Ep 35 Ch 14 "Why are Flowers Beautiful?"

This is Part 1 of 2 where I compare and contrast what philosophers were saying about the possibility of "Super Intelligence" many years ago with respect to the discourse today. What did Nick Bostrom say over a decade ago, and what is he saying today? How is the discourse being fr ...  Show more

A spontaneous set of comments on the ongoing AI scare of 2026. What's happening in the media right now, on social media, in culture and at the highest levels of government. Why the pessimism and catastrophism? What can be done? Quite a few slides are referred to, but I do read th ...  Show more

Continuing on Beauty (2009), ch. 1-4. Does apprehending beauty really have to involve reason, or can it be merely sensory? If you're not hearing the full version of this part of the discussion, sign up via one of the options described at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. 

How are we taught to look at art, and why does it get everything wrong? In this episode I look at conventional ways of teaching students to look at art, and offer an alternative that allows for more intuition, experiementation, and a familiarity with the medium. 

In this episode, I discuss the duality of the human approach, the straw man fallacy, the simplifying of complex matters, and going in-depth with things that matter. Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTYAsjAVa3I&t=1078s 

In this episode I'll be talking to Sir Roger Scruton about beauty, what it is, where it comes from and what it means. We'll be talking about beauty in relation to art, religion, biology, philosophy, music and of course architecture. We talk about architectural style ...