Crossing the divide: A website about Literature, Art & Philosophy by Venkat Ramanan

The courage that Steinbeck writes about is one of physical and moral bravery whereas the strength of character Levi portrays should properly be termed “spiritual” or “existential” valour. The Third of May 1808 , Francisco de Goya 1814 (Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons) e seem of late to be more and more concerned with the question of what makes us human. Perhaps this has to do with the rise of secularism or our angst about machines. But it would seem humans have mulled over this question for a lot longer than we realise (even if not with the same intensity). Aristotle for instance thought that reason was what was so unique about us. We were not only the only species to have the ability to exercise our intellect but are conscious that it is also morally good to do so. In more recent times, the historian   Yuval Noah Harari has steered clear  of reason and morality while holding that what is special about humans is the fact that they are the only animals who can work coll

below is the list (not in any order) of my book suggestions that we referred to in another post. This lists some books that have shaped my view of the world (especially philosophy of mind and AI). I do not, naturally, expect everyone to agree with what I have chosen. I am nevertheless listing it via a separate post in case others are interested/curious. Included in this list are some works of fiction which may be a surprise to some. However, an understanding of science and art is never complete without literature’s weltanschauung. ("I don't paint what I see, I paint what I know." Picasso) No Genre Author Book Title My thoughts Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth Joseph Campbell The Myths We Live By Philosophy/Cognitive Science Douglas Hofstadter & Daniel C Dennett (eds) Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self and Soul Dougl

This was originally posted on LinkedIn Pulse on April 16, 2016. The corporate t-shirt tells the employees that they have been accepted into the “clan” and that they belong (so long as they play by the rules). But then all honeymoons come to an end. Along with this change in our work status, the corporate t-shirt also goes from riches to rags and gets relegated to being worn for doing the occasional backyard chore. American Indian Totem (CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay) When I mow the backyard (which is not very often) I usually wear a t-shirt that I got from a company I worked for some years ago. That corporate t-shirt is one of a few similar ones I have kept aside to wear for such hot and sweaty jobs. When I mow is also the time when I tend to lapse into faux-intellectual reveries about various life-changing questions (as giving the grass a haircut is not in itself a mind-boggling exercise anyway.) Recently, during one of these Eureka moments, I concluded that these corpo

Below is my "Question of the Month" response which was published in  Philosophy Now , April/May 2016  (see subscriber only link) (I was awarded a random book for my response.) What’s Your Best Advice or Wisdom? Mars Rover (By NASA/JPL/Cornell University, Maas Digital LLC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons) Imagine if Alice hadn’t followed the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole. She would then not have drunk the potion (or was it ate the forbidden fruit?) and met the March Hare and the Mad Hatter. My best piece of wisdom is therefore for us  not to lose our sense of wonder about the world around us . If not for our inquisitiveness, we would still be living with the Flintstones. Evolution did not have in mind a Buddha or a Beethoven; we nevertheless went on to discover fire, invent the wheel, and to write Hamlet. An inquiring mind led us also to relativity, quantum physics and all the natural laws. If we had not uncovered them, we would still be conflating