Bioethics
PHIL 3345. Supporting the philosophical study of bioethics, bio-medical ethics, biotechnology, and the future of life, at Middle Tennessee State University and beyond... "Keep your health, your splendid health. It is better than all the truths under the firmament." William James
Monday, April 8, 2024
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
“deliberately exposed to radiation”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/opinion/oppenheimer-secret-lives.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Pandemic lessons not learned
In 2022 Ed Yong wrote that the U.S. "made none of the broad changes that would protect its population against future pathogens, such as better ventilation or universal paid sick leave." He predicted that America will "continue to struggle against infectious diseases in part because some of its most deeply held values are antithetical to the task of besting a virus."
https://www.threads.net/@theatlantic/post/C4YzdRnRMYY/?xmt=AQGzVL8uXjPeUw92cc_xOhRNVYs1mCOg0E7vTYMC4LycRg
Monday, March 11, 2024
‘Fantastic Voyage’-ish A.I.
A.I. Is Learning What It Means to Be Alive
Given troves of data about genes and cells, A.I. models have made some surprising discoveries. What could they teach us someday?
...“I think these models are going to help us get some really fundamental understanding of the cell, which is going to provide some insight into what life really is,” Dr. Quake said.
Having a map of what’s possible and impossible to sustain life might also mean that scientists could actually create new cells that don’t yet exist in nature. The foundation model might be able to concoct chemical recipes that transform ordinary cells into new, extraordinary ones. Those new cells might devour plaque in blood vessels or explore a diseased organ to report back on its condition.
“It’s very ‘Fantastic Voyage’-ish,” Dr. Quake admitted. “But who knows what the future is going to hold?”
..."Professors should be very, very nervous."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/10/science/ai-learning-biology.html?smid=em-share
Monday, January 15, 2024
Portals
"Virginia Woolf on being ill as a portal to self-understanding and a way of breaking through our ordinary waking-state perception" https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/05/06/virginia-woolf-on-being-ill/
https://www.threads.net/@mariapopova/post/C2GY6ohxDni/
Thursday, January 11, 2024
Simone de Beauvoir on the Art of Growing Older – The Marginalian
Today, and for the next few weeks, my wife is chronologically older than me. She might need to hear what Maria Popova and Simone de Beauvoir say about time's arrow… (And happy birthday to WJ, 182 today.)
…to grow old at all is a tremendous privilege — one withheld from the vast majority of humans populating the history of our young species (to say nothing of the infinite potential humans who never chanced into existing).
"…There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning — devotion to individuals, to groups or to causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work… In old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves. One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion." Simone de Beauvoir
Complement with Bertrand Russell on how to grow old and Thoreau on the greatest gift of the winter years, then revisit Simone de Beauvoir on the ultimate frontier of hope and the artist's task to liberate the present from the past. https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/07/31/simone-de-beauvoir-coming-of-age/
https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/07/31/simone-de-beauvoir-coming-of-age/Monday, January 8, 2024
Stephen Hawking happy
https://open.substack.com/pub/thewritersalmanac/p/the-writers-almanac-from-monday-january-645?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post