Thinking Complete

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Curiosity is a virtue, and we should cultivate virtues. It's exciting that we live in an era when explanations for many of the most fundamental aspects of human existence are within reach. In particular, many age-old puzzles have been tackled using evolutionary arguments; for many more, we have tantalising hints and hypotheses but not full explanations. Below I've listed some questions in the latter category. Of course, a set of behaviours often has multiple advantages, and there may be no definitive way to weigh their relative contributions to its evolution. But I think it's likely that in many cases, compelling explanations will be found eventually; until then, it's worth reviewing some of the leading hypotheses. Why does humour exist? A "false alarm" mechanism to reduce tension within groups?

Since I became mostly vegetarian a few months ago, it's been pretty common for people to ask why. By that they usually mean something like "Out of the standard reasons for becoming vegetarian, which one motivated you?" For me, that question doesn't really make sense, since having many reasons for a decision is much better than just having one, and in fact I'm not sure that any single reason would have swayed me by itself. But since there are more reasons to be vegetarian than people think, I want to discuss them briefly here. Animal welfare I don't really mind the idea of animals dying, but the months or years of suffering that most farmed animals go through is pretty horrific. If I imagine what it is like to be a conscious being undergoing those conditions, that seems a particularly compelling reason to stop eating meat. Health I think the evidence is fairly clear that many forms of meat are bad for you, particularly processed meat and red meat, and

This is a question close to my heart; I've been viscerally horrified by death for as long as I can remember. When I was young I refused to explain this fear to my parents, since I thought that if they really understood it, they'd suffer the same dread as I was undergoing. Now I've become quite good at ignoring it, but there are still certain strands of thought that make my stomach twist every time I contemplate them. This longstanding emotional instinct has obviously shaped my philosophical views on death; however, it's a rather complex issue about which my opinions are still evolving. To be clear, I interpret the claim that death is bad not to mean that compulsory immortality is good, but rather that it would be good for individuals to be able to choose to postpone death, perhaps indefinitely. Nor do I desire the fate of the Cumaean Sibyl who, being granted by Apollo extended life but not extended youth, eventually shrivelled away until only her voice remained. Rath