Non-Conscious Knowing: Drones, Cash Machines, and Roomba.

We think being conscious is special. Computers and drones are formidable but they’re not conscious. Maybe so, but can a being or entity think and know things without being conscious? Absolutely. Consciousness isn’t needed for that. Indeed, consciousness...
A Lawyer, A Poet, and A Philosopher walk into a bar….

A Lawyer, A Poet, and A Philosopher walk into a bar….

America the Miserable Are you miserable? If you are, you certainly have company.  Misery has been on the rise in our society for some time, and the suffering is widespread: we, the people, feel lonely, neglected, forgotten, increasingly poor in health, in habit, and...
A Lawyer, A Poet, and A Philosopher walk into a bar…

A Lawyer, A Poet, and A Philosopher walk into a bar…

Money It makes the world go round. It is the root of all evil. It offers security. It enslaves. It will protect you. It will corrupt you. To have some is necessary, but no amount seems sufficient. It is reputedly unable to buy love, yet the lack of it can destroy...
Magical Art: The Power of Images in Hitchcock’s Vertigo

Magical Art: The Power of Images in Hitchcock’s Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is a brilliant, suspenseful mystery exploring the often dangerous intimacy between love, compulsion, and death.  It is also a profound meditation on the power of art.  While it invites us to go on seeing art as a mimesis – a...
A Lawyer, A Poet, and A Philosopher walk into a bar…

A Lawyer, A Poet, and A Philosopher walk into a bar…

Innocence Young and innocent. Innocent until proven guilty. Is the loss (or theft) of innocence a crime? Or is innocence among the mature a vice? Do the innocent make good citizens? Can innocence lost ever be regained? How are our different conceptions of innocence...