When a Nudge Becomes a Shove
The American Journal of Bioethics, 2012
Although we agree with Whyte, Selinger, Caplan, and Sadowski (2012) that Thaler and Sunstein&... more Although we agree with Whyte, Selinger, Caplan, and Sadowski (2012) that Thaler and Sunstein's (2008) mandated choice proposal is problematic, we disagree with their views (1) that the most rational choice for a family to make is to agree to donate its relative's organs, ...
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Books by Michael Potts
Remember when you were a child and incessantly asked your parents “Why?” You still had that childhood gift of wondering about everything from the simple “Why can’t I touch the stove eye when it’s red?” to the most profound questions people can ask “Why can’t I see God if He’s real?”
A common perception of philosophers is of the wizened old guru, sitting on a mountain top contemplating his navel; or worse, a stodgy, boring intellectual that everyone avoids at parties. But philosophy, at its best, is a joyous profession. Philosophers never stop wondering, why? They ask the most profound and universal questions: “Why am I here?” “Does life have a meaning?” “Is there a God?” “Do I have an immortal soul?” “What happens when I die?” Philosophers have the joy of re-living the wonder of a child.
Aerobics for the Mind: Practical Exercises in Philosophy that Anybody Can Do is a book for anyone who still has that unique, childlike sense of wonder.
Papers by Michael Potts
drug may underlie out-of-body experiences and NDEs. One of the most recent psychedelic candidates that allegedly causes NDE-like experiences is N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a natural substance that the body produces in small amounts. If DMT experiences are phenomenologically similar to NDEs,
then it is possible that the human body in extremis may produce larger amounts of DMT that reach psychedelic experience-causing levels in the blood. In this paper, I explore the issue of whether DMT might play a causal role in the production of NDEs. The first section summarizes basic information about NDEs, focusing on their phenomenological aspects. The second section classifies theories of NDEs to place the DMT theory in the context of the history of the debate over the cause of NDEs. The following section discusses DMT’s chemical composition, physical effects, and psychological effects. The final section explores whether
NDE and DMT experiences have a sufficient degree of phenomenological similarity to justify a causal role for DMT in the production of NDEs and concludes that such similarity is lacking.