war-on-liberalism-auid-3120 https://iai.tvarticles/what-dating-apps-get-wrong-about-your-love-life-auid-3119 In the age of digital romance, dating apps have transformed love into a transactional, algorithm-driven experience. As Bauman’s concept of “liquid love” and Byung-Chul Han’s critique of consumerism suggest, this shift undermines true emotional connection. Andrés Abeliuk explores how platforms prioritize engagement over meaningful relationships, turning intimacy into a fleeting commodity. Amid this commodification, can technology ever truly foster the vulnerability and depth required for lasting love? Bauman coined the term "liquid love" to characterize modern relationships as flexible and ephemeral, with few connections feeling permanent. The digitisation of love–through dating apps–is symptomatic of this fluidity, making relationships seem disposable and the security once found in long-term partnerships is replaced by the ease of finding new ... Mon, 24 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Andrés Abeliuk https://iai.tvarticles/what-dating-apps-get-wrong-about-your-love-life-auid-3119 https://iai.tvarticles/language-creates-an-altered-state-of-consciousness-auid-3118 We tend to think of language as a transparent tool—a neutral medium for expressing thoughts and describing reality. While philosophers have (more or less) come to agree that “the map is not the territory” more recent thinkers have argued that language does play a fundamental role in shaping our perception of the world and our notion of self. By drawing parallels between language loss from brain injuries and the experiences reported during deep meditation or psychedelic states, UCL neuroscientist Jeremy I Skipper argues language creates an altered state of consciousness. Only by losing language can we start to dismantle the scaffolding that supports our notion of the world and the self. Altered articulationContemplate this self-report, recounting the experience of a “non-ordinary” or “altered state of consciousness”:... my brain chatter bega... Fri, 21 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Jeremy I Skipper https://iai.tvarticles/language-creates-an-altered-state-of-consciousness-auid-3118 https://iai.tvarticles/galileo-einstein-and-the-unexpected-origins-of-relativity-auid-3117 One of Galileo Galilei’s many contributions to science was his understanding of relative motion – that the physics within a system do not depend on the speed at which the system moves relative to external systems, provided the original system is not accelerating. This idea would go on to form the foundations for Einstein’s Relativity Principle which required that the physics of the system does not depend on the inertial frame chosen to study it. Though subtly different, modern physics often conflates these ideas leading to conflicting resolutions to Galileo’s initial problem. Sebastián Murgueitio Ramírez argues that by distinguishing between an "internal" and "external" version of the principle, we can right this, clarify its original meaning and appreciate just how far ahead of his time Galileo truly was. When going about our daily routine, it is too easy to forget that we are movi... Thu, 20 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Sebastián Murgueitio Ramírez https://iai.tvarticles/galileo-einstein-and-the-unexpected-origins-of-relativity-auid-3117 https://iai.tvarticles/wall-street-not-trump-is-deciding-our-climate-future-auid-3116 Europe is leading the charge on climate change, while polluters from China and Trump's framing of climate change as a 'hoax' are holding the world back so the story goes. But could European claims of climate virtuousness ring hollow? Angus McNelly of King's College London argues Europe and North America's efforts to tackle climate change are actually harmful on the ground. By necessitating climate investments are profitable, we're tearing up ecosystems to make carbon offset projects that harm locals and damage ecosystems, and all the while tying up developing economies to this market led approach and forcing their populations to come to us to solve their problems. In the West, Europe and North America are assumed to leading the battle against climate change, hindered by polluting Chinese industry or Middle Eastern oil producers. While there may be some truth to this, the West’s answer to the climate crisis is underpinned by blind faith in markets and exploitat... Wed, 19 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Angus McNelly https://iai.tvarticles/wall-street-not-trump-is-deciding-our-climate-future-auid-3116 https://iai.tvarticles/why-the-news-can-never-be-neutral-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-auid-3115 The Ukraine ceasefire is reported radically differently across global media, despite each claiming to tell the truth. This exposes the myth of journalistic neutrality – the view from nowhere. Instead of giving up in favour of anything-goes relativism, argues Nina Lyon, pragmatic philosophy offers an alternative: we can use coherence to determine whether a narrative is valid, while acknowledging all reporting emerges from its own context, values and biases. Open any major news site and, depending on its audience and location, you'll find very different accounts of the Ukraine ceasefire. The BBC leads with concerns about Russian manipulation and lies about its intentions to end the war. Russia’s TASS reports on French and British leaders drumming up further sanctions and a ... Mon, 17 Mar 2025 17:39:10 +0000 Nina Lyon https://iai.tvarticles/why-the-news-can-never-be-neutral-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-auid-3115 https://iai.tvarticles/the-hidden-fear-that-drives-success-auid-3112 We all want to succeed. But it is clear that some have more drive than others. What makes an individual more careful, hard-working and responsible than other people — known as trait conscientiousness — at a fundamental level, largely remains a mystery. There is no one brain region we can point to, and two people brought up in the same environment can possess different levels of the trait. Social and existential psychologist, Jeff Greenberg, outlines the origins of conscientiousness, arguing psychoanalysis and fear of death may be key to explaining this mystery. If you think about your friends, some of them are probably very careful, responsible, and hard-working. Others may not be. These characteristics