I was just playing chess against my computer, and suddenly I realized that computer chess has no rules. In computer chess there are things that happen and things that don't happen; there are "laws of nature" (although "nature" is here a computer running a certain software), but there are no rules in the sense of "things regarded as customary or normal", as my dictionary says, or in the sense of "a convention set forth or accepted by a group of people". This way, computer chess is very different from over the board chess. Do you agree?

Why is it that no matter what language is spoken or what culture you come from, the Moonlight Sonata is perceived as a sad song (an assumption of mine of course)? What does that suggest about the nature of music, and its correlation to humans that seems to transcend national barriers? Do animals or non sentient creatures recognize these emotions, or would an alien sentience? Jon

I have recently been reading in Richard Dawkins' book, the idea that God being both omnipotent and omniscient is a contradiction. I think it is something along the lines of: if God is omniscient then He already knows how He is going to deploy His powers, which means He is effectively bound to act in a certain way -- meaning He is not omnipotent. But I'm not sure I've totaly got my heads around the concept. Can anyone add anything more?

What do legitimate philosophers think of Ken Wilber and his brand of pop philosophy/psychology? Wilber claims to have developed a framework that situates and contextualizes all of the world’s wisdom traditions and, by containing them, claims to have transcended their insights to a greater vision that can alone perceive their limitations. If Wilber (and his disturbingly devoted followers) are anywhere close to right, it would seem vital that every human involved in the search for truth should know him and his work, but he is virtually unknown outside of his undeniably new-agey audience. Does he have anything substantial to offer?

Is there a way of thinking that does not separate the profession of prostitution to that of say marriage or similar relationships people have together? And if so, how do they come to this conclusion? Personally as an ex-prostitute myself I see no difference, save for length of contract.

Are there many instances in science (or other disciplines) of Occam's Razor being wrong? What prompts this question is the recent thread in the Religion section about Katrina and the problem of evil but I didn't post it there because of the 'faith' issues of some respondents and philosphers quoted. No visiting alien intelligence new to our planet would plump for, say, Islam though they might have their own non-Occamish explanation I suppose. I mean, generally, does the law of parsimony hold water?

How do you explain the creation of the creators of the universe? It's all well and good that someone or something created the universe, but what created that, and how?

Considering Evolution as a mechanism ensures the survival of the fittest gene pools, and well over 90% of all species ever to have existed have gone extinct, is it right for humans to put such an effort into preventing species from going extinct? Obviously excluding cases where the threat of extinction comes from man made causes such as pollution or destruction of their habitat, the theory of evolution would suggest that if a species naturally goes extinct, it's for the best.

The Jesuits said 'give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man'. From my 25 years of teaching children aged 5 -7 years, I would argue that there is little that teachers can do to change the impact of genetics on the character of the young child. In my experience a child with parents who are honest/dishonest, caring/bullying, selfish/generous usually demonstrates the same characteristics from an early age. It was reported in the press this week that scientists have discovered that even facial expressions that run in families result not from mimicry but from family genes. Science is discovering more and more that in the nature versus nurture debate it is 'nature' that has the greater influence over our characters. My question is this: If we are the victims of our genes can we truly be held culpable for our misdeeds?

When something disastrous happens, like Katrina, "logic" says: so much the worse for a loving God. But for the believer, what comes out, instead, are things like "God never gives us more than we can handle" and "We have to praise the Lord, and thank him, that we are OK." Why? (Or is this just a psychological or sociological question? Or did I watch too much Fox news?)