What The Thief Left Behind

(a meditation on Thinking Without Thinking)
Yesterday I posted this to another site:
I dreamed a friend was calling me urgently, in trouble but the connection was bad. Over and over he called and I asked where he was, what was wrong. Finally I understood. He was warning me about someone across the street. I got up [...]

Lingering

The pages in Proust’s long novel describing a first-ever telephone call are often admired for their rare sensitivity to the experience of a new technology. The narrator is speaking, across the miles of cable, to his grandmother. More than speak, he listens. The telephone separates previously united aspects of his grandmother—her voice and physical presence—and [...]

The Moral Instinct

Steven Pinker May 11, 2009.
Print: The New York Times
January 13, 2008
Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it’s an easy question. Mother Teresa, famous for ministering to the poor in Calcutta, [...]

How do we develop morals

Question:  How do we develop morals and how is morality measured?
Response by Gerald Schueler, Ph.D. © 1997
There is considerable debate as to how children acquire morality. Social learning theorists believe that children learn it by being rewarded or punished for various kinds of behavior and by modeling. Psychodynamic psychologists believe it develops as a defense [...]