Table of contents for Issue 23 - No.1/2019 in New Philosopher

“In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.” VICTOR HUGO For many human beings, being human is glorious/awful. Whether it’s due to peace/war,plenty/famine, wealth/poverty, equality/inequality, freedom/oppression, safety/violence,health/illness, or happiness/sadness, being a human being can be edifying and uplifting/ complicated and confusing. In the end, our lives will comprise an amalgam of positives and negatives, highs and lows, skips and trips. Much will be shaped by luck, be it genetic or geographic (as Bertrand Russell quipped, “choose your parents wisely”), but no life will follow an uninterrupted trajectory upwards, simply tracking one new high after another. We will all experience pleasure; we will all suffer pain. However, what makes us fully human is the ability, and the willingness,…

A man walks into a mall. His eyes scan the crowds. Finally, he spots what he’s looking for: a teenage girl. Maybe 12 or 13 years old. Alone. “Wow, you’re really beautiful, you know,” he says. If she ignores him, dismisses him, or accepts the compliment with grace and walks off, he knows she’s not his girl. But if she pauses, smiles shyly, fishes for more – “Oh really, you really think so? Me?” – he knows he has a victim. Human traffickers in developed countries prey on girls with low self-esteem. They can “spot that weakness almost instantly,” insists Dr Mellissa Withers, an associate professor at the University of Southern California who focuses on gender-based violence. It’s not only men. Withers recalls an instance in which a girl was…

In my mind one of the defining elements of being human is the ability to care about others – not merely to say that we care, but to truly experience that caring; to have empathy. We have the capacity to feel the emotions others experience as if those emotions were our own. We feel our children’s joy when they first ride a bike or score a soccer goal, but we also cry when someone else is suffering a loss, and rejoice at one’s good fortune. And we can experience these things even if the other person is just an acquaintance or even a complete stranger. When we stop to think about empathy, it is very clear that it is an amazing superpower. It allows us to transport ourselves into the…

I was five years old when I first learned about DNA. My mother was talking to my sister about her ‘genes’. I was confused. She was wearing shorts, not jeans. But as soon as our mother explained that the genes you inherit have the same basic code, how all of earth’s living creatures are built from the same chemical foundation, I was hooked. Forty years later, I still find DNA to be simply the most fascinating scientific discovery. DNA was first identified by Friedrich Miescher, a Swiss physician, in 1869. Over the next 140 years, the scientific community made monumental discoveries that have led to our understanding of DNA and have shaped our ability to decode life on Earth. But what has always amazed me most about these genetic discoveries…

In the summer of 2012, the same year that scientists fully decoded the genome of the bonobo, the last great ape, my partner and I were stalked by a female grizzly bear. We first saw her high above us in a field of huckleberry bushes as we hiked along Grinnell Lake on the east side of Glacier National Park in Montana. It was the perfect distance to see a grizzly: close enough to make out the rolling power of her gait and the light gold fur on her back, and far enough away for us to feel safe. We watched her for several minutes, remarking on her beauty, then continued up the trail into a stand of stunted, high-altitude pine, the trunks just tall enough to obscure our vision. When…

All human beings, says the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are born free and equal in dignity and rights. But who is the ‘human’ of human rights? The Universal Declaration, and other official human rights documents, take the answer to be self-evident. What could be more obvious? The ‘human’ bearer of rights is a universal, timeless figure – human rights are the rights we are accorded simply for being Homo sapiens. It’s an attractive idea. Without some divine being to underpin our morality, rights appear very fragile, subject to fluctuating social mores and political power. By establishing human rights as a matter of nature, they are shorn of political controversy, and thus – so the story goes – are guaranteed against the vicissitudes of history. Unfortunately, that story is at…

I earn fairly good money and help out when I can: I buy raffle tickets, donate to fundraising efforts by my friends, give spare change to fundraising tins in stores, etc. I would like to do more – for example, following philosopher Peter Singer’s lead and donating a third of my income to charity. But if I were to do this, how can I know whether it’s actually doing any good and not just being frittered away in administrative expenses or creating dependency – with little effect other than to place a financial burden on me and my family? Should I focus on doing the most good I can do in my local area where I can see the positive effects – with my family, my community, and those in…

