Book

I just finished The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey, best known for the Expanse series. It’s a space opera about a team of top biologists who find themselves taken captive by brutal alien invaders. Forced into servitude, they must decide how to navigate life under these new, hostile conditions. The setup is rich with tension and moral dilemmas. The first part of the book reveals certain dynamics in the academic world — competition for discoveries, power plays, and the undercurrent of personal ambitions. Even in pursuit of something noble, like advancing knowledge, human frailties often take centre stage. ...

🙏 Acknowledgement This essay by George Monbiot, a columnist for The Guardian, is part of his book This Can’t Be Happening, a collection of his writings on environmental issues. We are grateful to Monbiot for allowing us to translate it to Chinese and republish his essay here. We Can Stop the First Great Extermination George Monbiot October 2019 The Launch of Animal Rebellion, Smithfield Market, London I have spent my life learning and unlearning. We cannot navigate the world in which we live without unlearning some of its deepest myths. ...

On April 21, 2024, I organized a book club to discuss the book No. More. Plastic. by Martin Dorey. To prepare for the event, I spent quite some time drafting a slide deck. Now I have translated the slides into Chinese. You can download the slides here: English Version Chinese Version Summary of My Slides A Book Recommendation Martin Dorey, an author, surfer, swimmer, cyclist, and environmentalist, wrote the book “No More Plastic.” He was inspired to take action after discovering an area knee-deep in plastic bottles during his move to a quiet beach in 2009. His book aims to raise awareness about the plastic pollution crisis. ...

I always feel that I became a mathematician accidentally. But in retrospect, since I was a kid, I did read serial books about mathematics and mathematicians and has always been drawn to a career and life in mathematics. Below are the books which ignore my interest. Nature’s Numbers: The Unreal Reality Of Mathematics Nature’s Numbers This book by Ian Stewart has some interesting facts about the nature of mathematics. It has been decades since I read it, but I still remember that I was awe-filled when I learned form the book that Fibonacci sequences appear the arrangement of a pine cone. ...

Having recently read through Robert Wright’s book ‘Why Buddhism is True,’ I was impressed by Buddhism’s intricate comprehension of human psychology. While the book doesn’t directly set Buddhism against Stoicism, my previous exposure to Stoic made me see how the two philosophies could complement each other. Stoicism, particularly its modern interpretations, claims that achieving eudaimonia - the good life - implies “living according to one’s nature.” Stoics define our nature as being “social and rational.” This, in my perspective, is more readily comprehensible than the similar but more intricate concept nirvana presented in Buddhism. ...

The Sixth Tone is an English news website covering stories in China. A DKU (Duke Kunshan University) student just won a writing contest organized by them with an essay titled Moxa, Receipt, Money, and Generations. It is a candid and touching account on how her father’s obsession with moxa damaged their family. This makes me think that perhaps many of our students also similar family issues. If you are in such a situation, reading the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls might be helpful. ...

I procrastinate, a lot. And when I think about all the things I could have done had I not procrastinated so much, e.g., all the papers I could have written, I am really regretful 😢. One of the books which I found very helpful is How to Beat Procrastination by Nils Salzgeber. Here are some tips from the book and some of my own thoughts. Hope it help you to not to have the same regret which I have. ...

When I read the book Strangers Drowning, I was very much impressed by the work of Ittetsu Nemoto, a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, who dedicated his life to helping suicidal people. The book also briefly described his four-year extremely harsh ascetic training in an especially strict monastery. My interest was aroused. “Why does someone willingly go through such unimaginable hardship willingly?” This is why I picked up Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan’s Most Rigorous Zen Temple by Kaoru Nonomura. At the age of 30, Nonomura left everything behind and enrolled in Eiheiji, one of the most rigorous Zen monasteries in Japan to train as a monk. The book is his memory of his time at Eiheiji. ...

I’d like to thank Dr. Gregory Sadler for helpful comments on this post. Who is Peter Singer? Peter Singer at The College of New Jersey, Oct 2009. Bbsrock, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. I consider myself a follower of Stoicism philosophy. In recent years, I have read attentively ancient Roman Stoics as well as modern Stoic writers. Their inspiring words have helped me tremendously in dealing with everyday challenges. However, many of my questions about how to live a good do not have answers in either classic or modern Stoic literature. Take, for example, what would be an ideal political system? As modern Stoic writer Massimo Pigliucci pointed out, the ancient Stoics do not have a consensus. Moreover, the world we are living in today is vastly more complicated than in ancient Rome. To live a virtuous life in our time, we must go beyond Stoicism and educate ourselves about how this world works. ...

A summary of Chapter 11 Objectivity Virtue ethics rejects the sort moral objectivity which Kant aspires to. The naturalism describe in the last three chapters also rejects the type of objectivity based on empirical facts accessible from a neutral point of view. However, it also does not assume our standard list of virtues is correct without need of validation. This is the type of objectivity naturalism can offer. But the study of objectivity should also give an account of ethical disagreement. ...