Sometimes I write things, though not as often as I should. Some of these things I like to think are worth reading, though not as many as I'd like. In any case, in the hopes that you might find some of what I've written useful, Gentle Reader, I have assembled a few of my writings here.

:

• The Role of Detection in Rule Enforcement: This is my M.A. thesis in philosophy. I've tried to make it an interesting read, seventy pages as it is.
• The Sunfall Manifesto: This is a very brief outline of the political/legal principles behind the Sunfall live roleplaying game system I've designed.
• The Enemy: A short explanation of the theology of a big bad nasty entity from the Sunfall game universe.
• Existence, Extension and the Ontological Argument: A foray into metaphysics and religious philosophy, and possibly the best paper I've ever written. It's about St. Anselm's argument for the existence of God.
• The Epistle of Thomas to the Creationists: My critique of those who take the book of Genesis literally is on moral and theological rather than scientific grounds.
• The Satanic Christian: An account of a rather bizarre email dialogue I had with a couple of putative Christians.
• Corporate Feudalism and Time Theft: A crude rant about the preposterous notion of time theft. I argue that although people are paid for their labour by the hour, it is the labour and not the time which is sold.
• The Twins Paradox: A once had a long and pointless argument with a friend about the Twins Paradox from Special Relativity. So I wrote up this brief paper to explain my position.
• Thoughts on Marriage: Some of my views on the institution of marriage, illustrated with personal accounts.
• A Memetic Taxonomy of Chain Letters: I've become very interested in the idea of memes, and in particular I'm fascinated by the way simple things like chain letters seem to evolve just like biological entities. I have also been working on a Vaccine.
• The Murky Problem of Murder and Mercy: Lately I've been thinking a lot about the case of Robert Latimer, who was convicted for the murder of his severely handicapped daughter Tracy. Here's a distillation of some of those thoughts. Added February 2001

Some people go around introducing themselves as philosophers, which usually means they consider themselves to be profound once they've had a few beers. In my case, I do it because (a) I spend most of my time thinking (though not necessarily profound thoughts), and (b) most of my formal academic training IS in philosophy. (I have a Master of Arts from McMaster University, and I'm thinking of pursuing a PhD as soon as I can find out where McDoctor University is located.) I suppose I could say I'm a writer, or an editor, or a researcher, or a game designer, or any of the other things I've done to earn a living, but thinking is really what I do best. I'm a philosopher in the old sense of the word: a lover of wisdom. Not a holder of wisdom, but an ardent pursuer of it.

I live in Edmonton, Alberta with my wife Crystal and my son Isaac (named for Messrs Newton and Asimov). Crystal is a speech-language pathologist and occasionally does interpretation in Mandarin and Cantonese for various organizations. Isaac is interested in planets, volcanoes, dinosaurs, and Vikings.

This picture is a bit old, from a batch of photos which were scanned back around the time our son was born. I'm the one with the beard, Crystal is the one holding little Isaac, who is now almost four. I suppose I should include one of Crystal smiling, too...

Last updated February 7, 2001

Email me at: tcantine@incentre.net