comprise a trait known as “conscientiousness,” one of the five basic dimensions of personality. And research confirms that its prominence varies considerably from person to person. Studies also show that conscientiousness helps people achieve their goals, ... Mon, 17 Mar 2025 09:38:48 +0000 Jeff Greenberg https://iai.tvarticles/the-hidden-fear-that-drives-success-auid-3112 https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-the-brain-and-our-chimeric-selves-auid-3102 The genetic code that goes on to create our brains, our selves, and our consciousness, is not only hereditary. Anna M. Hennessey argues that microchimerism, where non-hereditary DNA is introduced into our bodies through cells exchanged during pregnancy between the mother and fetus and vice versa, is ripe for scientific and philosophical enquiry. For Hennessey, these exchanges do not only alter our brain but our consciousness itself, and how we experience the world. During a plenary of last year’s 30th annual conference of The Science of Consciousness (TSC), David Chalmers began his talk with a tribute to his mother, who had recently passed away. A seminal figure in the field of consciousness studies and a key member of the first TSC conference held in 1994, Chalmers discussed his mother’s spiritual study of consciousness, his father’s scientific study in neuroscience, and their impact on his o... Thu, 13 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Anna M. Hennessey https://iai.tvarticles/consciousness-the-brain-and-our-chimeric-selves-auid-3102 https://iai.tvarticles/spacetime-is-not-a-continuum-its-made-up-of-discrete-pieces-auid-3108 Much of modern physics hinges on the notion of a smooth ‘continuum’. But as Professor of Theoretical Physics Sumati Surya argues, our lived experience point to something else: discreteness. Surya argues that spacetime isn’t infinitely divisible but instead built from discrete elements and their causal relationships – there is a “fundamental minimal size below which spacetime loses its meaning”. What is the ‘substance’ of spacetime?We are schooled early on, to imagine the ‘real line’, by inserting between any two points on the number line, an uncountable infinity of numbers, the so-called ‘irrationals’. Even as children we are aware that physical objects have an atomicity – if broken too fine, they lose any semblance of self. A continuum-like sheet of paper can only withstand so much tearing or folding, before it gives way to dust. Yet, we are told, there is a reality bey... Thu, 13 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Sumati Surya https://iai.tvarticles/spacetime-is-not-a-continuum-its-made-up-of-discrete-pieces-auid-3108 https://iai.tvarticles/wittgenstein-vs-dawkins-is-god-a-scientific-hypothesis-auid-3101 Critics of religion like Richard Dawkins often depict religion as a second-rate science. According to Dawkins, God is a “hypothesis” which is outcompeted by rival scientific explanations. But might this conception of religion be radically mistaken? In this article, philosopher John Cottingham draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language to argue that any understanding and evaluation of religious discourse must be sensitive to the form of life in which it is embedded. As such, religious claims are not defective scientific claims, but rather entirely distinct ways of seeing the world.The first quarter of the twenty-first century has seen some serious damage to the cause of religious belief. Some of the damage has been self-inflicted, but a significant element relates to the attacks mounted by prominent scientists and philosophers. That formidable critic of religious belief, Richard Dawkins, has tended to portray religious thought as if it were primaril... Wed, 12 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 John Cottingham https://iai.tvarticles/wittgenstein-vs-dawkins-is-god-a-scientific-hypothesis-auid-3101 https://iai.tvarticles/jd-vance-vs-the-pope-the-myth-of-moral-absolutes-auid-3100 Amid the United States’ turn towards isolationism – cutting off allies and slashing foreign aid – Vice-President J.D. Vance has clashed with Pope Francis over the question of whether we should love our own family and country more than strangers in distant countries. Vance and the Pope speak as though there is one true morality but, argues Steven Hales, the impossibility of resolving their dispute shows this isn’t the case. Instead, evolution has landed us all with incompatible moral instincts, both to favor our own families and to treat everyone equally. Appeals to a single moral truth are really just ways of trying to persuade others to embrace one or other of these competing internal drives. The United States is busy slashing foreign aid, and Britain is following suit. Last year US ... Tue, 11 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000 Steven D. Hales https://iai.tvarticles/jd-vance-vs-the-pope-the-myth-of-moral-absolutes-auid-3100 https://iai.tvarticles/how-to-break-free-from-political-groupthink-auid-3099 We pride ourselves on being free thinkers. Yet, all too often, our opinions are shaped by our political tribes. Robert B. Talisse argues that true intellectual freedom needs more than hearing opposing views – we should look for solitude, step outside familiar political categories entirely and engage with ideas beyond our intellectual paradigm. In the run-up to the recent US presidential election, I adopted what I expected would be a reliable strategy for avoiding unwanted political discussion. Whenever someone said, “Can you believe what Kamala said?” or “Did you see Trump at yesterday’s rally?” I responded “Yes, but I’m not sure what to think about it yet.” This was meant to signal that I understood what had been referenced but didn’t want to talk about it. It would be a polite conversation-stopper, so I thought.I was wrong. The tactic backfired – it prompted more commentary. Still, its failure revealed something important about how difficult it is to ... Mon, 10 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Robert B. Talisse https://iai.tvarticles/how-to-break-free-from-political-groupthink-auid-3099 https://iai.tvarticles/the-world-is-not-a-quantum-wave-function-auid-3096 The world of quantum physics is a very different world from the day-to-day reality we experience. In the quantum world, interactions across vast distances can occur, non-local interactions. Some quantum