I know that face

People are constantly talking of reality.  How often do we hear words such as : “get real” : “the reality is” : “it really is true”.  It is as if we believe that the human senses and the human mind possess a mystical quality that enables them to transcend the material world and take a [...]

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A matter of conviction

The picture of the old woman, whose name is Cracklebones, with the huge hooked nose and cruel thin lips, and wearing a dirty-white headscarf, reminds us of a witch ; it also reminds us of our tendency to make judgements of people ; judgements that are often based on little evidence.  Is this prejudice?  Well, [...]

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The wonder of the world

Of all the world’s wonders there is none greater than human consciousness.  If we were not conscious, then there would be no world that we could speak of.  No doubt there is something outside of our consciousness, but it is not the world ; for the world is a construction made of distinctly human cognitive [...]

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Making space for thoughts

People talk about space as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  But is it? When one looks into the night sky, one is aware of a multitude of points of light.  Because were are able to separate these points of light into separate objects, we say there are spaces between them.  [...]

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Modelling

In the field of cognitive psychology it seems fairly well established that our knowledge is comprised of complex chemical compounds distributed within the networks of nerve cells of the brain.  Thus my knowledge of the shape of an apple, say, is actually a chemical construct which would seem to bear no geometrical  relation to the [...]

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Where was Noah’s rainbow?

It’s Monday morning, and the overcast sky encourages a meditation of sorts.  How much kinder the world would be if Nature gave us a rainbow to contemplate on every cloudy day.  But she doesn’t ; for she waits until there is a particular disposition of sunshine and of particular kinds of clouds.  And sometimes she [...]

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Seeing through time

Conventions bring us comfort, if only because they lend structure to the world we live in.  They provide us with points of reference with which to compare one event with another.  And it is these points of reference which make the ever-changing world relatively stable. One of our major conventions concerns the physical world.  When, [...]

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