When I reflect on Marcus Aurelius’ meditations on what it means to live a good life, it seems to me that despite the fact that Marcus' answer is millennia-old, we haven't got much closer to a better answer than he did. We still know that living according to your nature will bring you great happiness; we've further explored our minds' capacities; now, we quantifiably know that authenticity, mindfulness, reflections and truth can increase one's satisfaction and fulfilment and we've seen cultures for whom death is indeed treated as a rite of passage and something to be celebrated. Yet, we still seem to struggle in the practice of such 'obvious' truths...

That other people lie is not surprising to anyone. What is less acknowledged is the fact that all too often we also lie to ourselves. Therefore, a better understanding of why self-deception occurs is pressing. Unfortunately, philosophical debates, such as that surrounding the dual representation paradox, have stumbled scientific advancements for too long and it’s high time to break the vicious cycle. VH&T break the shackles of endless, abstract arguments and lay out an empirically-driven approach to self-deception in an attempt to stimulate research from biologists, biological mathematicians, evolutionary psychologist and others. Although some important aspects of this new proposal are being called into question, such as the costs and evolutionary stability of self-deception, it remains a valuable theory that accounts for a wide range of findings and makes testable predictions. Call it self-deception but I believe that VH&T’s theory lays out the foundation for a complete understanding of self-deception.

But then again, what if there are universal truths to be known? Physics and mathematics, among other disciplines, are deeply concerned with finding universals and explaining everything in neat equations. Are their efforts in vain? The position you take to the above two problems will give you an answer to that one too.

Through radical claims you push the boundaries of knowledge. Integrating and reconciling those radical claims is how you establish the foundations of knowledge.

Sheldrake’s The Science Delusion (2013) is an ambitious challenge to the materialistic mindset, deeply embedded in the current scientific worldview. The book itself comes as a provocative response to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, which made the case for science as an objective, all-knowing way to access the material reality. Sheldrake, a Christian himself, in turn, argues that such a materialistic view of science is restraining and dogmatic. One of the worst dogmas which underlies all others, a meta-dogma, if you will, is that science has everything figured out and we just need to work out the details.

Any sufficiently expressive2 math system is either incomplete or inconsistent and any consistent math system cannot prove its consistency. In other words, the theorem says that not all true statements in mathematics have proof.

I took advice from people who were better. I started watching my own games and studying my mistakes. I invested a lot of time and effort. Gradually, I was even changing my mindset to think like the professionals whose gameplay I was trying to imitate. Essentially, I changed myself to win more games and become better at the game. Here are the key lessons I learned throughout my gaming years...

Harris utilizes a careful scientific analysis of the concepts of consciousness and the self to make three strong points: 1) Consciousness is the one thing in the world that cannot be an illusion; 2) The Self is an illusion; 3) Consciousness and its contents are the only things that matter when it comes to achieving wellbeing.

This is where the confusion lies between determinism (which we’ve established is true) and fatalism (the kind of thinking “If everything is determined, why should I do anything?”) – it is still a matter of choice, albeit determined at the most fundamental level.