And we, who have always thought of happiness as rising, would feel the emotion that almost overwhelms us whenever a happy thing falls. — Rainer Maria Rilke, The Tenth Elegy I suppose that my first few months of life were happy. That is speculation. I am not certain that I have at any time…
One might argue that the refinement and miniaturization of the intelligent machine, linked to the introduction of fuzzy dynamics in the quantic activity of AI, will lead androids to behave consciously… It is philosophically false, because consciousness is not behavior, but self-perception and self-judgment, self-enjoyment and self-loathing. this is the distinctive feature – ethical…
Yes, most of the posts have been rather dark. There’s the second law of thermodynamics, the fall toward entropy, which is unpleasant and irresistible to contemplate. Things come apart, the center does not hold. That is only part of the story as many of us know. A year represents a sliver of time, a…
Why do you pick those old songs a reader will ask? Honestly those are the songs that I know. Those are the songs of my generation, that served to inspire, that firmed our resolve as some of us marched to protest a foreign war, a place where many young Americans took their last breath…
Monday morning, early, before sunrise. Waking on account of “who knows what” I got up knowing that I would sort through the contents of my mind with words. What is bothering me? Perhaps it is the craziness of these times, the absolutely “wigged out,” insane behavior of too many of my contemporaries!? Today I…
Trumpism is an expression of the despair of impotent old white people in the age of globalization. Trumpism – a desire for supremacy that ignoramuses reclaim in the name of their own ignorance, supremacy of those who are aggressively competitive but lack the intellectual means to achieve. p. 106 The idiocy of protecting racial…
The 20th century was a century of the straight line, of yang rationality, of modernism and abstraction, The 21st century will be the century of the curve, of yin, of harmony and building with Nature. …if we cannot recover our innate empathy, find balance, and come up with a new tone, a new mood,…
People talk about melting pots,America’s a melting pot, South Africa’s a melting pot,melting pot, melting pot…What you forget is that what’s making the things in the pot meltis the fire….. There are no diverse places in the worldwhere people just came there for good times. — excerpt, interview with Trevor NoahTrevor Noah Is Still…
Thanksgiving at last! Thanksgiving day is the least commercialized of all our national celebrations. The day of “feasting” goes back to the mythic founding of the nation. The Pilgrims arrived and founded Plymouth colony in Massachusetts. A deal was made with the Wampanoag tribe of indigenous people. Indians indigenous to America had lived here…
We discussed ideas from an essay which treated the sensation that comes when one is aware of an object in Nature, experienced as overwhelming, awe inspiring. German theologian and philosopher Rudolf Otto in his influential 1917 German book The Idea of the Holy, coined the term Mysterium Tremendum. We are fascinated, attracted and paradoxically…
