Posted in from the dark room, photography on May 30, 2008 | 2 Comments »
As I flew over the coast recently shortly after taking off from Edinburgh airport, I snapped this shot.
What strikes me here is the almost symmetry between the man-made shapes of the golf course, and the natural shapes in the sand created by the tides.
Posted in from the dark room, from the reading room, philosophy, photography, science on May 29, 2008 | 4 Comments »
I was photographing this lovely yellow flower when suddenly I noticed a bit of it was moving…….then I saw the little spider!
Look at it! See how the yellow of its body so PERFECTLY matches the yellow of the flower! Goodness! How does that happen? Isn’t it astonishing!
One of my favourite philosophers is Deleuze. He emphasises [...]
Posted in creativity, from the dark room, life, photography, science on May 28, 2008 | 3 Comments »
I was sitting sipping a coffee at an outside table in the cafe at the market the other day and I saw this seed lying on the table.
I thought I’d capture it and share it with you.
Isn’t it amazing? If you look closely, there are two capture devices built into it! At the left end, [...]
Posted in from the consulting room, from the reading room, health on May 27, 2008 | 4 Comments »
If you were asked to say what is the essence of medicine, I wonder what you’d say?
Something about “evidence based” or “scientific” or “effective treatment”?
Well, David Sokol, a lecturer in Ethics and Law took this as his subject for an article in this week’s BMJ. He reports attending a clinical neurology class at his local [...]
Posted in art, creativity, from the dark room, perception, photography on May 25, 2008 | 2 Comments »
I saw this today in the Jardins d’Albertas in Aix en Provence. From the distance I could see these amazing billowing sheets. I don’t know what they are made of but they floated, danced and drifted constantly. Then as I got closer I noticed all the deck chairs scattered across the grass. I thought they [...]
Posted in from the dark room, life, philosophy, photography on May 23, 2008 | 7 Comments »
Things aren’t things.
OK, that doesn’t make sense, does it? What I mean is that we tend to view the world as made up of objects, or entities. We do that by focusing our attention on parts of what we see, separating out the bits we want to collect together and name. This is one of [...]
Posted in from the dark room, perception, photography on May 23, 2008 | 2 Comments »
poppy field, originally uploaded by bobsee.
I took a lot of photos of this particular poppy field, then, for some reason, I crouched down and filled the foreground with one of the wide ribbons of poppies spreading right across the field and as I looked through the lens of my camera I noticed these two olive [...]
Posted in from the dark room, life, perception, photography on May 23, 2008 | 4 Comments »
poppy field, originally uploaded by bobsee.
There are thousands of poppies in the fields in Provence just now. One thing that really strikes me about them is how, so often, they catch you by surprise and how you just can’t take your eyes off them.
As I was walking down the path to the front gate, this [...]
Posted in from the consulting room, health on May 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Well, well, well. I bet you thought incense might smell good, it might contribute to a feeling of well-being partly through its symbolic ritual use, and partly through some kind of behavioural training, where the smell triggers previously experienced relaxation.
It transpires, however, that frankincense contains some psychoactive chemicals. The resin from the Boswellia plant “activates [...]
Posted in life, narrative, neuroscience, perception, personal growth, philosophy, psychology, science on May 20, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Let’s consider four verbs which highlight essential characteristics of human beings.
SENSING
All living creatures are sensate. All have sensory organs to pick up stimuli from the environment – light, sound, odours, temperature and so on. As human beings we have a particularly elaborate sensory system, possibly THE most elaborate of all creatures, however, being sensate is [...]
