be economist hat for my wannabe biologist one. Herbert Spencer called those fields the same at bottom. I never read Spencer, and know him mostly from Bertrand Russell’s books on the history of philosophy. Spencer rates a subchapter there. Yet he was an autodidact with less training in either field than mine. He even

med Jewish English academics, God is not a hallucinogen, but more like a spiritually based, social contract. In his 1929 essay, Mysticism and Logic, Bertrand Russell noted mysticism’s preference for: (a) Insight over discursive analytic knowledge; (b) Belief in the unity of all things over oppositions or divisions

r, if youre curious) and was eventu- ally sent home to recover. Lying in bed for two months is boring. So to pass the time my mother suggested I read Bertrand Russell's, The History of Western Philosophy. | think she figured I had plenty of time, so picked a thick book. This nearly 800-page tome charts the entire his

y-five years ago, I was visiting Marvin Minsky, one of the original AI pioneers, and asked him about Dan. “He’s our best current philosopher—the next Bertrand Russell,” said Marvin, adding that unlike traditional philosophers, Dan was a student of neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science

y-five years ago, I was visiting Marvin Minsky, one of the original AI pioneers, and asked him about Dan. “He’s our best current philosopher—the next Bertrand Russell,” said Marvin, adding that unlike traditional philosophers, Dan was a student of neuroscience, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science

dilate or con- tract in response to heat and cold. If you don't touch me, I'll die Touch is literally a matter of life and death. The philosopher Bertrand Russell noted the impor- tance of touch, saying, "Not only our geometry and our physics, but our whole conception of what exists outside us, is based on th