One thing that has always struck me on my morning walks is the varied ways people approach their outdoor activities. To be sure, there are no right or wrong ways. Some walkers insulate themselves from the environment as much as possible by listening to whatever is playing in their earbuds, texting, or doom scrolling. Often … More A morning walk
The world, at least my world, seems abuzz with controversy over the build-out of data centers to support our thirst for artificial intelligence (AI). The controversy stems from the tension between the benefits of AI to the entities that profit from the technology and the impacts of data centers on the environment, energy consumption, and … More Data Centers: Monuments to a Technological Moment?
Consciousness is central to understanding our existence. The questions are simple – What is it? Where did it come from? What happens to it when we die? The answers are elusive. At the end of the day, there are theories to explain the neurobiological and neuroanatomical origins of consciousness, but they all fall short of … More What is Consciousness? Where Does it Go When We Die?
Humans are very likely the only life form on the planet that is aware of its own mortality. That knowledge may be one of the greatest gifts of human consciousness—and one of its greatest torments. Other animals recognize death in some form, but humans uniquely possess the explicit knowledge: “I myself will die someday.” In … More The Torment of Knowing Our Own Mortality
Progress has made life easier in ways previous generations could hardly imagine. We live in warm homes in winter, navigate unfamiliar cities with GPS, and can buy strawberries in January. These advances are real achievements, and few people would willingly return to the inconveniences of the past. Yet progress carries an underappreciated paradox: by removing … More Is Progress Quietly Eroding Resilience?
For some years, I have been trying to understand why large numbers of intelligent, otherwise reasonable people can look at the same political events and arrive at interpretations that feel not just different, but incompatible. Currently, that can be seen in how the country is divided by the MAGA movement. Each side is firmly entrenched … More System 1 Politics and the Fragility of Democracy
Most people buy personal care products because something is changing, the change is unwelcome and waiting feels passive. Hair seems thinner, energy lower, sleep less reliable. A doctor may say nothing is “wrong,” yet it still feels as though something isn’t quite right. A bottle appears on the bathroom counter — recommended by a friend, … More Why are you buying that, really?
Everything we can see and touch is made from material produced by thousands of dying stars that contributed elements to the cosmic dust, or interstellar medium, from which the Sun and planets were created about 4.5 billion years ago. The process that created the ISM and the Earth was not a one-time event. We did … More We are Part of an Endless Cycle
Why Disruption Now Works—and What That Says About Us The Present Moment The United States is not merely polarized; it is epistemically fractured. Shared assumptions about truth, legitimacy, and institutional restraint—once treated as background conditions of civic life—are now openly contested. What feels new is not disagreement, but the normalization of bad faith as a … More When Norms No Longer Bind
The advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities continues its expansion at a breath-taking rate, but it is facing two constraints. One is the immense power data centers require to run the computers that process the AI algorithms and the other is speed at which the algorithms can be executed. Seismic changes are on the horizon … More AI, Quantum Computing, and Fusion – the new Holy Trinity?
