Jonny Thomson

4 days ago | bigthink.com | Jonny Thomson

A place to pause and reflect on life’s bigger questions, with Big Think’s Jonny Thomson. This article was first published on Big Think in April 2022. It was updated in May 2025. People sometimes look down on fantasy — not the prize-winning, metaphorical magical realism kind, but the kind of fantasy that has swords, sorcery, and dragons. It is generally accepted that children can enjoy made-up worlds, magical beasts, and dark lords.

4 days ago | flipboard.com | Jonny Thomson

Amazon is selling an 'impressive' $1,300 laptop computer for $340 that's 'perfect for both work and entertainment'This limited-time deal will be gone soon. Computers have become our everything. They are our calendars, our file cabinets, our communication, and our …

1 week ago | bigthink.com | Jonny Thomson

A place to pause and reflect on life’s bigger questions, with Big Think’s Jonny Thomson. We are taught how to see. When a healthy child is born, their eyes go about things with genetic efficiency: blinking and blurry, but functional. A new world of color, shape, and depth overwhelms the eyes that have only ever been closed. These eyes are cameras on the world. They take a snapshot of whatever they’re offered and send it on to the brain. And this is where the real seeing happens.

1 week ago | bigthink.com | Jonny Thomson

A place to pause and reflect on life’s bigger questions, with Big Think’s Jonny Thomson. This article was first published on Big Think in April 2021. It was updated in May 2025. Philippa has decided she wants to quit social media. She’s worried about how addictive it is and thinks it’s not doing her any good at all. But then, how will she speak to her aunt in South Africa? What will happen to all of her photos? And how can she organize that party? Trevor wants to leave the country.

2 weeks ago | bigthink.com | Jonny Thomson

A place to pause and reflect on life’s bigger questions, with Big Think’s Jonny Thomson. In 1967, Roland Barthes wrote one of the most important pieces in the philosophy of art. In The Death of the Author, Barthes argued that the meaning of any text is not defined by the author’s intentions. The reader, and the reader alone, decides what a text means. So, it doesn’t matter whether the poet intended the raven as a metaphor for death.