As a result, I have one request for anyone who ends up reading this blog: if you have thoughts about how I might better have expressed myself or composed a particular post, or questions about something that's unclear, please say so. The whole purpose of this blog is to set up a type of writing workshop for myself, with an audience (however small) who can give me feedback. So tell me what you think!
The following is a preliminary list of topics I might write about:
- My own psychological research studies. I am finally reaching the point where some studies I've designed myself are beginning to return interesting results. When my studies get to an interesting enough point to write about, no doubt I'll write about them here.
- Moral philosophy, particularly meta-ethical questions, the biggest one of which is "is there any real reason to do one thing rather than another?" This big question of normative skepticism is one that fascinates me. In addition, I hope to write about Stephen Darwall's The Second-Person Standpoint, a book by a professor of mine that analyzes morality in terms of accountability, which has greatly influenced the way I think about the philosophy and psychology of morality.
- Moral psychology, particularly questions about the relationship between impersonal moral judgment and actual moral motivation (both the motivation to change one's behavior caused by guilt, and the motivation to attempt to change others' behavior by overtly blaming them or holding them accountable).
- Arguments for and against the existence of God. I am an active agnostic, in the sense of truly undecided about the philosophical question of whether or not there is a being in the world with qualities similar to our concept of God, and attempting to gain more clarity on the question. I might think through some of these arguments out loud here.
- Psychological research on motivation, goal pursuit, unconscious processes, and conscious will. I work as a research assistant in the lab of John Bargh, a psychologist whose research has focused on the surprisingly large role of the unconscious in determining behavior. I'm interested in how our motivational system regulates our behavior automatically, as well as what role conscious will (note: not necessarily FREE will) plays in determining our behavior.
- Travel with the Whiffenpoofs. I am in an all-male, all-senior a cappella group at Yale called the Yale Whiffenpoofs. We have the wonderful opportunity to travel the world for free, first on a two-week Spring Tour (March 5th-22nd) and a three-month World Tour (May 24th-August 24th). During these tours, I plan to process my travel experiences into blog entries with pictures.
- Revisiting topics I've studied at Yale. There are some classes I've taken at Yale that I would love to go back to and try to sum up what I learned from them. Some topics along these lines I would like to write about: the neurobiology of learning & memory, how fMRI works, and the philosophy of Kant and Hume.
- How best to live daily life. I mean this less as a philosophical question and more as a practical one - what can I do to increase my daily happiness, energy, and health? Along these lines, I hope to write about research in the psychology of happiness, food & nutrition, meditation, and sleep (the final three of which I know almost nothing about, but hope to learn more).
- The charity project. In the summer of 2008 I had an idea which quickly became an obsession: how might one use psychological research to influence people to give more to charity? Though I have dedicated most of my energy since to simply learning how to do psychological research in the first place, this is still one of my biggest dreams in life. How to go about it, however, is a much trickier question, one I might write about here.
