Posts from — June 2010

There is a fascinating article in Slate about an experiment conducted by a psychologist in the 1950s. Three men who each thought they were Jesus Christ were brought in to Ypsilanti State Hospital to live with each other. The premise was simple. Psychologists have known for a long time of cases in which people with delusions about their own identity met others with similar delusions, and very quickly realised that if the other was mad, then they must be too. But if that was all there was to Milton Rokeach’s experiment, it wouldn’t offer anything new. Rokeach had a hunch that there was some connection to be drawn between delusions and one’s sense of identity in general. [Read more →]

I just took a look at Sam Harris’s now-slightly-infamous TED talk (above), and had a little flick through a subsequent piece in the Huffington Post, and was rather interested in what he had to say. Interested, because I had thought it was the cast-iron consensus among educated peoples to speak of morality in relative terms, or at the very most to concede that it is such a difficult subject that we can’t reasonably hope to get to the bottom of it. Even if this were the correct view, I have always thought it a somewhat frustrating one—if you cannot prove you are right, on what basis can you assert that you are right? Clearly, relativists must think this too, but opt for a different route at the fork. [Read more →]