Just keep going

"THE NEXT DAY they were mostly quiet on their drive back to Durham. Something had changed between them after the night's fire on Ocracoke, some shift toward intimacy she wasn't ready for. His eyes on the road, Limpet asked, "Do you have a life philosophy?" "Life philosophy?" The phrase felt like a contradiction in terms. "Words you live by."

She didn't live by words. She lived by life. But the question was sweet, and she did her best. She fed him that classic bit of Quebecoise wisdom. "Attache ta tuque et lache pas la patate!" "Meaning?" "Put on your little beanie cap and don't release the potato." Bart Mannis laughed so hard he almost ran them off the highway. But the meaning was clear, wasn't it? Hold on tight and keep going. Just keep going. Like any good creature of the tides."

— Playground: A Novel by Richard Powers
https://a.co/0c1VZjoK

FINAL REPORT PRESENTATIONS

Indicate your date and topic preference in the comments section below. The final report includes a blog post, the final draft of which is due May 2... but you may want to post earlier. Sign up as an AUTHOR on this site, in order to post. For specific "Arguments" in Goldstein, see Appendix (scroll down). You can choose to do something pertaining to what is assigned on your requested date, OR you can select an additional text and/or author of your own to report on... as detailed on the syllabus.

MAR

31 Richard Powers, Playground -p.292. Presentation: ___

APR

7 Richard Powers, Playground -p.381. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God -pages to be announced. Argument #s 1-9. Presentation: ___

14 Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God -tba. Argument #s 10-18. Presentation: Amanda

21 Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God -tba. Argument #s 19-27. Presentation(s): Markeem

28 Last class. Exam 2. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God -tba. Argument #s 28-36. Presentation(s): ___

MAY

2 Final report blog post (final draft) due. Post earlier for feedback.

Questions MAR 24

1.  Go ahead and post your questions and comments about Playground to p.193.
2. COMMENT ?: "The safest way forward was to keep to the group. That's why they called it schooling." 95
3. COMMENT ?: "...transfixed by the thought of a world after humans." 96
4. 
   

Philosophy classes, Fall 2026

 

• PHIL 1030 – Introduction to Philosophy 3 credit hours Basic philosophical problems suggested by everyday experience integrated into a coherent philosophy of life through comparison with solutions offered by prominent philosophers. 

• PHIL 2110 – Elementary Logic & Critical Thinking Principles of deductive and inductive reasoning, problem solving, and the analysis of arguments in everyday language.  Dr. Slack 

• PHIL 3150 - Ethics Examines major ethical theories, the moral nature of human beings, and the meaning of good and right and applies ethical theories to resolving moral problems in personal and professional lives.  Dr. Johnson, Mr. Easley 

• PHIL 3170 - Ethics and Computing Technology Exposes students to the fundamentals of ethical theory and familiarizes them with some of the practical, ethical, and legal issues with which they would have to deal as computer scientists.  Dr. Johnson 

• PHIL 3690 – Social Philosophy The main problems of social philosophy are surveyed: the distinctive nature of social reality and the nature of social knowledge and how they relate to value theory.  Dr. Slack

• PHIL 4010 – History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy The development of philosophical thought from Thales to Occam. Offered fall only. Dr. Newman 

• PHIL 4200 – Existentialism The nature, significance, and application of the teachings of several outstanding existential thinkers. Dr. Oliver - T/Th 4:20-5:45 pm, HONORS BLDG #117*

• PHIL 4250 – Philosophy of Gender Examines major work in contemporary feminist philosophy and feminist theory, with particular emphasis on the relation of sex and gender, feminist accounts of inquiry, feminist ethical issues, and feminist aesthetics.  Dr. Magada-Ward 

• PHIL 4500 – Philosophy of Science The methods, problems, and presuppositions of scientific inquiry. TBA 

*PHIL 4200-Existentialism Texts Fall '26
Required

• Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir,Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger,... - 978-1590518892
• Mariana Allesandri, Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves through Dark Moods - 978-0691242699
• Irvin Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept - 978-0062009302
• tba

Recommended

• Todd May, A Significant Life: Human Meaning in a Silent Universe - 978-0226421049
• Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why It Matters - 978-0691154503
• Samuel Scheffler, Death and the Afterlife - 978-0190469177
• Soren Kierkegaard, tba
• William James, What Makes a Life Significant; Is Life Worth Living; On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings; tba
• tba

Lyceum Apr 17

 

