MULTIVERSES

A Story For Humanity — Minhyong Kim on Why Maths Will Never End

Gauss famously described mathematics as the queen of the sciences. But how should we think of this discipline? Is it an aloof ruler, mysteriously governing the laws of na

Molecules & Mirrors —Vanessa Seifert on the Philosophy of Chemistry

Why do molecules have a "handedness" when the physics that determines their structure does not?*   This is a question emblematic of the philosophy of chemistry; at times

Consciousness is not Computation — Christof Koch

Christof Koch is a pioneering neuroscientist and one of the most prominent advocates of a scientific approach to consciousness. He has spent decades working at the inters

Where Does It End? — Adrian Moore on The Infinite

Infinity may seem simple, just the absence of limits. But the closer we examine it, the more it unravels into paradox and mystery. Can some infinities be larger than othe

37| Mind-Wandering — Kalina Christoff Hadjiilieva on the Science of Spontaneous Thought

Mind-wandering is often dismissed as a distraction, an idle drift away from productive thought. But what if this spontaneous movement of the mind is not just a quirk of c

36| History of Science: Mythmaking & Contingency — Patricia Fara

Scientific discoveries can often be codified in simple laws, neatly stated in textbooks with directions on applying them. But the enterprise of science is embedded in soc

35| Hypercomputation: Why Machines May never Think Like Humans — Selmer Bringsjord

AI can do many things equally well as humans: such as writing plausible prose or answering exam questions. In certain domains, AI goes far beyond human capabilities — pla

34| Animal Minds — Kristin Andrews on why assuming consciousness would aid science

There is no consensus on what minds are, but there is plenty of agreement on where they can be found: in humans. Yet human consciousness may account for only a small prop

33| Taking Chance Seriously — Alastair Wilson on Quantum Modal Realism

Things happen. Or they don’t. How then should we make sense of claims that something might happen? If all these claims do is express doubt, then the puzzle can be easily

AI Moonshot — Nell Watson on the Near & Not So Near Future of Intelligence

The launch of ChatGPT was a "Sputnik moment". In making tangible decades of progress it shot AI to the fore of public consciousness. This attention is accelerating AI dev

Do Electrons Exist? — Céline Henne: Physicist's Views on Scientific Realism & Instrumentalism

Physics helps get stuff done. Its application has put rockets in space, semiconductors in phones, and eclipses on calendars.  For some philosophers, this is all physics

30| Thinking Beyond Language — Anna Ivanova on what LLMs can learn from the brain

It can be tempting to consider language and thought as inextricably linked. As such we might conclude that LLM's human-like capabilities for manipulating language indicat

29 | What are words good for? — Nikhil Krishnan on Ordinary Language Philosophy

Words. (Huh? Yeah!) What are they good for? Absolutely everything. At least this was the view of some philosophers early in the 20th century, that the world was bounded

28| Music Evolution & Empirical Aesthetics — Manuel Anglada Tort

Music may be magical. But it is also rooted in the material world. As such it can be the subject of empirical inquiry.  How does what we are told of a performer influenc

27| Why Knowledge is Not Enough — Jessie Munton

If all my beliefs are correct, could I still be prejudiced? Philosophers have spent a lot of time thinking about knowledge. But their efforts have focussed on only certa

26| Networks, Heartbeats & the Pace of Cities — Geoffrey West

Why do whales live longer than hummingbirds? What makes megacities more energy efficient than towns? Is the rate of technological innovation sustainable?   Though appare

25| Peter Nixey — AI: Disruption Ahead

It's easy to recognize the potential of incremental advances — more efficient cars or faster computer chips for instance. But when a genuinely new technology emerges, oft

24| How Philosophy Serves Science — David Papineau

Are philosophy and science entirely different paradigms for thinking about the world? Or should we think of them as continuous: overlapping in their concerns and compleme

23| Paulina Sliwa — Moral philosophy as puzzles of daily life

Why do men do less housework? What happens when an apology is offered? What are we looking for when we ask for advice? These are the sorts of problems drawn from everyda

22| Sean McMahon — Astrobiology: what is life & how to know it when we see it?

Life. What is it? How did it start? Is it unique to Earth, rare or abundantly distributed throughout the universe? While biology has made great strides in the last two h