Guest Thinkers — May 25, 2010

“Free Won’t”

“We may not have free will, but we have ‘free wont’, which is as good as saying we’re not totally deterministic. So far so good,” writes Dr. David Rock.

bigthinkeditor

“We may not have free will, but we have ‘free wont’, which is as good as saying we’re not totally deterministic. So far so good,” writes Dr. David Rock. “Instead of wondering if free will is ‘real’ or not, a range of new research is pulling apart the question of whether a belief in free will is, well, helpful. If believing in free will has intrinsic value. The answer appears to be ‘quite likely’.”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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Culture & Religion

Rise of China

Should the next generation learn Chinese? “Despite China’s rise, Chinese isn’t the world language of the future; the writing system simply makes it far too hard,” says Robert Green.