They oscillate back and forth trillions of times a second between their regular state and their antimatter state. As it happens, the mesons, created in the proton-antiproton collisions, seem to go from their antimatter state to their matter state more rapidly than they go the other way around, leading to an eventual preponderance of matter over antimatter of about 1 percent, when they decay to muons.

Whether this is enough to explain our existence is a question that cannot be answered until the cause of the still-mysterious behavior of the B-mesons is directly observed, said Dr. Brooijmans, who called the situation “fairly encouraging.”

The observed preponderance is about 50 times what is predicted by the Standard Model, the suite of theories that has ruled particle physics for a generation, meaning that whatever is causing the B-meson to act this way is “new physics” that physicists have been yearning for almost as long.

Dr. Brooijmans said that the most likely explanations were some new particle not predicted by the Standard Model or some new kind of interaction between particles. Luckily, he said, “this is something we should be able to poke at with the Large Hadron Collider.”

Okay guys, get poking! But, of course, a new model that explains the matter-anti-matter asymmetry better than the old “standard” model won’t solve the Really Big Question that metaphysicians, like very young children, always have at the ready: why? Why has this (fill in any impressively predictive physical model you like) ever happened? It seems unlikely that any merely descriptive theory, no matter how useful, will ever satisfy those who find this question engaging. Of course, it’s easy to write the question off as presupposing a sort of anthropomorphism, as if a universe had to be designed for a reason or purpose. But I think the question goes deeper than that, because even if you recognize that expecting the universe to have a purpose or a raison d’être is committing a sort of logical error or “category mistake”, the question still feels sensible. Maybe such a feeling just indicates that one is banging up against the limits of the human mind… and maybe not.

To make moral judgments about other people, we often need to infer their intentions — an ability known as “theory of mind.” For example, if one hunter shoots another while on a hunting trip, we need to know what the shooter was thinking: Was he secretly jealous, or did he mistake his fellow hunter for an animal?

MIT neuroscientists have now shown they can influence those judgments by interfering with activity in a specific brain region — a finding that helps reveal how the brain constructs morality.

Previous studies have shown that a brain region known as the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) is highly active when we think about other people’s intentions, thoughts and beliefs. In the new study, the researchers disrupted activity in the right TPJ by inducing a current in the brain using a magnetic field applied to the scalp. They found that the subjects’ ability to make moral judgments that require an understanding of other people’s intentions — for example, a failed murder attempt — was impaired.
…
The study offers “striking evidence” that the right TPJ, located at the brain’s surface above and behind the right ear, is critical for making moral judgments, says Liane Young, lead author of the paper. It’s also startling, since under normal circumstances people are very confident and consistent in these kinds of moral judgments, says Young, a postdoctoral associate in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.

“You think of morality as being a really high-level behavior,” she says. “To be able to apply (a magnetic field) to a specific brain region and change people’s moral judgments is really astonishing.”

Professors teaching introductory ethics courses, take note: if you wish to discuss cases that bring out the importance of intentions in moral reasoning, you’d do well to make sure that none of your students are holding magnets – or cell phones? – next to their ears.

One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the “many-worlds” interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the ‘multiverse’). A new scientific theory – called biocentrism – refines these ideas.

[Editorial comment: we learn at the end of this article that "biocentrism" was invented by Lanza, who, according to his (auto?)biographical note, "is considered one of the leading scientists in the world".]

There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them. Although individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the alive feeling – the ‘Who am I?’- is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn’t go away at death. One of the surest axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But does this energy transcend from one world to the other?

It goes on like this for a while (actually, it gets far worse). You can read it all here.

Kripke would be turning in his grave, if he were in his grave. Saul Kripke is, among other things, an inventor of “modal logic”, the logic of possibility and necessity. Such logic deals with counterfactual sentences like the first one of this paragraph. Translated into Kripke-speak (and putting aside the thorny issue of how to interpret metaphors), that sentence would be stating: “There is a possible world in which Kripke is turning in his grave”. And, on Kripke’s view, there is such a possible world just in case it is conceivable. Of course, there’s a lot of philosophical debate about which worlds are really conceivable or not, and on the question of whether conceivability is really the right test of a modal statement’s truth. But, unfortunately, some otherwise level-headed philosophers – such as David Lewis – have run with this semantic ball all the way to speculative-metaphysics-land, arguing that if modal statements make sense at all (and they do), then all possible worlds must exist just like the actual world exists (including physically)… consistent with the sort of multiverse theory Lanza is apparently imagining.

Now, not every multiverse physical theory needs to presuppose Lewis-style possible world semantics. Indeed, one which merely presupposes, as Lanza puts it, that “each of these possible observations correspond to a different universe” need not do so, as long as “different universe” can be interpreted merely as a possible world in Kripke’s sense of the expression. But notice that Lanza slides from this metaphysically ambiguous assertion to the further view that “There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe.” This, along with other remarks in Lanza’s article, reeks of modal realism (that is, Lewis-style modal semantics, as opposed to Kripke-style). Now, I have no a priori proof that a multiverse theory that presupposes modal realism is false. But, if such a theory is supposed to be scientific, it has to be confirmable or disconfirmable. And while a purely physical multiverse theory – one which doesn’t presuppose modal realism – might be confirmed empirically, by the observations it helps to predict and explain, no metaphysical view can be confirmed or disconfirmed in this way. The Kripke/Lewis debate ultimately boils down to differing linguistic or conceptual “intuitions”. So when writers like Lanza combine multiverse theory, modal realism, and the downright silly reduction of personal identity (or self-consciousness) to the “20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain” that is conserved after death, and implies that it is a scientific theory, I have to protest. In the last forty or so years, more silly pop-metaphysics has been produced by speculations based on quantum physics (and the uncertainty principle) than by anything else. And this is a prime example.