ontologies try to explain non-locality using a high-dimensional wave function. But Professor of Philosophy of Science, Valia Allori argues we need to bring our theories back down to three-dimensional Earth, albeit with the inevitable sacrifice of a local universe.Join Slavoj Žižek, Steven Pinker and many more speakers at the HowTheLightGetsIn Hay 2025 festival this May to debate the most important topics of our time live in Hay-on-Wye. Including our debate on 'The Collapse of the Wave Function'.... Fri, 07 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Valia Allori https://iai.tvarticles/the-world-is-not-a-quantum-wave-function-auid-3096 https://iai.tvarticles/techno-optimists-will-doom-us-all-auid-3094 A prominent Silicon Valley billionaire Marc Andreessen stated in his manifesto "there is no material problem - that cannot be solved with more technology". This ideology that now has the ear of President Trump and can be felt in our answer for everything from warfare to climate change. But, writes Caroline Ashcroft, this technological optimism has ideas deeper than a mere fascination for fancy gadgets, it instead forms a part of a totalising world-view about the force that shapes our political possibilities. Drawing on Herbert Marcuse and Hannah Arendt's work in the aftermath of the nuclear bomb, Caroline argues we need to reassert that all technology is political, and that a blind faith in technology can only lead to ruin. Radical techno-optimism abounds in the twenty-first century. The tech industry proclaims the myriad benefits of its offerings and rejects external oversight and regulation. Venture capitalist and tech billionaire Marc Andreessen’s ... Thu, 06 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Caroline Ashcroft https://iai.tvarticles/techno-optimists-will-doom-us-all-auid-3094 https://iai.tvarticles/the-end-of-the-west-means-even-more-than-you-think-auid-3093 Donald Trump’s policies have upended relations with Europe, with many commentators declaring “the end of the West.” But the end of the West is not limited to geopolitics. Andy Owen argues that the end of the West means the end of a more than 2000-year in the making system of thought: liberal humanism. Liberal humanism has as its features a quasi-religious faith in progress, the power of reason, universal human rights, the moral primacy of Western-style democracy, free markets, and the unbounded potential of technology. This system of thought has its roots all the way back in Ancient Greece. We could be witnessing it end today. Andy Owen here argues for what should replace it. The international rules-based order that was born from the ashes of the first atomic bombs is fragmenting. The former US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, described this order as: “The system of laws, agreements, principles and institutions that the world came together to build after tw... Wed, 05 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Andy Owen https://iai.tvarticles/the-end-of-the-west-means-even-more-than-you-think-auid-3093 https://iai.tvarticles/pain-destroys-the-mind-body-problem-auid-3092 Pain defies the mind-body divide. We usually see physical and psychological pain as separate, but research shows that pain doesn’t work that way. Sabrina Coninx and Peter Stilwell argue that pain is not simply in the body or the mind but emerges from the complex interaction of our biology, mindset and environment. Rethinking pain in this way has profound implications for how medicine should understand and treat it. Imagine starting your morning by stubbing your toe on the bedframe, leaving a large bruise under your toenail. You feel a pulsing, pressing, and unpleasant sensation that makes you yelp, grimace, and hop on one foot. It is a familiar scenario for many of us, but it also raises an intriguing question: What exactly is pain? Is it the injury to your toe, the sensation you feel, or something else entirely?Linguistic studies indicate that our everyday language is ambiguous about this matter. We often use the term “pain” to describe both a physical... Tue, 04 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Sabrina Coninx https://iai.tvarticles/pain-destroys-the-mind-body-problem-auid-3092 https://iai.tvarticles/what-students-learn-is-more-important-than-how-auid-3091 Since the Enlightenment we have valued having more knowledge, regardless of what the content of that knowledge is. However, the realisation that all knowledge is perspective-driven has made what is taught in schools a political choice. What to teach students and our children is as important, if not more important, than how we teach it. With complaints from politicians and parents about what is being taught in schools and universities, now is the time for a debate to be had. But how should we decide upon what is taught? The evidence-based revolution in education promised data could prove the best and most effective teaching methods. However, argues philosopher of education Michael Hand, that evidence doesn’t tell us what we should teach in the first place. Deciding which knowledge is worth having is fundamentally a philosophical, value-laden question. Evidence-based education is all the rage. The Labour Government has pledged to fund ‘... Mon, 03 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Michael Hand https://iai.tvarticles/what-students-learn-is-more-important-than-how-auid-3091 https://iai.tvarticles/there-will-never-be-a-theory-of-everything-auid-3090 In his book, The Case Against Reality, Donald Hoffman used evolutionary theory to argue that we don’t see reality as it truly is. Perception evolved to construct useful fictions, not to access truth. Hoffman’s critics claim that his argument is self-defeating, since evolutionary theory is itself based on supposedly true perceptions of organisms and their reproductive processes. In this article, Hoffman responds. His critics, he argues, misunderstand the nature of scientific theories, which are never the final word, but are rather provisional models, destined to sow the seeds of their own replacement by deeper theories. We can capture images of black holes, cure many diseases, send spaceships beyond our solar system, and build technologies with capabilities that, to our forbears, would be indistinguishable from magic. Science has been wildly successful. Scientific theories have dramatically evolved in their sophistication and technological