The Artist William Hazlitt 1778 – 1830 The nature of laughter Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. We weep at what thwarts or exceeds our desires in serious matters; we laugh at what only disappoints our expectations in trifles. We shed tears from sympathy with real and necessary distress; as we burst into laughter from want of sympathy with that which is unreasonable and unnecessary, the absurdity of which provokes our spleen or mirth, rather than any serious reflection on it. To explain the nature of laughter and tears is to account for the condition of human life; for it is in a manner…

From the journals of Samuel P. Perceval,bookseller: Covent Garden, Dec. 15, 1974 This spring, I found a curious letter sewn into the hem of a coat belonging to my late great-aunt Florence. Crudely enveloped in what appeared to be a page torn from a Victorian magazine, the missive was written in a bizarre-looking code of non-alphanumeric symbols. It has taken some months to decipher, but I believe the rendering below is substantially accurate. It falls to me, now, to decide whether and to whom I should make the contents known. I here omit all names as well as the precise year. I am not sure what prompts such nice feeling—it is no secret, however, that great-aunt Florence, née Brown, married one James Perceval, my grandfather’s brother. November the thirtieth, 189*…

What is your demon? Chocolate. What is the most important part of your education? My immersion in the pre-industrial culture of Ladakh, or “Little Tibet”, which forced me to challenge the foundations of modern industrial society and demonstrated the fundamental importance of human-scale economic and political units. Which ‘thinker’ has had the greatest influence on your life? It would be a very close-run race between E.F. Schumacher, Goethe, and the Buddha. What do you doubt most? That the current theatre of left/right politics can take us where we need to go. As it stands, governments of every political hue are singing to the tune of deregulated global finance and ‘free trade’, thereby destroying both livelihoods and the environment. If you could change one thing about the world, what would that…

newphilosopher.com is an online portal for exploring philosophical ideas on ways to live a more fulfilling life. Read the articles, join in discussions, watch free online documentaries, and plan a trip to the next festival near you. How much time? Philosophers have often told us that it is the brevity of life that gives it meaning, because if it just went on and on we wouldn’t have much reason to do anything at all. The mystery of time Time passes at different speeds psychologically for us, that’s a fact. But the idea that clock time is the same for everybody is false. New Philosopher online store Visit the online store to purchase previous editions of New Philosopher magazine, subscriptions, and other gift ideas. Do you really exist online? There’s…

Every 14 seconds: in the US there is a net gain of one person every 14 seconds: One birth every 8 seconds. One death every 12 seconds. One (net) migrant every 28 seconds. 100y In the 20th century, the human population climbed from 1.5 to 6.1 billion in 100 years. 7.7h  The current human population is 7.7 billion. 108h  More than 108 billion members of our species have ever been born. 7%  The number of humans currently alive amounts to seven per cent of people who have ever lived. 85m  Current global population growth is 85 million humans per year. Close calls Toba catastrophe Around 70,000 years ago, it is believed that humanity came dangerously close to extinction, when the global human population sharply dropped to only a few thousand…

A recent study suggests that the big toe was one of the last parts of the human foot to evolve. The Cyrus Cylinder is the world’s first charter of human rights. After conquering the city of Babylon in 539 B.C., Cyrus – the first king of ancient Persia – freed the slaves, enshrined the freedom to practise any religion, and established racial equality. According to a 2016 study, the total number of bacteria in a ‘reference human’ weighing 70kg is 38 trillion bacteria. This is roughly the same number as human cells. The first recorded reference to belief in a human soul, separate from the body, is dated to the 8th century BCE. It is found on a stone slab carved out of basalt, unearthed by archaeologists in south eastern…

Escorting a group of children to the city one day, I became embroiled in a game they wanted to play called ‘laugh-o’. The aim of the game is to count the number of people who laugh out loud. Whoever heard the laughter first had to yell “laugh-o”. The first stop was a city café: a familiar scene of lone heads bowed to smartphones, tablets, and computers. Despite the ruckus we made, no one glanced in our direction. Laughter, some think, is a social bonding noise that humans made pre-speech. It eases tension and fosters group unity. But because laughter is a shared response and is infectious, often rising to a crescendo – it’s rare to spot humans laughing alone. As the cacophony swells in the digital world, the offline world…

