In an earlier essay, A Brain Shaped to Geometric Thought?, I responded to evidence that the brain does abstract from physical distance to derive, for example, an idea of emotional distance. This isn’t a matter fully understood, though the scientists seem to believe, as do I, that human beings have learned to unconsciously and consciously … [Read more…]
I distort for the sake of modern men who have trouble focusing upon reality. Apes are our cousins, not our ancestors; the terms used for the common ancestors of men and ape seem to change every few years or so. And those ancestors were only killers part of the time, perhaps less often than modern … [Read more…]
There are various angles to be taken about the nature of life and how it came into existence. One question in open play right now with the discovery of so many planets throughout our own galaxy and even other galaxies is: Does life come into existence as a result of processes likely to occur often … [Read more…]
In an interesting article, How Our Brains Go the Distance, Virginia Hughes tells us: People think about distances all day… long. Distance can describe physical spaces (a far-flung city; a nearby store), time (distant past; near future), and social relationships (near-and-dear pals; a quarreling couple needing some space). Researchers have long thought that these various … [Read more…]
In my most recent post, the essay: How a Christian Finds Metaphysical Truths in Empirical Reality, I argued that Christians should respond confidently to what lies around us, to our concrete and thing-like realm of Creation and to all the other realms which remain yet in our universe which is our world when seen in … [Read more…]
I confess to failing the tests of being a `professional’ philosopher, having been forced to face up to that criteria during a reread of Etienne Gilson’s Being and Some Philosophers. I don’t really care since I see serious advantages in being non-professional, advantages similar to those of the highly energetic semi-barbarians (da Vinci, Michelangelo, etc) … [Read more…]
In the back of my mind, I’ve been pondering a strange blind spot in mainstream modern historians and political commentators since reading Barbara Tuchman’s March of Folly in May of 2013. It seems to me that she saw clearly the somewhat complex and fluid balance of forces between individuals and families or other tightly knit … [Read more…]
I wasn’t surprised that Roy Spencer wrote this blog entry, Science and religion: Do your own damn Google search, expressing his feelings at being treated shabbily in an article, What Catastrophe?: MIT’s Richard Lindzen, the unalarmed climate scientist , which describes “less credible skeptics, such as climatologist Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama (signatory … [Read more…]
It’s natural for most human beings to seek simple understandings. They correspond at least roughly to the simple (or elegant) understandings which are a goal of many theorists in the sciences which have a large mathematical component. Einstein pointed out that a theory should be as simple as possible but no simpler. Closer to ordinary … [Read more…]
I’ve uploaded an update to the collection of my weblog writings: Acts of Being: Selected Weblog Writings From 2006 to 2013. Here is the text from the Preface for this new edition: I’ve added about 70 chapters to this Fourth Edition. These chapters are reformatted essays from my writings during 2012 which were published on … [Read more…]