promise. Is ... Fri, 28 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Donald Hoffman https://iai.tvarticles/there-will-never-be-a-theory-of-everything-auid-3090 https://iai.tvarticles/ai-can-uncover-humanitys-unknown-unknowns-auid-3083 The AI system AlphaGo discovered strategies in the game of Go that human beings didn't even know that they didn't know. AI then is capable of discovering both known unknowns and unknown unknowns in fields from games to protein folding. Hall and Vold here argue we should therefore not only see AI as a tool, but as a teacher. We should learn new ways to think from AI, not only focus on its outcomes. We should learn how the AI beat us at Go, rather than just lamenting our defeat.This is part 2 of a 2-part series on AI and Human Creativity. Read Part 1 on the dangers of AI to human creativity by Armin Schulz. Contemporary Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems can not only outperform humans in certain tasks, but they are also able to do things that humans have not yet figured out — such as identifying entirely new strategies to beat World Champions at the ... Thu, 27 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Jessie Hall https://iai.tvarticles/ai-can-uncover-humanitys-unknown-unknowns-auid-3083 https://iai.tvarticles/ais-growing-threat-to-challenging-ideas-auid-3089 Our public conversation about artificial intelligence oscillates between fantasies of human-like intelligence and fears of sentient AI overlords taking over the world. This overlooks the real danger posed by large language models, argues Armin Schulz. Since they work by reproducing the average outputs of human language-users, they have an inbuilt tendency to produce conventional, conservative outputs. As we integrate these AIs into our lives, there’s therefore a danger that we suppress our distinctively human ability to think creatively and outside the box. If the AI revolution continues to be driven by disembodied LLMs, it risks stifling rather than propelling progress.This is part 1 of a 2-part series on AI and Human Creativity. Part 2 on the potential of AI for creativity by Jessie Hall and Karina Vold is out now. It may ... Wed, 26 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Armin Schulz https://iai.tvarticles/ais-growing-threat-to-challenging-ideas-auid-3089 https://iai.tvarticles/memory-creates-reality-and-the-self-auid-3088 When our memory begins to fail, it can erode the stories we share with those closest to us and profoundly change who we are. Neuroscientist and Alzheimer’s expert Michael Hornberger speaks to IAI’s Nina Lyon about what the study of memory can tell us about our sense of self, and how the unreliability of memory can lead us to create so-called truths that may not be quite as accurate as we believe. What is a memory?When we talk about memories, we usually refer to memories of events – what we call episodic memories that we can pinpoint to a certain time and place. There are other types of memories too, such semantic memories that store factual information and procedural memories about how to do things like cycling. With episodic memories, information is encoded like a trace in the brain, and if that's done in a complete enough way, we can then recall it and relive an event almost as if we were there, essentially in front of our inner eye.... Tue, 25 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Michael Hornberger https://iai.tvarticles/memory-creates-reality-and-the-self-auid-3088 https://iai.tvarticles/the-philosophy-behind-the-recent-quantum-chip-breakthrough-auid-3087 Microsoft recently announced a breakthrough in quantum computing, based on a new phase of matter that experts had not thought possible. The philosophical implications of this breakthrough are profound. Quantum researcher at Bristol University, Shuqiu Wang, examines the science behind the technology, highlighting the challenges for our philosophical understanding of reality and the scientific implications for the future of technology. In a recent announcement, Microsoft claims to have created the first 'topological qubits' based on topological superconductors. This development could possibly lead to a new way of storing quantum information that promises to make quantum computers both more stable and scalable. The announcement, published in Nature on February 19th, 2025, has the scientific community buzzing with both excitement and scepticism. But what makes these 'topological' superconductors so special, why might they be the key to building more powerful compu... Mon, 24 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Shuqiu Wang https://iai.tvarticles/the-philosophy-behind-the-recent-quantum-chip-breakthrough-auid-3087 https://iai.tvarticles/overcoming-hostile-architecture-auid-3086 The way a building is designed is not a value-free choice. Architecture is not neutral. All buildings have a philosophy that underpins them. Most cities in the world today include 'hostile architecture' - buildings designed to exclude certain behaviours and marginalised people, such as spikes outside shops to prevent rough sleeping. Rather than fostering freedom and community, modern buildings prioritise control and surveillance. Karl Mendelson here argues urban design should be for all individuals and promote participation in society, not simply serve the interests of property owners or the powerful. Walk through any major city, and you’ll see them: benches with armrests dividing every seat, spikes lining storefronts, sloped ledges that look like places to rest—until you try. Architecture has long shaped the way we experience the world around us. Public spaces throughout our recent history served as venues for meetings, leisure, and rest. Yet, in recent years... Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Karl Mendelson https://iai.tvarticles/overcoming-hostile-architecture-auid-3086 https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-mechanics-white-holes-and-the-relational-world-auid-3085 Once considered pure speculation, black holes are now a well-established scientific entity. In this IAI interview, Carlo Rovelli makes the case that white holes—though still theoretical—warrant serious attention. White holes are the hypothetical opposites of black holes; instead of pulling matter in, they expel it out and cannot be entered. Rovelli explains how quantum mechanics suggests that black holes could eventually transform into white holes through a process called quantum tunnelling, challenging our understanding of space, time, and gravity. In this IAI Live interview, theoretical physicist and author Carlo Rovelli discusses the idea of the possible existence of white holes. While black holes have been observed, their ... Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Carlo Rovelli https://iai.tvarticles/quantum-mechanics-white-holes-and-the-relational-world-auid-3085 https://iai.tvarticles/can-time-emerge-from-a-timeless-world-auid-3084 The concept of time is indispensable in modern physics, yet in our equations for quantum gravity it is shown to disappear. Some have accepted the fundamental timelessness of nature and others have sought a deeper theory in which time is recoverable, but other physicists and philosophers of physics have attempted a different approach – to show that time emerges from a timeless world. While some have critiqued this notion of emergence on metaphysical grounds, Eugene Chua argues that we should instead critique theories of emergent time on the merits of their physical arguments which, as Chua points out, aren’t as coherent as some of their proponents might think. In Jean-Baptiste Racine’s 1669 play Britannicus, the character Narcisse famously remarked that “il n’est point de secrets que le temps ne révèle”: there are no secrets that time does not reveal. However, as modern physics probes deeper into the ... Wed, 19 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Eugene Chua https://iai.tvarticles/can-time-emerge-from-a-timeless-world-auid-3084 https://iai.tvarticles/the-limits-of-consent-auid-3082 Consent is of central importance in many areas of our lives, from sex to healthcare. But, argue Melissa Rees and Jonathan Ichikawa, consent should not become the only thing we care about in our relations with others. Many wrongdoings involving power imbalances resist explanation in terms of consent, and wrongs can take place even when consent is present. We must avoid seeing consent as the only ethical concept that matters in sexual relations and other areas of life. Consent matters, but it is not the only thing that matters. There are some things that, as we all know, you shouldn’t do without consent. Sex is one obvious example, but the role of consent in ensuring proper respect for people’s agency is central to moral conduct much more generally. For example, you can’t just take someone’s property. If you do, it’s theft. But if you ask for it and they give it to you—if they consent to your taking it—that’s a very different story.... Tue, 18 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Melissa Rees https://iai.tvarticles/the-limits-of-consent-auid-3082 https://iai.tvarticles/you-are-both-one-self-and-many-selves-auid-3081 Is there one self or many competing selves within us? Some argue we contain multiple selves, warring for attention and even control of the organism. But philosopher Luke Roelofs argues that we must distinguish between two accounts of the self to make sense of this: a persona emerging from mental processes and the substrate that underpins them. We can have multiple personas in conflict with one another, but the substrate in which they are in conflict remains unified. We should allow our multiple selves to democratically coexist in order to live a richer, more harmonious, internal life. The Ancient philosopher Plato famously argued that our soul has three parts (usually translated as “reason”, “spirit”, and “appetite”), which are often at war with one another. His argument? We routinely find ourselves wracked with inner conflict, where we seem to simultaneously want a particular thing and also reject it. In ... Mon, 17 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Luke Roelofs https://iai.tvarticles/you-are-both-one-self-and-many-selves-auid-3081 https://iai.tvarticles/how-to-create-a-consciousness-test-auid-3080 With humanoid AI on the horizon, soon the question will be asked more and more: is that robot conscious? The debate has already begun. Some laugh at the question, and answer a resounding “no!”. Others argue that if human brains are made of physical stuff, then why couldn’t this other physical stuff in AI and robots produce consciousness too? But the real problem is, no matter which side you’re on; how can we ever tell if something is consciousness? In animals and even humans, your friends and family, there is no way to know for sure they are conscious. So, here R. D. Hinshelwood asks: is it possible to create a test for consciousness? A Consciousness Test? This article is a follow-on from the live debate 'The Consciousness Test' that took place at HowTheLightGetsIn 2024.  Is it possible to create a test to discover if a person, animal, comp... Fri, 14 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 R. D. Hinshelwood https://iai.tvarticles/how-to-create-a-consciousness-test-auid-3080 https://iai.tvarticles/plato-hobbes-mill-and-the-never-ending-fight-for-inequality-auid-3079 The growing gap between the rich and the poor is a problem that seems increasingly urgent with each passing day. From the shocking statistics about wealth concentration in the United States and Britain to the widespread struggle for basic needs like food, the signs of economic inequality are impossible to ignore. Yet, what many overlook is that inequality is not a new phenomenon—it's been a persistent feature of human societies for millennia. From ancient philosophers like Plato to modern thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, a long line of intellectuals have not only chronicled the rise of inequality but also warned of its devastating consequences. Professor David Lay Williams argues the answers to inequality may have surprising insights from the past. New statistics seem to appear every day with sobering news about growing levels of economic inequality.  