FANTASTIC FICTION – Escapes to other places and other times

Nothing to be frightened of

Barnes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Barnes and http://www.julianbarnes.com/) may have equals on the English language literary scene but none, I think, better. Here he dissects the sense of his own mortality in a crafted prose that is breathtaking in its poise and elegance. He asks if the fear of death is ‘the most rational thing in the world’, how does one contend […]

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The Illusion of Conscious Will

Nothing is more natural than to believe we have conscious control over our choices. Indeed most of social behaviour including the criminal justice system is predicated on that conviction. Harvard professor of psychology Daniel Wegner (d.2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wegner and http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/) argues that our actions ‘happen to us’ rather than us being in control of them. Wegner is no

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