Note: this post was re-written in response to a comment made by Marshall Missner (see the comments section).

Although you should not believe this just on the basis of what you see, squares A and B are exactly the same shade of gray. You can confirm this in a graphics program (like photoshop). The fact that you see the squares as different shades of gray strongly suggests that your brain has evolved to tell you more about shadows than about the particular shades of colors. Why? Because representing shades of color as such is something that only an artist needs to do; it has very little survival value (unless you happen to be one of those lucky artists who gets paid for discriminating colors). On the other hand, distinguishing shadows is an important aspect of seeing objects in a natural world, and seeing objects is crucial to survival. One other thing: the fact that you can’t see the two squares as having the same color even after you know that they do is proof of the visual system’s “modularity” or “informational encapsulation”: vision is highly resistant to modification by belief or knowledge. Believing is not seeing.

Thanks to Edward H. Adelson at MIT for making this image available.

You can watch the hour online here.

It has become extremely plausible [in our culture] that this trip between the maternity ward and the crematorium is what there is to life. And we still have going into our common sense the 19th century myth, which succeeded the ceramic myth in Western history – I call it “The Fully Automatic Model”: Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball, that revolves about an insignificant star on the outer edges of one of the smaller galaxies. But on the other hand, if you think about that for a few minutes… I am absolutely amazed to discover myself on this rock ball, rotating around this spherical fire… it’s a very odd situation! And the more I look at things, I cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird.

You see, a philosopher is sort of intellectual yokel who gawks at things that sensible people take for granted. And sensible people say, existence, it’s nothing at all, just go on and do something. See, this is the current movement in philosophy, “logical analysis”, which says: you mustn’t think about existence, it’s a meaningless concept. Therefore, philosophy has become the discussion of trivia. No good philosopher lies awake nights, worrying about the destiny of Man, and the nature of God, and that sort of thing. Because a philosopher today is a practical fellow who comes to the university with a briefcase at 9:00 and leaves at 5:00. He “does philosophy” during the day, which is discussing whether certain sentences have meaning and if so what, and – as William Earle said in a very funny essay – he would come to work in a white coat if he thought he could get away with it.

The problem is: he’s lost his sense of wonder. Wonder is in modern philosophy something one mustn’t have… it’s like enthusiasm in 18th century England: very bad form. But you see, I don’t know what question to ask when I wonder about the universe. It isn’t a question that I’m wondering about, it’s a feeling that I have. Because I cannot formulate the question that is my wonder. The moment my mouth opens to talk about it I suddenly find I’m talking nonsense. But that should not prevent wonder from being the foundation of philosophy.

Existence is not a meaningless concept in analytic philosophy, although it is widely accepted that one studies existence by doing science, not by pontificating from the philosophical armchair. And in defense of my chosen profession, I would say that every good philosopher I’ve met would agree with Watts’ main point here: wonder is the foundation of philosophy… although it’s all too easy to forget that when one has all the responsibilities of a full-time university professor.

The feeling that existence is “weird”, as Watts puts it here, seems to me a sign that one’s emotional system is working as it should, by producing a feeling of awe in response to metaphysical conundrums that probably indicate the limitations of our own minds. There are lots of interesting philosophical questions to pursue here, but they are about those limitations, not about existence as a general category. As Wittgenstein – an analytic philosopher, albeit a unique one – put it at the end of his Tractatus: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” It seems to me that Watts would agree wholeheartedly with that.

Generally, we ought to be legally permitted to keep secrets. Generally, we ought to be legally permitted to give our money to whomever we please. Generally we ought to be legally permitted to do both of these things at our own discretion. We are not, however, legally permitted to keep secrets on the condition of receiving money. On the face of it, this seems to require justification.

Szabo argues that there is no good justification for the illegality of at least certain cases of blackmail. The sort of case he has in mind is as follows. Suppose that I take a scenic photo in the park and then later notice that it included an image of someone I know kissing someone other than his wife. I am legally allowed to give the photo to his wife, and he is legally allowed to offer me money not to do so. But blackmail laws make it illegal for me initiate such a deal. This seems odd, Szabo thinks, particularly since there are many other cases in which it is not illegal to demand something in return for not doing something legal. For instance, in labor disputes workers can demand more pay in return for their not striking; consumers can demand that a corporation change some policy in return for their not boycotting it, and so on. Furthermore, there might be good social consequences for legally allowing (at least non-repeatable) blackmail: perhaps it would result in better behavior.

I’m not convinced, but it’s surprisingly hard to say just what is wrong with Szabo’s argument. Certainly his consequentialist assumption that legalizing blackmail might well result in better behavior seems doubtful to me, but that doesn’t get to the heart of my reservation. Rather, what seems morally objectionable about blackmail is the blackmailer’s exploitation of the “blackmailee’s” vulnerability – the opportunistic exploitation of a power asymmetry. In the case of labor negotiations, this seems less of an issue because the rationale for collective bargaining is that in most respects it is the employer that has the power advantage over the employees; labor unions use the threat of a strike to help balance their normal relative weakness. Similarly, boycott threats seem to only balance the normal power advantage that large corporations have over isolated consumers.

So Szabo’s argument may make sense only against the background of a social and economic system in which exploitation of power asymmetries is normal. Perhaps rather than causing us to question the illegality of blackmail, his argument should cause us to question the normality of such exploitation, and perhaps of the power asymmetries themselves.

And the Lord would say to you: “Why do want a question?”

Alan Watts
from the podcast, “Spiritual Authority #3″