Recently, the Congressional ... Thu, 13 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 David Lay Williams https://iai.tvarticles/plato-hobbes-mill-and-the-never-ending-fight-for-inequality-auid-3079 https://iai.tvarticles/forget-facts-and-values-everything-is-a-judgement-auid-3078 The fact-value distinction is a disaster. The philosopher Hume famously argued we can't get an 'ought' from an 'is'. Hume even took this so-called fact-value distinction to its logical conclusion when he famously wrote: "It's not contrary to reason for me to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.” But was Hume radically mistaken? Robert Ellis here argues that facts and values are interlocked with each other and cannot even in principle be separated. Instead, both facts and values are judgements about the world; judgements that must be thought through rigorously and with as many variables as possible in mind. If your dog is hungry, should you feed him? In practice, as an embodied human being, you are likely to feel that you should. From the disastrous disembodied perspective pushed by analytic philosophers (and followed by many others), though, these two points are seen in complete isolation from each other. You may feel that ... Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Robert Ellis https://iai.tvarticles/forget-facts-and-values-everything-is-a-judgement-auid-3078 https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-to-rescue-free-speech-from-its-defenders-auid-3077 Arguing over 'free speech' has become a political weapon used by both sides. Each side claims the other is engaging in censorship. While nobody is really sure what the 'free speech' they are fighting for, or against, actually amounts to. But is the problem with free speech itself — or the way we use 'free speech' as a catch-all phrase in many several, very different, situations? From university protests to the courtroom, the battle over what free speech is, and how far we ought to go to protect it, is messy and muddled. Professor Peter Ives argues that free speech isn’t a single principle but a tangled web of competing ideals. Only by untangling this web can we move beyond slogans and reclaim meaningful debate. The battle ground of free speech may seem hopelessly weaponized and merely about cynical manipulation. Part of the reason for this is that we ask one concept to do too much work. What we need is a clear disambiguation of the diverse goals and principles... Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Peter Ives https://iai.tvarticles/we-need-to-rescue-free-speech-from-its-defenders-auid-3077 https://iai.tvarticles/freud-vs-jung-trauma-extends-beyond-the-self-auid-3076 Freud and Jung offered two distinctive ideas on the development of the self: one shaped by early experience and the other by the forces of nature imprinted in the archetypes of the collective unconscious. For Freud, trauma can be explained by childhood experience, while Jung looked to the wider collective. But, Andrew Samuels argues, we are political animals. The political world affects the psyche much more than is usually given credit for, and while we should use the ideas of both Freud and Jung, we must also move beyond them. Where does psychological distress come from? Why do so many people have ‘emotional issues’? What should be done, and by whom? These contemporary questions are themselves the end results of a century and a half of systematic enquiry embracing – but not culminating in – the work of Freud and Jung.Those two patriarchs of psychology and psychotherapy represent two poles of the nature-nurture debate, though it is not really as neatly ... Mon, 10 Feb 2025 16:23:38 +0000 Andrew Samuels https://iai.tvarticles/freud-vs-jung-trauma-extends-beyond-the-self-auid-3076 https://iai.tvarticles/everything-doesnt-happen-for-a-reason-auid-3073 “Everything happens for a reason,” “it’s meant to be,” “it is what it is.” These cliches express an increasingly popular form of Stoic fatalism. The underlying idea is that “Reality” just is a certain way, determined by God or physics. This superficially tough realism comforts us by absolving us of responsibility: whatever happens was bound to happen. But this makes it dangerous, argues Tracy Llanera. It leads to resigned inaction in the face of geopolitical strife, injustice, and our personal lives. Instead, we must recognize that there is no higher being responsible for us: we must take responsibility for each other and the world we live in.   “Everything happens for a reason” is a popular salve for life’s nasty surprises. Many cling to it for existential comfort, or, better yet, the promise of a good ending.Your house catches fire? Your dog’s stomach twists, and he dies mid-surgery at the age of five? A plane combusts mid-air while flying ov... Fri, 07 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Tracy Llanera https://iai.tvarticles/everything-doesnt-happen-for-a-reason-auid-3073 https://iai.tvarticles/the-existential-cure-for-the-mental-health-crisis-auid-3070 As the world lurches from one crisis to the next, an invisible epidemic spreads — disillusionment, despair, and a quiet surrender to meaninglessness. Modern psychiatry often seeks to medicate away this dread, but what if the real cure lies not in avoidance but in confrontation? Existential therapy uses philosophical thinking to ask the hard questions — about life, death, purpose, and courage — guiding us through the abyss to find a path worth taking. The dying of the lightIn a world that is confronting one major crisis after another, it has become critical to address the despair and despondency that are more and more widespread. Many people are confronted with serious doubts about the meaning of their lives. Many young people have become skeptical and cynical about human existence in general. This kind of nihilism can easily lead to an experience of existential crisis, during which you feel uncontainable anxiety, depression or despair, ... Thu, 06 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Emmy van Deurzen https://iai.tvarticles/the-existential-cure-for-the-mental-health-crisis-auid-3070 https://iai.tvarticles/trump-tariffs-have-pros-and-cons-like-everything-else-auid-3068 Trump's tariffs have shaken the West to its core. They have been met with widespread condemnation as economically illiterate, but tariffs can work, as can free trade, and this story is as far from black and white as possible. Dmitry Grozoubinski, former Australian trade negotiator and diplomat, argues that politicians and journalists have done us a disservice by simplifying tariffs and trade deals into meaningless sound bites. In trade, there are no universal truths, and if we are to have a grown up discussion of global trade, lofty ideals and easy lies can only take us so far. As a young and naive government official just starting out in public service, I kept expecting to stumble across what I thought of as ‘the Room’. In my mind, somewhere in the