Science is not normally considered to be in the same category of thought as religions. And in some ways, it is in a different category. It doesn’t have quite the same ossified structures of most other religions, and it doesn’t have any human-like gods. But then it isn’t as old as most other religions, which … Read more
A meritocracy is a kind of evolution, a social evolution. Like biological evolution, its business is to reward the survivors, and winnow out the weak. It is a hard game but the rules are set by Nature herself. For all its advantages over less obviously fair systems of resource allocation, like systems based on dynastic … Read more
So here we are. This morning I woke up feeling optimistic for the first time in months. So I revisited this old draft post, and decided to make it live, even though things are moving on already. I live on twitter too much these days and the rawness of events seems to get so much … Read more
Freedom is a very basic personal instinct. I think all creatures want to be free, free from fear and desire, free from hunger and pain. The protection of key personal freedoms has been central to the rise of civilisation, and this has continued in modern societies through activities like the abolition of slavery and the … Read more
Life is suffering, said the Buddha. This seems to me to be true much of the time, and what is also unavoidable is that our aliveness causes suffering for other living things. Even the most careful of us will unfortunately step on a few ants and swallow some gnats (unless we follow very particular ascetic … Read more
Update: I’ve written a few words about my primary years which precede the high school ones. I went to two high schools which gave me two completely different perspectives. The first two years were at a fairly rough local public. At this place there were many individual teachers who were highly engaged with their students, … Read more
If opium were more widely available, I would take that rather than red wine on some nights (I have a glass of red by my hand as I write this). Michael Dransfield I suppose was of the same opinion. Coleridge, Hafiz; – it is recognisably a poet’s addiction. The few poems I have written under … Read more
I was recently filling up my motorcycle at Buddha at the Gaspump, a great newish website of interviews with spiritual people, run by Rick Archer, when I came across his great interview with David Godman. David, who lives at Tiruvannamalai in India is the primary editor of information in English on the great 20th Century … Read more
The internet mind is growing. It is sorting the threads of sticky intelligence, categorising memes, getting to know itself. There is not yet much policing of the internet. When it is established (probably after many turf wars) will it come from within? Or be enforced from outside? I wonder if the guerrilla battles which already … Read more
There is plenty of promise held in the future’s tightly clenched fist, and I look forward to prising those surprises from its grasp as the years unfold glorious and slow. I want to explain a concept i have had lately. I would like to introduce a thing I call a “belief sphere”, which occupies the … Read more
i am all about massaging egos, so i suppose the concept of self reference appeals to me naturally. Descartes said “Cogito ergo sum” – “I think therefore I am”, which is a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. Douglas Hofstadter’s works on self reference have been influential to me in developing these thoughts (qv Godel Escher … Read more