Questions March 17

1. Go ahead and share any thoughts about anything in the first 95 pages of Playground, or about author Richard Powers or any of his previous books (I especially like Bewilderment, Overstory, Echo Maker, Galatea 2.2, Generosity: An Enhancement), or on the general subjects of the environment and/or AI.
2. Re: the dedication (& 23f.): did anyone ever give you a book (or anything else) at around age 10 that had a significant impact on your later life?   Why do you think Clearly It Is Ocean so impacted Todd?
3. Any thoughts on  the Ta'aroa creation story, and the role of artist in bringing gods (and other creative products) into being? Do such stories convey a deeper-than-literal truth? What might that be, in this instance?
4. Why do you think Ina sobbed through the last act of The Tempest? 4   Has any work of art (literature or otherwise) ever moved you to tears? Why? 
5. Is it possible to raise a family "away from the growing sadness of the real world"? 5
6. COMMENT? Todd Keane, "the first person to reach the future" [as the novel will reveal] is now "retreating into the past"... 9    And what does he mean, that when he was young he could "breathe under water"? 13
7. COMMENT? What do you make of the multiple references to "hallucinations"? (16, 19, passim)
8. Rafi frequently dreams of "the first day of first grade"... 20  Do you have any recurrent dreams from childhood? Are they pleasant, disturbing, instructive, ...?
9. Todd's former company's breakthrough, he says, will hasten humanity's "fourth and perhaps final act." 26  What do you think were the first three acts? What do you imagine might be the fourth? 
10. Had you ever heard of Makatea? Any thoughts about its history? 
11. COMMENT? "Makatea helped Homo sapiens subdue the Earth. But in the process, the island was consumed." 31
12. "People and their emotions puzzled me." 33 "I've always trusted machines more than I trust people." 46  Do you think this attitude is common among many tech pioneers and computing entrepreneurs? Is it concerning that their creations have come to preoccupy so many people? 33   Were we READY> for the digital/Internet revolution? Are we READY> for the changes AI may bring to society, emotional health, et al?
13. COMMENT?: "Clearly, they, too [the early PC], were ocean." 34
14. Doing handyman repairs and daydreaming about playing for the World Cup "was all the happiness the Mayor] needed." 36  Should that (or its equivalent, for each of us) be enough?
15. COMMENT?: "I thought the Americans were just... shitting around. You know how they do." 39
16. Are westerners ("Popa'a") generally not "healthy about sex"? 43
17. Has the "planet-sized megaphone" of social media really helped to level the playing field between large and small nations?  45
18. Todd says the incidence of cognitive impairment among Americans is too high to ask Why me? 46  Is Why not me? a better rhetorical question?
19. "I needed to start recording everything. Telling someone." 48   If you received a terminal diagnosis, would you react as Todd does? What would you "record," who would you tell what? What would you do with your remaining time (presuming you felt like doing anything, or retained sufficient cognitive function to do so)? Would you work on a "bucket list"? Would you do anything different? Should we (can we?) try to live each day as though it might be our last?
20. "The whole game of human life is changing." 50   Does it ever, though? Aren't there some constants in human experience, no matter how much society and technology and society change?
21. COMMENT? Evie (like Todd) "had never felt at home up there... with its noise and politics" 52   Does it seem like many of those "land dwellers" and progress-seekers who do feel at home here are suffering "derangement"? 53. 55
22. Can humanity, or at least individual humans, ever break back into "the magic circle of children's play"?  57  Do you? How? For how long?
23. "If you want to make something smarter, teach it to play." 59  Agree?
24. Have you ever played with a member of a non-domesticated species? 60
25. Todd "see(s) things that aren't there." Is his LBD analogous to AI hallucination? 61
26. "'The water belongs to nobody. It's no-man's land...endless, open, and free"  68   Is that really so?
27. "They made [Rafi] skip a grade."  69   Good idea, in his case or ever?
28. "Reading made him untouchable on a raft in the middle of an ocean of bright words."  71   Do kids still have that experience of reading, in the Internet/social media/gaming age?
29. Watching Cubs games with his grandfather "taught the pleasure of constantly destroyed hope." 77  Is pleasure the right word?
30. What do you think of Rafi's general essay response? 82
31. Why don't more of us choose to "live in the truth"? 84
32. COMMENT? Saint Ignatius and Aristotle on molding children... What is the significance of "Give" (as opposed to Show)? 86
33. Is chess beautiful? Is its allure more about logic or drama? 91
34. Is Evie right about the secret of life? 95
35. 
    

Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times by Todd May

A surprisingly lighthearted approach to a heavy subject, though not so surprising coming from the philosophical advisor to The Good Place. Most lives are indeed worth living, we may agree, while still also wondering whether the total species impact of humanity hasn't been a net loss for life on this planet.

But wouldn't our self-inflicted extinction be an awful abrogation of responsibility? Don't we owe it to the future of life to stick around and try to clean up the mess we've made?

Well, at least 'til after the WBC final?

"…the idea that humans are destroying life on the planet for many of our fellow creatures or that we could get into a war that would make life unlivable for many others—that's not so crazy. Instead, it's fact. And how about the thought that given what we're doing, perhaps we should seriously consider whether we should go extinct, whether the world would be better off without us? Maybe that's not so crazy either.

The not-craziness of it is why I've been thinking about this for some time now. In fact, several years ago I penned some very preliminary thoughts on it for the (now extinct) New York Times blog The Stone, raising the possibility that human extinction might be at once a tragedy and a good thing. It would be a tragedy for two reasons. First, in addition to the suffering that would precede it, it would involve the loss of much of what humans value and only humans can create: art, science, and so on. Second—here is the classically tragic part—that loss would be caused by humans. We, like King Lear or Oedipus, would be the cause of our demise. But our extinction would not be all bad news. The end of human existence would also be the end of the massive suffering humans cause, largely to non-human animals. (Granted, we also cause a good bit of suffering to one another—and not just through social media.
But, as I'll argue in the next chapter, for most of us our lives, in the end, are well worth living.) It's not that animals don't cause suffering to one another. Of course they do.

But no non-human animal can cause the extraordinary level of suffering that humans do, through factory farming and the consumption that goes along with it, deforestation, plastic disposal into the oceans, scientific experimentation, and the like…"

— Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times by Todd May
https://a.co/0jeNMx01

“Rationalists”

Child's Play

"…Scott Alexander is one of the leading proponents of rationalism, which is—depending on whom you ask—either a major intellectual movement or a nerdy Bay Area subculture or a small network of friend groups and polycules. Rationalists believe that the way most people understand the world is hopelessly muddled, and that to reach the truth you have to abandon all existing modes of knowledge acquisition and start again from scratch. The method they landed on for rebuilding all of human knowledge is Bayes's theorem, a formula invented by an eighteenth-century English minister that is used in statistics to work out conditional probabilities. In the mid-Aughts, armed with the theorem, the rationalists discovered ["discovered"] that humanity is in jeopardy of a rogue superintelligent AI wiping out all life on the planet. This has been their overriding concern ever since…"

https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/childs-play-sam-kriss-ai-startup-roy-lee