What does it mean to be human? The immensity of this question can be boiled down to an old principle proposed by the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, which he attributed to fellow philosopher Baruch Spinoza: “Determination is negation.” But negation of what? First, of God. In the beginning there was God – the source of infinite action. In the Western tradition, man has no purpose without God. For Christians, man was created in God’s image; for Jews, God is a good worker who lends a hand. For atheists (who, let’s not forget, are Judeo-Christians in their own way), man’s purpose is in part to topple God from his throne. If this isn’t a complete negation of God, then it at least limits his power, as humans come to occupy the…

Do you have a sweet tooth? Do you struggle to resist the siren call of a chocolate fudge brownie or the allure of a bag of boiled sweets? Don’t blame yourself. Blame evolution. That’s what I do. I have a lifetime of experience grappling with my sweet tooth. I spent a substantial proportion of my childhood concocting devious ways to acquire, conceal, and consume sugar away from the eyes of my health-conscious mother. I stashed chocolate bars in the lining of my school bag. I hid doughnuts in my clothing until they could be devoured out of sight. I even kept a cache of sweets hidden behind my wardrobe. Meanwhile, my mother would tut at television commercials promoting sugary drinks and chocolatey breakfast cereals, instead serving oatmeal (i.e. gruel) or…

Why do humans think they’re the bosses of the world? It seems odd to think of humans as the bosses of the word, because there’s so much in it that we don’t control. Right now, as I’m writing this, it’s a hot and windy day outside. I’d like it to be a bit cooler, but there’s nothing I can do to control the weather. But it would be nice if we could, wouldn’t it? Lots of people think so. They think that the ability to be in control is a good thing, because it makes us safe. When we’re in charge of a situation, it means we’re less likely to be surprised, frightened, or hurt. Not being in control is scary – it means we have to put our hope…

The decision was made instantly. My son Edward was in Rome for the second leg of Liverpool’s Champions League soccer semi-final on May 2. I was at home in Brooklyn, pretending to prepare for a class, but really watching the game. We are devoted fans of the Liverpool Football Club. We texted throughout the game. Although Liverpool lost the match against Roma, we won the tie over two legs, allowing us to advance to the Champions League final on May 26, when we would face the mighty Real Madrid. At the Champions final, Liverpool’s first in 11 years, we would have the chance to win the most important soccer competition in the world – yes, the world. Although the World Cup would be starting in June, the top European clubs…

Artificial intelligence hits the barrier of meaning Anyone who works with A.I. systems knows that behind the façade of humanlike visual abilities, linguistic fluency, and game-playing prowess, these programs do not – in any humanlike way – understand the inputs they process or the outputs they produce. The lack of such understanding renders these programs susceptible to unexpected errors and undetectable attacks. nytimes.com/2018/11/05/opinion/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning. html Devil’s dictionary HUMANITY, N. The human race, collectively, exclusive of the anthropoid poets. The crisis of intimacy in the age of digital connectivity A recent survey of 20,000 Am e r i c a n s found that almost half suffered from l on e l i n e s s , which now qualifies as a chronic public health problem. Narcissism, a related condition, has…

Martha Nussbaum Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. She is the author of over 20 books, including Anger and Forgiveness and The Monarchy of Fear, and has explored topics including Greek and Roman philosophy, political theory, feminism, literature, and animal rights. Nussbaum has 62 honorary degrees and is the winner of the 2018 Berggruen Prize, the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Philosophy, and the 2012 Prince of Asturias Awards for Social Sciences. Sherry Turkle Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. Her research focuses on psychoanalysis and human-technology interaction.Turkle is the author of several critically-acclaimed books, including Life on the Screen, Reclaiming Conversation, and Alone Together. She is the…

Years ago I spoke with a 16-year-old girl who was considering the idea of having a computer companion in the future, and she described the upside to me. It’s not that the robot she had imagined, a vastly more sophisticated Siri, was so inspiring. It’s that she had already found people to be so disappointing. And now, for the first time, she explained me, people have options. Back then I thought her comments seemed prescient. Now I find them timely. “There are people who have tried to make friends, but stumbled so badly that they’ve given up,” she said. “So when they hear this idea of robots as companions, well… it’s not like a robot has the mind to walk away or leave you or anything like that.” This girl…

