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Personal Cosmology
In some measure or other, progress is always a transcendence of what is obvious. (Alfred North Whitehead, Process & Reality)
Science tells us that there are Four Fundamental Forces: Electromagnetic, Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear, and Gravity. The Reality that Science helps us perceive consists of Time, Space, Matter and Energy. If we accept TSME as the basis for Reality, then we can do Science. Without these things as Fundamentals, the activity of Science makes no sense. You are doing something, metaphysics or philosophy perhaps, but not Science.
What if we played a game though and I asked you to come up with an alternate cosmology, a way to make sense of the world around you that is completely personal, which you don’t have to justify to anyone, but it makes total and complete sense to you. You can speak in this private language to yourself, it feels right, and when you are perceiving the world through this lens it’s all very clear. Before you identified …
Being Present
I’m practicing being present all the time. It’s really difficult for people like me who are analytically-inclined. I’m reminded of my improv teacher in college who told us at the beginning of the class: “This class is really hard for Stanford students because it requires turning off your judgment and simply going with the flow, and by virtue of you being here, I know that does not come naturally to you.” At the same time, being present is the easiest thing in the world to do. You were born with this natural ability, and everything else about you has been added on since.…
What is the Meaning of Life?
I’m doing some research for an upcoming talk I’m giving and I’d appreciate hearing your honest answer in the comments below.…
Religion
In learning the history of various religions, it becomes clear that all religions are created to redress human suffering in whatever forms are ubiquitous during the founding. They are spread at a rate directly proportional to the suffering and directly proportional to the simplicity of the message.
Given this formulation, what does it portend for the religions of Science, Democracy and Capitalism respectively?…How Many Calories for a Dollar?
Michael Pollan, as always, making perfect sense:
Cultural Relativity
When a person walks into a village and blows it up along with themselves we call it terrorism. But when a person drops bombs from a $100M fighter jet and blows up a village it’s somehow not terrorism. Why is that?
This is an observation Laura made tonight that stopped me in my tracks. I don’t know why it did, I’m sure I’ve heard it before. Another thought that went through my mind was the question of what causes terrorism? The only single-word answer that I can think of which is not oversimplified is… imperialism. I’m sure I’d heard that somewhere before too. If you ever go to India, I highly recommend loading the movie Ghandi onto your iPhone to watch along the way. The power of his *ideas* is as unfathomable as the ideas are ancient and simple: non-violence; humility; service. Where have we heard these before? The better question is, what ancient belief system does not espouse them? Some would say imperialism is…