# 🏛️ Carlson Ng's Garden Welcome. I'm **Carlson Ng** — a Malaysian-Chinese philosopher of religion (BA Philosophy, University of Alberta), still happily learning across philosophy, theology, psychology, and intellectual history. This is my public "second brain": a growing garden of notes, mostly distilled from books, essays, and the lectures I take at [[About|Peterson Academy]] and elsewhere. > [!quote] > The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates --- ## 🗺️ Start Here — Maps of Content These seven maps are the front doors to the garden. Each gathers and threads together the notes on one theme. - [[Problem of Evil & Philosophy of Religion]] — my home turf: evil, God, miracles, meaning, and identity - [[Scripture, Church History & Theology]] — the Church, Paul's letters, and reading Scripture - [[Biblical Cosmology & Creation Myths]] — how the Bible and its neighbours imagined the cosmos - [[Beauty, Meaning & the Sacred]] — beauty, symbolism, and myth with Vervaeke, Pageau, and Eliade - [[Psychology of the Self, Personality & Status]] — the self, personality, motivation, and social status - [[Ancient & Modern Philosophy & Education]] — Plato to the moderns, and the history of educational thought - [[Writing, Rhetoric & the Online Craft]] — notes on writing well and building credibility Prefer conventional academic categories? Browse the same notes by discipline in **[[Academic Maps]]** (Philosophy, Religion & Theology, Psychology, Rhetoric & History). New here? For a taste of how I think, try [[Beauty]], [[Three-tier Biblical Cosmology]], or [[Capon on the Problem of Evil]]. --- ## 📚 Course Notes Notes organized lecture-by-lecture. Most come from [[About|Peterson Academy]]. **Ongoing** — [[PA The Primacy of Beauty]] by [[John Vervaeke]] **Completed** — [[PA Intro to Psychology]] & [[PA Psychology of the Self]] by [[Keith Campbell]] · [[PA Psychology of Social Status]] by [[Rob Henderson]] · [[PA Philosophy of Education]] by [[Stephen Hicks]] **On Hold** — [[PA Personality and its Transformations]] by [[Jordan Peterson]] · [[PA Intro to Abnormal Psychology]] by [[Robert O. Phil]] · [[PA Big Ideas in Psychology]] by [[Roy Baumeister]] A running **[[Quotes|commonplace book]]** collects favourite quotes by theme. Everything else lives as bite-sized atomic notes in the \`Notes\` folder, catalogued through the maps above. --- ## ✍️ Things I Do **Philosophy.** I'm an independent philosopher of religion. I recently published "[The Problem of Misfortunes](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religious-studies/article/problem-of-misfortunes/86ED4F4174DD154AAB0123546193805B)," *Religious Studies*, 2025. - Email: [email protected] - ORCID: [0009-0009-6511-4192](https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6511-4192) - PhilPeople: https://philpeople.org/profiles/carlson-ng **Colour Grading.** I work full-time as a junior colorist at **Visionary Colour**, which I treat as an apprenticeship under Danny Gan. **Johnathan Bi — Content.** I'm part of the team running Johnathan Bi's online content channels. **Imago by Carlson — Photography.** My photography persona. Portfolio at [imagobycarlson.com](https://www.imagobycarlson.com/) · Instagram [@imagobycarlson](https://www.instagram.com/imagobycarlson/). **Elsewhere.** [@thecarlsonng](https://www.instagram.com/thecarlsonng/) on Instagram and [X](https://x.com/thecarlsonng) · [@carlsonng](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlsonng) on LinkedIn (rarely updated).