First Blog

  Understanding the Murdaugh verdict. This is not half-baked psychology, but rather a rather new form of philosophy.  Guilty as charged came down the verdict – and in record time for a six-week trial. How did they do it?   You would think with such a lengthy trial it might take at minimum several days simply to review testimony, if only to confirm some agreement on the testimony presented. You might say they made an emotional response to their feelings. You could say having listened to all that testimony for weeks, their opinion about guilt or innocence evolved over time. You could even think the evidence was overwhelmingly complex. Thus, they really didn’t understand what they heard. In fact, all are probably correct. Yet, there seemed to be no analytical examination or even review of the facts of the case, being the verdict came so quickly. So what did they do? What they did is what philosophers have been studying for several decades. They used epistemic logic. That is, the jur

  Giving Up Giving up on life is a form of suicide. You’re still living but dead inside. Call it suicide-lite. It’s an easy way not to care, not to try, not to struggle, and not to succeed.  Ok. It’s sometimes necessary to give up on a project, lest plunge further down an indeterminate hole. But giving up altogether is an act of decommissioning your humanity, to carry on only biologically. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Knowing   One does not come to know a subject while sitting upon a high chair with knowledge being spoon-fed. Knowing a subject is more akin to farming, wherein you plant seeds, nourish the soil, watch the seedlings sprout, cull the weeds, tend patiently; finally, you reap the harvest.