Social Theory

Our conversations regularly circle around aspects of social theory - how society operates, and how it could or should operate better.

A Fair Society

Much of the campaigning undertaken by equalities groups is, either explicitly or implicitly, directed at achieving a fair society - or, at least, a fair society for the members of our equalities group. The initial goals tend to be straightforward, c

Real Life

There has been a lot of talk recently about various aspects of artificial life - artificial intelligence, sentient machines, computers gaining self-awareness, and so on. It seems self-evident that we can easily distinguish between living and non-liv

The Ghost in the Machine

A materialist solution to Cartesian Dualism does not work because the body, the living organism, is not only material; the other side of the coin is that the problem of Cartesian Dualism itself, how a non-material mind interacts with a material body,

Farming

[Back to Physical Challenges]

Introduction

This is clearly a massive topic.

Because there are no clear boundaries, this topic will cover not only farming, but all use of the land to deliberately grow things or raise animals.

Growing Things for Food

T

Gods, Ancient and Modern

People constantly talk about God, whether they believe in God or not, and they clearly have something in mind when they do so. But, when you move beyond the beliefs of a specific group, there is almost no agreement about what a 'God' (or 'god') is.

AI - Alison Pickard Interview

AI Rosalind Pickard Interview 20200317.pdf

Talking About Religion

All the usual principles of good practice on this site apply to discussion of religion too. Please be clear about the purpose of any contribution, and please aim to keep any response to a contribution relevant to what was posted.

God and Gods

There is a common assumption in many Western countries that if you are religious, then you 'believe in God', and that your choice of religion is all about believing in the 'right' God. However, while you will find a God or multiple gods in many reli

War

This is an attempt to identify the key aspects of war. Almost everyone agrees that war is bad, something to be avoided if possible, but we are not very clear what the ‘if possible’ might consist of: whoever you talk to, the responsibility for avoidi

Reason Alone

Neither science nor reason can guide anything, from individual choice a national strategy. Science can tell us the fastest way to get from A to B, but it cannot tell us whether we should go there. It can tell us the likely consequences of an action,

What does it mean to be human?

In Western thought, there are two traditional ways of understanding what it means to be human, associated with the two major philosophical traditions found in the Greek and Hebrew cultures: in the Greek tradition, a human is a soul trapped in a body,

Pacifism and Ukraine

PDF of article

Introduction and context

This article is written in response to a recent JustHuman meeting (February 2023), I attended but didn’t really contribute much to the conversation at the time - apart from my opening statement (something that

Articles

All Articles (83)

Social Theory

A Fair Society

Real Life

The Ghost in the Machine

Farming

Introduction

Growing Things for Food

Gods, Ancient and Modern

AI - Alison Pickard Interview

Talking About Religion

God and Gods

War

Reason Alone

What does it mean to be human?

Pacifism and Ukraine

Human Nature

Three Kinds of Sex

Science and Magic

Science and Faith

Consent

Reality

A Theory of Everything

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