with Anthony Movshon, William Newsome, Eric Kandel, Ray Dolan and Joshua Greene in Science & Health part of Charlie Rose: The Brain Series on Thursday, September 30, 2010

Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, akaThe Elvis of cultural theory, is given the floor to show of his polemic style and whirlwind-like performance. The Giant of Ljubljana is bombarded with clips of popular media images and quotes by modern-day thinkers revolving around four major issues: the economical crisis, environment, Afghanistan and the end of democracy. Zizek grabs the opportunity to ruthlessly criticize modern capitalism and to give his view on our common future. We communists are back! is the closing remark of Slavoj Zižeks provocative performance. Our current capitalist system, that everyone believed would be smoothly spread around the globe, is untenable. We find ourselves on the brink of big problems that call for big solutions. Whatever is left of the left, has been hedged in by western liberal democracy and seems to lack the energy to come up with radical solutions. Not Zižek. Interview: Chris Kijne Director: Marije Meerman Production: Mariska Schneider /Pepijn Boonstra Research: Marijntje Denters/Maren Merckx Commissioning editors: Henneke Hagen/Jos de Putter

This is totally profound but TRUE, heard it many years ago, but the full implications only hit me the other day. Sheer Genius, and sadly missed. Bill doesn't go down well with a lot of Christian Folk(Right Wing) but for me he epitomises the whole Christian view on life, common sense, look through the traditions and see the essence of what life is and what it COULD be.

It looks like physics works differently in different places. If so, everything we think we know about the cosmos may be wrong

In a world of rapidly accelerating change, from iPads to eBooks to genetic mapping to MagLev trains, we can't help but wonder if technology is our servant or our master, and whether it is taking us in a healthy direction as a society.* What forces drive the steady march of innovation?* How can we build environments in our schools, our businesses, and in our private lives that encourage the creation of new ideas--ideas that build on the new technology platforms in socially responsible ways?Kevin Kelly and Steven Johnson look at where technology is taking us. One of the co-founders of Wired Magazine, Kelly's new book, What Technology Wants, makes the argument that technology as a whole is not a jumble of wires and metal but a living, evolving organism that has its own unconscious needs and tendencies. Johnson's new book, Where Good Ideas Come From, explains why certain spaces, from 18th-century coffeehouses to the World Wide Web, have an uncanny talent for encouraging innovative thinking.

Sam Harris says we have to begin giving similar answers to the most important questions in human life.  Airdate - 10/4/2010

A critical and provocative exploration of the political, conceptual and cultural points of resonance between Deleuze's minor politics and Marx's critique of capitalist dynamics, Deleuze, Marx and Politics is the first book to engage with Deleuze's missing work, The Grandeur of Marx.

Information is being copied at previously unheard of rates. Has the Internet given birth to a new evolutionary process?

The author answers critics of her theory of "temes," a "third replicator" in the evolutionary process.

Buddhism comes West as a vast body of teaching, and we who receive it are often awed by its abundance, its complexity, and its subtlety. Where is the center, the real thing we should fix on? Or is there a real thing at all to be apprehended? History shows that Buddhism can and will accommodate itself to new cultures, and will flourish according to the perceptiveness and energy of its new adherents. Now in the West our perceptiveness and energy are put to the test to grasp the "real thing" by which this religion lives - its radicalism.

to be a free citizen is to be truly self-ruled. To rule (wisely) is to be an informed political philosopher.

Companies like Starbucks have figured out that they can make more money by attaching their profits to causes that people care about.

Corporations Destroying The Planet deprogram on USTREAM. Politics 

The idea that we can fully comprehend reality is an illusion - in some cases, a dangerous one.

The gourmet's ongoing failure to think in moral terms

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.

Sometimes it is hard to know where politics ends and metaphysics begins: when, that is, the stakes of a political dispute concern not simply a clash of competing ideas and values but a clash about what is real and what is not, what can be said to exist on its own and what owes its existence to an other. The seething anger that seems to be an indigenous aspect of the Tea Party movement arises, I think, at the very place where politics and metaphysics meet, where metaphysical sentiment becomes political belief. More than their political ideas, it is the anger of Tea Party members that is already reshaping our political landscape.

In "Future Generations: Further Problems," and Part Four of Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit raises many perplexing questions. Although some think his ingenious arguments little more than delightful puzzles, I believe they challenge some of our deepest beliefs. In this article, I examine some of Parfit's arguments, focusing mainly on "The Mere Addition Paradox." If my analysis is correct, Parfit's arguments have extremely interesting and important implications that not even Parfit realized.