Only one universe to observe
Theoretical cosmologist Roberto Trotta talks to SCOPE about the anthropic principle, slow data, and his science’s happy similarity to art
Before corporations were people
The protection of corporate “speech” has been a contentious subject in the United States, most recently so in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of 2010, in which the U.S. Supreme Court used the First Amendment to prohibit…
The factual refracted
Over the past century a important minority of writers have turned their minds to the philosophy of literature itself, or even simply of books — Jorge Luis Borges’ 1941 short story “The Library of Babel” (La biblioteca de Babel), a…
More important than a better shell
Alaskan journalist (and contributor to SCOPE‘s inaugural issue) Charles Wohlforth’s most recent book, The Fate of Nature, is now out in paperback. An extended and deeply thoughtful reflection on human nature and on our collective ability to solve our global…
Cosmopolitanism and the duty to assist
A January 31 podcast interview with Oxford political and moral philosopher Cécile Fabre has turned out to be rather timely, concerning as it does the question of how the cosmopolitan concern for individuals, whoever they are and wherever they might…
Because reality is weird
When I was fourteen or so, I came across the works of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft in a maze-like used-book shop that my parents used to take me to, and spent many evenings after that lost in discovery of Lovecraft’s…