machinery was a glorious chamber full of experts, synthesizing information from a hundred sources, with the latest academic findings at their fingertips and data scrolling on their screens. This hyp... Wed, 05 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Dmitry Grozoubinski https://iai.tvarticles/trump-tariffs-have-pros-and-cons-like-everything-else-auid-3068 https://iai.tvarticles/stephen-hawkings-radical-final-theory-auid-3067 Stephen Hawking, near the end of his life and career, came to believe that his early work had been mistaken. In particular, Hawking came to believe that science does not provide a "God’s-eye view" of reality. Rather, we need to build a theory of the universe from the inside-out, from within; reasoning backwards from our place as an observer. The later Hawking, along with his collaborator, cosmologist Thomas Hertog, argues for a model of the universe not as a machine, but as a self-organising entity, in which the laws of physics themselves evolved within and after the furnace of the Big Bang. The late physicist Stephen Hawking first asked me to work with him to develop "a new quantum theory of the Big Bang” in 1998. What started out as a doctoral project evolved over some 20 years into an intense collaboration that ended only with his passing on March 14, 2018.... Tue, 04 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Thomas Hertog https://iai.tvarticles/stephen-hawkings-radical-final-theory-auid-3067 https://iai.tvarticles/shakespeare-vs-wittgenstein-the-fight-for-meaning-auid-3066 The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was, famously, not a fan of William Shakespeare. He wrote in 1946 that “Shakespeare's similes are, in the ordinary sense, bad.” But Wittgenstein’s opinion was not only one fuelled by aesthetic dislike. Professor of Philosophy William Day argues that Wittgenstein sees in Shakespeare a fellow explorer of skepticism, but one willing to travel down dark alleys that Wittgenstein himself sought to avoid.  Ludwig Wittgenstein may have had a fraught relationship with the English language, his adopted tongue. But his animosity towards Shakespeare can't be explained by the foreignness of Elizabethan English. His remarks on Shakespeare aren't much to look at: they occupy two brief moments in his notebooks, amounting to no more than a handful of pages that can be read in about five minutes. Yet they fascinate by offering an engagement with Shakespeare’s language different in kind from the excursions through philosophical temptations... Mon, 03 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000 William Day https://iai.tvarticles/shakespeare-vs-wittgenstein-the-fight-for-meaning-auid-3066 https://iai.tvarticles/we-dont-understand-matter-any-better-than-mind-auid-3065 It is commonly believed that there is a mind-body problem because we can give an explanation of matter but not of the mind. But according to John Collins, we don’t understand matter either. Materialism was refuted by Newton in the 17th century, and the physicalism which has replaced it is not a substantive doctrine. There are gaps in our understanding of the mental – we still do not have a good theory of what the mind is – but after Newton, there is no ‘mind-body problem’. Minds are problematic. We don’t quite know what they are. If one has a mind, let us agree, then one is sentient and sapient, able to be self-aware and to think and reason about things. But both of these qualities are opaque, not least because they have no apparent analogy in the non-mental world. What, exactly, does one need to add to a body to get a mind? How is a thing that is merely subject to physical laws self-aware and able to think about dinosaurs and the afterlife? This co... Fri, 31 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 John Collins https://iai.tvarticles/we-dont-understand-matter-any-better-than-mind-auid-3065 https://iai.tvarticles/logic-is-nothing-without-metaphysic-auid-3064 The laws of logic are believed to be the basis of rational thought. But what grounds logic itself? Surely logic cannot be grounded in logic, for that would be circular reasoning, and therefore illogical. Yale Professor Jacob McNulty argues there is no logical foundation for logic. Instead we should look to Hegel for a solution to this dilemma, according to which logic is derived from metaphysics. Consider logic, the area of philosophy traditionally tasked with identifying the most basic inviolable laws of rational thought: for example the law of noncontradiction; or modus ponens (“if p, then q” “p” therefore “q”). What justification could one give for logic? The question leads to a dilemma.One horn of the dilemma is vicious circularity. Suppose the justification we give takes the form of an argument. But logic’s laws are presupposed by every rational argument. Hence, any argument we might give for them would be viciously circular.... Thu, 30 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Jacob McNulty https://iai.tvarticles/logic-is-nothing-without-metaphysic-auid-3064 https://iai.tvarticles/deepseek-exposed-a-fundamental-ai-scaling-myth-auid-3063 Tech CEOs have long argued that for exponential improvements and emergent properties to develop in AI, the increased scale of computing power is all you need. This narrative has led to billions of dollars of investment in semiconductors. But in recent weeks, Chinese AI company DeepSeek claims to have produced models akin to OpenAI with a fraction of the compute and cost. Was the Tech CEO narrative about scale simply self-serving all along, and at its core, little more than a money grab? Dr Danyal Akarca here argues that scale is not sufficient to take AI to the new heights we have been promised. It is hard to express the extent to which the last year has seen a seismic shift in AI, reshaping both the capabilities of these systems and the world’s perception of what is possible. With perhaps some exceptions, it is fair to say these systems have exceeded many lofty expectations. Public opinion and understanding are evolving at rapid pace. ... Wed, 29 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Danyal Akarca https://iai.tvarticles/deepseek-exposed-a-fundamental-ai-scaling-myth-auid-3063 https://iai.tvarticles/immigration-is-not-a-zero-sum-game-auid-3062 Politics worldwide has been turned on its head by populism, with anti-migrant rhetoric a key part of the messaging. But what motivates this anti-migrant thinking? Liberal society is based upon rights. A right to security, liberty, and freedom of speech among many, but implicit within the claims of anti-immigrant parties is that the more migrants we have the more our rights are called into question. Where rights were once universal they are now seen to be a zero-sum game, where the rights of a migrant are seen to take rights away from the rights of citizens. Professor Martina Tazzioli argues this approach to rights only works as long as scarcity and hierarchy are at the centre of the global economy. Tazzioli argues the abolition of borders will one day be necessary to ensure quality of life for all. From the end of July to the beginning of August, the summer of 2024 saw a wave of anti-immigration riots hit many cities in the UK. Across the country, acts of vand... Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Martina Tazzioli https://iai.tvarticles/immigration-is-not-a-zero-sum-game-auid-3062 https://iai.tvarticles/times-arrow-is-not-an-illusion-auid-3059 According to conventional wisdom, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity showed that the flow of time is an illusion, and that reality is a fixed block. And philosophers from Augustine to McTaggart have found the idea of time’s passage to be incoherent. However, argues James Sares, the idea that time’s flow is an illusion is itself incoherent. He uses Hegel’s dialectical logic to prove that time is real, since any denial of its reality must fall into self-contradiction.  1. The denial of time’s passingFrom Zeno to McTaggart, the history of philosophy contains a number of arguments against the reality of time. Even philosophers who think time is real have admitted the difficulty of making sense of it. Augustine asks how time exists if past and future do not, while the present takes no ti... Mon, 27 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 James Sares https://iai.tvarticles/times-arrow-is-not-an-illusion-auid-3059 https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-is-unknowable-from-within-it-auid-3057 Humanity’s search for a theory of everything is one of the motivating forces behind the whole scientific endeavour. But is it possible for an observer within the universe to know everything about the universe? Philosopher of science JB Manchak here argues that we cannot know the structure of all of spacetime from any specific point within it – and this is the case even if we somehow collected all the possible perspectives, from every point in the universe. Due to arguments made available by Einstein’s general relativity, we cannot know the universe from within it.   It is well known that the region beyond the 'observable universe' is unknowable. What is less well known is this: even if one were somehow able to observe this unobservable region, the universe would remain unknowable. Indeed, the puzzling state of affairs would persist even if one were given an all-access pass to every possible observation at every possible place and time -- here, there, pa... Fri, 24 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 JB Manchak https://iai.tvarticles/the-universe-is-unknowable-from-within-it-auid-3057 https://iai.tvarticles/the-plurality-of-the-self-auid-3055 Do we remain the same self over time, or are we many selves throughout our lives? Philosopher Jonardon Ganeri argues that we not only have a different self for different situations but that every one of our imagined selves exists alongside the 'real' self Western science and philosophy often cling to. By exploring Fernando Pessoa, one of Portugal’s greatest poets, ancient Hindu philosophy and the philosophy of David Chalmers, Ganeri argues that the self is split over multiple physical, imagined and virtual realities. The early 20th-century Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa’s curiosity about the reach of the imagination and the shifting sands of identity began early in life and remained the one constant preoccupation in this most creatively fluid of writers (and for a comprehensive account of his life consult ... Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Jonardon Ganeri https://iai.tvarticles/the-plurality-of-the-self-auid-3055 https://iai.tvarticles/how-to-maintain-your-hope-in-humanity-auid-3054 Many are critical of humanity's failings, and some even argue it would be better if we did not exist. Philosopher of misanthropy Ian James Kidd offers an exposition of stances in philosophy that offer sharp critiques of humanity’s moral failings. In a time of uncertainty, environmental harm, animal cruelty, and social injustice, Kidd explores various ways of dealing with humanity’s malevolence without losing hope. Condemnation.Humankind is, according to many critics, in a dreadful moral condition. Environmentalists connect our greed, short-termism, and rapaciousness to the ‘climate crisis’, despoilation of environments and the destructiveness that motivates worried talk of ‘the end of nature’. Animal activists decry the ‘crime of stupefying proportions’ perpetrate against animals. Factory farms, laboratories, hunting, and other human practices kill or displace billions of animals. Cruelty, indifference, cold willingness to exploit creat... Wed, 22 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Ian James Kidd https://iai.tvarticles/how-to-maintain-your-hope-in-humanity-auid-3054 https://iai.tvarticles/mexican-philosophy-vs-trumps-post-truth-world-auid-3053 "In a post-Trump world, the fight for truth is also a fight against universality." Professor of Philosophy, Carlos Alberto Sanchez argues Mexican philosophy challenges Western universalism, offering a perspectival approach to truth rooted in lived experience, an antidote to the divisive narratives of our times.I was privileged to speak with Professor Carlos Alberto Sanchez. His latest work, Blooming in the Ruins: How Mexican Philosophy Can Guide Us Towards a Good Life, offers a deeply provocative exploration of Mexico's rich and often overlooked philosophical tradition. Professor Sanchez, it’s a pleasure to have you with us. To start, can you share a bit about the background of this book? What inspired you to write it, and what should people know before diving into its pages?Well, before diving into the specif... Tue, 21 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000 Carlos Alberto Sanchez https://iai.tvarticles/mexican-philosophy-vs-trumps-post-truth-world-auid-3053