Shaping Our Minds to Reality

The wavefunction is the vehicle of our understanding of the quantum world. Judged by the robust standards of classical physics it may seem a rather wraith-like entity. But it is certainly the object of quantum mechanical discourse and, for all the peculiarity of its collapse, its subtle essence may be the form that reality has … [Read more…]

What are the Thermodynamic Properties of Heaven?

A silly question in a way, but also a serious one. In fact, it’s a question forced upon us by the importance of cosmological physics as popularized by the so-called Big Bang model of cosmological physics. Live in the Big Bang world, die in the Big Bang world. Even be resurrected in a world part … [Read more…]

Henri Bergson: Almost Seeing a World

The claim in the title of this entry is currently a vague idea, one based on a recent reading of Time and Free Will and a currently ongoing reading of Creative Evolution — I’m about halfway through. A little intellectual history: Etienne Gilson studied under Henri Bergson. At some point, perhaps after finishing his studies … [Read more…]

Adaptive Minds: A Review of “Adaptive Thinking”, Part IV

[Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2000] In the introduction to Part IV, Professor Gigerenzer tells us: The “discovery” of cognitive illusions was not the first assault on human rationality. Sigmund Freud’s attack is probably the best known: According to him, the unconscious wishes and desires of the human … [Read more…]

Pagan Mythologies vs. Empirical Realities

I’ll start by asking two seemingly strange questions: Should we expect Heaven, the world of the resurrected, to be a magical world as in pagan myths of other worlds? Should we expect to spend time without end gallivanting around with all sorts of strange winged creatures and looking down into the Abyss of Hell — … [Read more…]