Explaining the universe one thing at a time.
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Dear Thing of the Day, Why is it called Borderline Personality Disorder? What is it on the border of? Yours, Zoe Wilde Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a condition characterized by: Emotional outbursts Fear of abandonment Dissociation Unstable relationships Self-harm The name seems to suggest that the condition straddles the border of being a disorder and not being a disorder. But…
What is the shape of the universe?
Where does confidence come from
Today’s letter: Dear Thing of the Day, What activities can I give an INTP to keep them entertained? - Janice Fleaberg Nothing! The beauty of the MBTI personality type INTP is that they just think all the time. You don’t need to provide them with anything more than water and food and they’ll happily sit around thinking forever. Here’s an illustrative line from the youtube channel Love Who : When…
Thing of the Day #97
which came first: mathematics, physics, or thoughts?
Today’s letter: Dear Thing of the Day, What’s the meaning of life? - Flynn Slemming I think this question was well answered in Man’s Search For Meaning: The meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment. To put the question in general…
Today’s letter: How do I smear my political opponents? I suggest you use a political tactic from the Roman Empire Passage from Writing on the Wall : The most prominent messages [graffettied on Pompeiian walls], painted in large letters, were political slogans expressing support for candidates running for election […] Several inscriptions in Pompeii refer sarcastically to a man called Vatia in…
What is the relationship between mind and matter? There are conventionally three possiblities: Materialism : Only matter exists. There is nothing magic about the brain. Mental processes are just ions pumping in and out of brain cells. This is, I suppose, the mainstream scientific view. Recently rebranded as “physicalism” because “there’s more to the physical world than just matter” Dualism : Mind…
Today’s letter:
