Scott Aaronson, an engineer at OpenAI, reported that Ilya Sutskever, Chief Scientist of OpenAI, would like to reduce ethics, and even the definition of goodness, to an algorithm. I have these weekly calls with Ilya Sutskever,…
I’m sorry to keep posting about politics, but things are becoming so interesting. There is no question that we are living in a transitional period politically, without a clear sense of how things…
One of my favorite artworks was made by the French artist, Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). His sculpture called “The Arc of the Covenant” or “The Cathedral,” shows two intertwined right hands gently touching…
The recent explosion in AI technology may force scholars working in the Humanities to retreat from their increasingly insular preoccupation with things like exploding metanarratives, deconstructing authors’ race and sexuality, and their…
A friend recently wrote to me with some questions about conspiracy theories, in addition to offering push-back to a statement I made to the effect that I was uncomfortable with conspiracy theories.…
I used to be a libertarian. I published for the Spokane Libertarian Examiner, and wrote articles warning against totalitarianism (see here), decrying foreign interventionism (see here and here and here), defending gun rights (see…
Update: this book is now available from Ancient Faith and Amazon. Is this world important to God, or are His purposes entirely focused on a heavenly here-after? Do our physical experiences on…
At this year’s Touchstone conference, I had the privilege of talking and learning from one of our guest speakers, Michael Hanby. Dr. Hanby is the Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy of Science…
Ever since the mask controversies of 2020, I have been fascinated by the meaning of freedom. What does it mean to be free? What conditions must be in place in order to…
I often talk about freedom in terms of growth/flourishing, and one of the examples I frequently use is an acorn. For an acorn to be truly free is for it to grow…
From D. C. Schindler’s, Freedom from Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty: “The reason Aristotle, like Plato, subordinates the statesman to the philosopher is that the essence of strictly political freedom…
Michael Hanby’s First Things article, “A More Perfect Absolutism,” is more relevant now than in 2016 when he wrote it. From Hanby’s article: Despite our native suspicion of political power, Americans believe…
