Technology – Stories From the Ground.

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”—Douglas Adams

In 2003 the philosopher Nick Bostrom published a paper called “Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?”, in which he uses solid logic to reach a wacky conclusion. Bostrom argues that a highly sophisticated civilization might choose to run simulations of its evolutionary history, so detailed as to capture conscious experience. If this happens, the number of simulated worlds could vastly outnumber the single, original reality. Therefore, unless such simulations are impossible, there’s a reasonable chance that we live in one. Continue reading “Is There Any Evidence that we Live in a Simulation?”

“And yet I think also that if even we today could acquire the knack of maintaining undistracted consciousness between coffee breaks, we too might find that we possessed angelic talents, powers, and skills.” – Joseph Campbell

“The truth about us is sobering: We have been playing with our smartphones while hurtling toward the abyss…” – Sam Harris, Trump in Exile

The Decline of Attention

Human flourishing depends on many mental and physical attributes: dexterous hands, abstract thought, language, and social bonds. If any of these vanished on a large scale, our quality of life would decline. Most of these foundations of human achievement remain intact—but one mental faculty essential to progress is in alarming decline. Continue reading “The Importance of Awareness”