Over time, the idea of ‘being human’ has surely meant – and will continue to mean – many things. There has never been just one answer. But one thing it ought to involve today is the ability to recognise that the question itself is a problem. We humans are very self-focused. We tend to think that being human is somehow special and important, so we ask about that, instead of asking what it means to be an elephant, or a pig, or a bird. This failure of curiosity is part of a large ethical problem. The question, “What is it to be human?” is not just narcissistic, it involves a culpable obtuseness. It is rather like asking, “What is it to be white?” It connotes unearned privileges that have been…

Many of the problems in the world today, when one reflects upon them, call for an answer to an ancient question: What is it to be human? I believe there is no single immutable answer. We humans are what we conceive ourselves to be, by which I mean two things: what we will ourselves to be and what we say we are. Our self-conceptions are, in turn, responses to conditions that we encounter in our environments, and those conditions constantly change with time and place. The only way to answer this question is to examine how a person sees himself or herself and others within the social, cultural, economic, and political conditions of their time. There is no such thing as a human being in the abstract. Only when we…

“To explain the nature of laughter and tears is to account for the condition of human life.” William Hazlitt “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them.” George Bernard Shaw “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” Immanuel Kant “Culture is neither natural nor artificial, neither genetically transmitted nor rationally designed.” Friedrich Hayek “When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.” George Eliot “I am convinced that, where men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken.” David Hume “Nothing, I am sure, calls forth the faculties so much as the being obliged to struggle with the world.” Mary…

adjective: 1. Relating to or characteristic of humankind; 2. Of or characteristic of people as opposed to God or animals or machines, especially in being susceptible to weaknesses; 3. Showing the better qualities of humankind, such as kindness; 4. (Zoology) Of or belonging to the genus Homo. noun:  A human being. Origin: Late Middle English humaine, from Old French humain(e), from Latin humanus, from homo ‘man, human being’. The present spelling became usual in the 18th century. Source: Oxford English Dictionary…

Almost two millennia ago, the Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger wrote a consolation letter to his mother, Helvia, on the occasion of his banishment from Rome. Seneca, who had been sent into exile to Corsica on the charge of having an affair with the niece of the Roman emperor, Claudius, wrote that “a man lifting his head from the very funeral pyre must need some novel vocabulary not drawn from ordinary everyday condolence to comfort his own dear ones. But every great and overpowering grief must take away the capacity to choose words, since it often stifles the voice itself.” Although most of us will never produce a rhetorical masterpiece that transcends the ordinary as Seneca’s does, we nonetheless try in response to grief to find words, in the moments,…

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert… near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings; Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.…

Being Mortal Atul Gawande A fatal illness Hospice is not an easy choice for a person to make. A hospice nurse enters people’s lives at a strange moment – when they have understood that they have a fatal illness but not necessarily acknowledged that they are dying. “I’d say only about a quarter have accepted their fate when they come into hospice,” Creed said. When she first encounters her patients, many feel that their doctors have simply abandoned them. “Ninety-nine per cent understand they’re dying, but one hundred per cent hope they’re not,” she told me. “They still want to beat their disease.” 21 Lessons Yuval Noah Harari Age of post-truth Humans have always lived in the age of post-truth. Homo sapiens is a post-truth species, whose power depends on…

Sydney Writers’ Festival APR 29 – MAY 5, 2019 Sydney, Australia Each year, Sydney Writers’ Festival presents more than 300 events, attracting audiences of up to 100,000 for a week-long conversation of books and ideas. The Festival brings together some of the world’s most intelligent and argumentative writers – from local and international contemporary novelists and writers of cutting-edge nonfiction, to some of the world’s leading public intellectuals, scientists, and journalists. With the finest writing and storytelling at its core, programming is driven by the ideas and issues that animate all types of literature. Previous guests include George Saunders, Anne En-right, Atul Gawande, Alice Walker, Neil Gaiman, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Flanagan, Helen Garner, and Tom Keneally. www.swf.org.au/ The Hay Festival MAY 23 – JUN 2, 2019 Hay-on-Wye, Wales Hay Festival…