We have changed the world

Before Descartes, roses were red and violets were blue.  Since Descartes, that has changed.  Since Descartes, body and mind have been split asunder ; the world and the person have become two distinct (and some say incompatible) things ; matter and spirit have been divorced.  This was not all Descartes’ fault ; it was not [...]

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Meaning and seeing

On being blind When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, “Doth God [...]

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Mindful of pain

The life of Man is the life of the mind.  Not for us the unconscious or semi-conscious world that the lesser creatures inhabit.  We are not automatons that simply ‘behave’ ; we are much more than our instincts and biological drives.  It was one of those frightful eighteenth-century agricultural scientists who remarked, “What is a [...]

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Other worlds revisited

I once knew a statistician of international note.  Over a period of four years we used to meet regularly to put the world to rights.  We talked about science, about research, about the nature of knowledge, about cycling, about the weather, about psychology ; in fact, we discussed just about everything because he, being a [...]

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Other worlds

Perhaps it is time to lighten the early-year gloom and have a peep at another world.  Perhaps it is time for a fairy story ; a proper fairy story, not one of those contrived gloopy things all full of gossamer wings and funny hats.  Writing a proper fairy story is not nearly as easy as [...]

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The times are ever changing

Most thinking people derive pleasure from visiting the ruins of past civilisations.  They wonder at the remains, they wonder at the people who had built them new.  They wonder what those piles of stones must have looked like when they had been  meeting-houses or temples or shops.  They wonder at what a spectacle the avenue [...]

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Them and us

Our ancestors lived in times that were probably no more warringly violent than our own ; but, whereas most of the world’s violence today is perceived as being in faraway places, their violence was much closer to home.  What we might call the teen-age years of Europe seem to have been characterised by rebellion, rivalry [...]

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Do numbers count?

The well-known biologist, Louis Wolpert is oft-quoted as saying, “The universe is not only stranger than we know, it is stranger than we can know.”  Perhaps he was right, and perhaps he was wrong – maybe we shall never know or even be able to know.  I wonder what it means to be unable to [...]

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A Life

On the third of February 1905 the world became a better, warmer place ; for on that day Andrée Marthe Virot was born. She came into this world by way of a religious and deeply patriotic French family and, by the time of her mid-thirties, ran her own beauty salon in Brest.  She might have [...]

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Evolving minds

Life can be precarious.  One useful realization to emerge from Darwin’s elegant theory of evolution is that creatures may evolve to become either generalists or specialists.  Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.  For example, one creature might become an omnivore.  An advantage here is that, if one kind of food becomes scarce, it has [...]

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Poetic meaning

An emotion is called such because it calls upon us to do something.  And the presence of an emotion is signified by more or less definite physiological movements which can be felt.  It can be a useful and revealing exercise to note where one feels a particular emotion.  Do you feel it in your legs?  [...]

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The Rolling English Road

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread The [...]

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A red, red rose

Oh, my luve’s like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June : Oh, my luve’s like a melodie That’s sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I ; And I will luve thee still my dear Till a’ the seas gang dry. Till a’ [...]

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Personality without the person

I have written previously about how we are increasingly coming to think of ourselves as machines, and how in certain scientific quarters, we are considered to be only machines.  I want to give some examples of what I mean. Hans Eysenck was a leading psychologist who left his mark upon the world of thought.  He [...]

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When is enough enough?

A short while ago, there was a great debate going on about the stupendously expensive CERN experiment, which was about to take a serious turn at that time.  Much was said about many things in the public debate ; but one item that caught my attention was a remark apparently made by Prof. Stephen Hawking.  [...]

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Summer is a-coming in

Sumer is icumen in – Lhude sing cuccu ! Groweþ sed and bloweþ med and springþ þe wude nu. Sing cuccu ! Awe bleteþ after lomb, Lhouþ after calve cu, Bulluc sterteþ, bucke verteþ, Murie sing, cuccu! Cuccu, cuccu, Wel singes þu cuccu, Ne swik þu naver nu ! Sing cuccu nu! Sing cuccu ! [...]

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It’s too simple

Almost all science (knowledge) is concerned with abstractions.  The world is too complex for a human mind to grasp in its functioning, dynamic entirety.  So we break it down into manageable chunks ; and most of those chunks are are very small indeed – chunklets – and it is these abstracted bits of the world [...]

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Fishermen’s tales

There is somewhere a lost legend of the first fisherman who spoke of, and lamented, ‘the one that got away’.  But it is sure that many a fisherman has not only repeated the telling of that legend, but has lived it.  Many a fisherman has lost the fish he thought was secure on the line.  [...]

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I was angry with my friend

The Middle Ages were interesting times.  They were times when we invested a deal of energy and ingenuity trying to civilise ourselves more.  Trying to break away from the violent conduct that came so naturally with us out of the Darker Ages. It comes as no surprise, then, to find a preoccupation with thinking, debating, [...]

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Of beers and bottles

In this modern world, where almost an entire population contrives to deceive itself on  life’s more important matters, the ‘news’  tends to be boring and repetitive – not to say, predictable.  We have grown accustomed to reading a headline that announces “Advanced Technology Centre for Leamington Spa” – and to click the spot only to [...]

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Letting go

I once thought of making a list of all those people who had made a positive difference to my life.  In fact, I did make such a list and it was much longer than I had imagined.  That’s the thing about writing ; it teases out of memory things that are all too often glossed [...]

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We need doctors

There seems to be a growing belief among secularists that the indoctrination of children in religious believe is wrong in principle. Children, it is argued, should be left to decide for themselves. But all education is indoctrination. Without the underlying doctrines all our arts and sciences would be worthless as systematic knowledge.

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The tales they tell to children

Where is the knowledge in books?

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Counting our spoons

As a child I used to have a volume of Emerson’s essays.  I probably still have it somewhere.  One of the essays was called, I think, The dinner party.   In it we are treated to the account Emerson gave of one of his guests, who came close to putting the company to sleep with his [...]

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Faith is a problem for the law

Mr Pengelly,  is a ‘faith healer’ from Leominster.   He has produced a number of letters of appreciation from his patients who thank him for lessening the symptoms of their condition and, in some cases, of curing them.  The law is not happy with this state of affairs and has let its displeasure be known by [...]

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The aesthetics of education

In Henry Cave-Devine’s excellent blog on education, I couldn’t suppress a wave of emotion when I read one of Pseudonym’s comments.  I’m sure she will not mind my repeating it, even though I was critical of the general idea :- “There are so many good teachers out there frustrated by the system, and worn out [...]

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