In our day-to-day experience, we appear to be making things happen through the choices and decisions we make. However, when we look closer it becomes far more difficult to support the idea that we make choices independent of outside influences. The findings of neuroscience have shown free will or may be nothing more than an […]
A purposeless cosmos is not a problem
It’s claimed that life is meaningless without religion and it’s an accusation often levelled at atheists. They deny that the cosmos has any intrinsic meaning or purpose so their lives must be the same it’s argued. Does it appear humanity is lost without some cosmic significance? With advances in science, a diversity of beliefs in […]
Passionate entanglement: Life is to be Lived
Calvin: ‘My elbows are grass-stained I’ve got sticks in my hair I’m covered with bug bites and cuts and scratches…I’ve got sand in my socks and leaves in my shirt my hands are sticky with sap and my shoes are soaked!I’m hot dirty sweaty itchy and tired.I say consider this day seized!Tomorrow we’ll seize the […]
Taking comedy seriously
‘Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass’ Michel de Montaigne, ‘De l’experience,’ 1580-88 I recently listened to the audiobooks by Terry Pratchett. The Colour of Magic, Light Fanastic, Small Gods and Pyramids. I’ve never been interested in this sort of fiction before. What tickled me the most […]
The Map is not the territory
We often get angry when things don’t go our way or we find ourselves lost because the world confuses us. But what’s really going on here? Our lives are guided by expectations and by our knowledge. We want the plans that we made to come to fruition. The ‘best laid plans of mice and men […]
What if confidence was no object?
We often hear about, or are asked, the thought experiment, ‘what if time and money were no object?’ It’s part of a question that encourages our imagination to run free as we envision an ideal life. But I feel with my anxiety that a far greater resource exists … confidence. What could we achieve if […]