What, Why & How do we Know ?
Is that “sound” theory tends to destroy the state of affairs it aims to achieve, said Northrop in 1946. Always suspicious of “our time” claims about timeless issues, paricularly post 9/11, post blogging etc, next big thing claims generally, but I guess that was a period where global political organisation was truly in the spotlight. … Continue reading “Paradox Of Our Time”
BBC Radio 4 Today programme, yesterday (6th Sept 07:44) discussed this list of books assembled by Penguin as representing the works with most impact on the world, in chronological order. After some debate it was concluded that perhaps these were the easier appetisers, rather than the less digestible main-courses, from these specific authors or schools … Continue reading “20 Works With Most Impact on the World”
1976 book by Frijtof Capra (with 1992 updated afterword). Written slightly after, but published slightly before, Michael Talbot’s Mysticism and the New Physics (Blogged earlier and originally read even earlier.) Excellent books both of them. Capra is a best-seller which has a surprisingly detailed description of state-of-the-art particle physics, together with a summary of the … Continue reading “The Tao of Physics”
Been worrying about this since Northrop’s references to Aryan, and the 20th century “PC” difficulty of attributing the language to an Aryan “race”. [PIE 2012/3 Update.] [PIE 2018 Update h/t Alice Roberts] Since Sir William “Indiana” Jones proposed a common Aryan or Indo-European language in 1786, with linguistic similarities having been noted by European travellers as … Continue reading “Aryan vs Indo-European”
In Search of the Real University of Chicago. Andrew Chrucky runs this site dedicated to “preserving the Hutchins tradition of liberal education at Chicago Uni”, starting with glowing citations from Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. I blogged Chrucky [and earlier] “Concepts of Persons and Morality” (a paper about the definition of life – from … Continue reading “In Search of the Real University of Chicago”
Constant Change. Picked this up from Geoff Cohen’s Coherence Engine. [Quote] From Lewis Hyde’s amazing book, Trickster Makes This World: “There is no way to suppress change … there is only a choice between a way of living that allows constant, if gradual, alterations and a way of living that combines great control and cataclysmic … Continue reading “Constant Change”
I’ve tried to keep Psybertron away from global politics subjects, despite noting the subconscious kick in the pants 9/11 gave to its motivation (see footnote on every page), mainly I guess not to overstate any impression of self-importance and to keep in perspective of what I might aim to achieve in my world of business, … Continue reading “Paradox of War Against Terrorism”
Ton quotes Rorty on Catch-22 – Ton Zijlstra‘s post “Wrong Vocabulary” includes a quote from Rorty, which is another good statement of my Catch-22 [Quote] It reminds me of American pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty who stated that it is not possible to argue the pragmatist case with the vocabulary of Platonian dichotomies, the very thing … Continue reading “Ton quotes Rorty on Catch-22”