Links of late…

1. “If we try to turn our lives into good stories, we may find ourselves making choices that are bad for us” — Amy Berg (Oberlin) on narratives, well-roundedness, and the good life
2. Knowledge, but at what cost? — how should we figure out whether large scale basic science experiments are worth it?
3. “A full development of our humanity requires developing our capacities to care for the world of nature and for the animals in it” — Martha Nussbaum (Chicago) is interviewed by Jeremy Bendik-Keymer (Case Western) at Boston Review
4. Mind-wandering is a thing, but what about extended mind-wandering? And is habitual smartphone use an example of it? — Jelle Bruineberg & Regina Fabry (Macquarie) make the case for it, and other philosophers discuss it
5. A philosopher proposes an “Institute for Ascertaining Scientific Consensus” to determine what we know and to fight misinformation — Can it be done? Should it? UPDATE: There’s an (LLM-based) app for that now: Consensus. It’s not very good… yet.
6. “Can College Level the Playing Field?… No way. You would have to ignore all the available evidence to think that the answer is ‘yes’.” — Harry Brighouse (Wisconsin) reviews a review of a book about education and equality
7. An AI ethics assistant “is not going to tell you, ‘You should do that,’ in a concrete moment, but will help you improve your reasoning—to consider empirical facts, to think more logically and coherently” — Jon Rueda (Granada) on how we might use AI to help make us better people, and some concerns about doing so.

Discussion welcome.

Mini-Heap posts usually appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers.

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