Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

​Would you pay $220 to attend the wedding of complete strangers? Me neither, but a Paris startup called Invitin would be delighted to arrange it. You get to dress up and hobnob with the glittering throng, eating cake, drinking champagne, and taking home memories that will last an Instagram cycle. The bride and groom get…

They say to err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer. But I believe that proverb does our species an injustice. Because when we really put our backs into it, Homo sapiens can achieve acts so breathtakingly muttonheaded they’d make ChatGPT blush. Or as Albert Einstein put it, “Two things are infinite:…

“I regret to inform you,” wrote Mike Sowden on his blog Everything Is Amazing , “that despite what your eyes are yelling at you, these lines are parallel.” ​Hesitant as I was to call this guy Mike a boldfaced liar, it was blindingly obvious those lines were zig-zagging in all directions. Right? Will you back…

After long years of intense study, a student bursts into Einstein’s office shouting, “Sir, sir, I finally get it. I understand your theory of relativity!” ​ Einstein rolls his eyes. “It’s about time.” ​ As this joke demonstrates, there are some ideas so huge we’ll all be talking about them forever — so we might…

I don’t want to give you the impression I’m obsessed with old armchairs. It’s just that when I see one by the side of the road, pleading desperately to be adopted, or find one languishing among the clutter of a second-hand shop, it’s like a seeing an abandoned puppy with big, sad eyes pleading, “Please…

​“In this game of life, I seem to be headed for ‘extra innings,’” my friend Jerry wrote last week in the invitation to his 95th birthday party and jazz concert. We carried lawn chairs and picnic blankets to a shady spot under the trees and settled in. Although I’m the least musical person on the planet,…

​“Any group that feels obligated to include ‘ Are you a sex cult? ’ on its frequently asked questions page probably has something of a public relations problem, even when the answer is, ‘No,’” observes journalist Jon Brooks. You can see his point. He was writing about Lafayette Morehouse, a commune founded in 1968 whose residents still…

Who thinks up hats like this? Who wears them — and where? How does anyone put together an outfit that pairs well with a reproduction of a full English breakfast? And seriously, what are those purple things at the top? To me, they look alarmingly like the pig’s ears I once impulsively ordered in a…

​They say you never forget your first time. I was a newlywed, newly arrived in Ohio, and felt enormously flattered when a kind acquaintance invited me to join a prestigious book club that had been meeting for more than a century. ​That month’s selection was Madame Bovary , in which a bored 19th century housewife…

​It’s never easy being different, especially in high school. Just ask the much-bullied Josh Duff, a neurodivergent free-thinker who was dreading his upcoming prom, which he planned to attend alone, in an outfit sewn by his mom. Then his dad reached out to some pals he rode motorcycles with, and the response was astonishing. On…