[This essay is a lightly edited fragment from my upcoming book, The Shape of Reality, a book which might be delayed a bit longer (maybe middle of March?) because of a relatively mild but persistent sinus infection as well as major housecleaning tasks as the result of a death in my family.] From ancient times, … [Read more…]
[Draft as of 2016/10/03. Hoping for publication on Internet before end of 2016.] Human being isn’t merely quantifiable but many components or aspects of human being are quantifiable. Other components are more describable by the term `qualitative’, but this shouldn’t be taken as connoting `irrational’ or `mystical’. Our understanding of the qualitative aspects of being, … [Read more…]
It’s not plausible that morally well-ordered communities will be composed of a population containing a high percentage of morally ill-ordered individuals. One problem is that a morally well-ordered community with even a substantial minority of morally ill-ordered individuals would be a flock of sheep with the wolves living in the flock. But it seems plausible … [Read more…]
Recently, I read The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia by James Bradley. In early chapters, Bradley describes the American role as junior member of Great Britain’s Opium Trade in China. The Americans were freeloaders of a sort, relying upon the British Navy and Army to prevent the Chinese government from … [Read more…]
I’ve been reading serious history books regularly over the past couple of years and a bit more infrequently for much of my reading life before that. My knowledge isn’t so broad as that of many scholars in the communities of academics or even the communities of commentators in the mass media or the alternative media … [Read more…]
The reliable science-writer, Ed Yong, published an article back in November, Bigger groups mean complex cultures, which leads off with the insightful paragraphs: Humanity’s success depends on the ability of humans to copy, and build on, the works of their predecessors. Over time, human society has accumulated technologies, skills and knowledge beyond the scope of … [Read more…]
In Colossians 1:24, St Paul writes: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…” [From the Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version as published by Ignatius.] I suspect, partly on the … [Read more…]
Eric Michael Johnson posted an essay on empathy at the Scientific American website: We Contain Multitudes: Walt Whitman, Charles Darwin, and the Song of Empathy. In this essay, he notes the confusion which followed the publication of On the Origin of Species when “critics claimed that Darwin’s theory divided moral sentiments from divinity and pitted … [Read more…]