Trapped in God's video game?

John L. Castiand (SFI): Why We See the Events We Do and Not Something Else. From Vision, a special report on Ideas That Shaped Modern Thought. From Discover, are we trapped in God's video game? Probably not. And no, he's not looking at your underwear. A review of The Situated Self by J. T. Ismael. A review of The Secrets of Happiness: Three Thousand Years of Searching for the Good Life by Richard Schoch; The Science of Happiness: How Our Brains Make Us Happy—and What We Can Do to Get Happier by Stefan Klein; and Making Happy People: The Nature of Happiness and Its Origins in Childhood by Paul Martin. A review of The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder by Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield.  From The Simon, life may not be worth living, but there's no reason to feel bad about it. From Commonweal, Charles Taylor on the sting of death: Why we yearn for eternity. Is it distressing to experience consciousness slipping away or something people can accept with equanimity? How does it feel to die? When your number's up, your number's up. But some people's numbers come up in a most unusual way. Here are some notable bizarre deaths.