Indra’s net

I spotted this be-dew-elled spider’s web this morning and immediately thought of Indra’s Net.
Interestingly, the entry about Indra’s Net on wikipedia illustrates the following quote by Alan Watts with a very similar image.
Imagine a multidimensional spider’s web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the [...]

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Three Ages of Knowledge and Understanding

The contemporary French philosopher, Luc Ferry’s book, “What is The Good Life?” (ISBN 978-0226244532), is an interesting but quite difficult read. I’m not sure I’ve really grasped the whole of his argument, but it seems to involve developing awareness of the “singularities” in life, by which he means the unique, particular events, which draw our [...]

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The significance of metaphors

“Metaphors we live by” written by Lakoff and Johnson. (ISBN 0-226-46801-1) ……..
I often muse about what makes a human being, human? Or what makes a human being fully human? Consciousness is clearly one of the characteristics. Language is another. And imagination is a third. Perhaps it’s because I’m interested in these phenomena that some time [...]

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Bridges, paths, connections….

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how everything is connected. Amy wrote a post about the relationship between Deleuze and Guatarri’s rhizomatics and social networking today (we’re often in tune that way!) I’m also reading Michael Frayn’s “The Human Touch” which wonderfully explores our embedded, connected existence, the centrality of our subjective perspective, and [...]

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Supersizing the Mind. Andy Clark

Where does your mind exist? There’s a longstanding “common sense” view that it’s inside your skull. But, it’s becoming apparent, that is far from the whole story. Yes, of course a lot of what we call the mind is related to brain activity and the brain is indeed inside the skull, but many researchers are [...]

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Suffering and good lives

My daily working life is that of a doctor. That only tells you a little because Medicine is a very broad subject and doctoring can require extremely different sets of skills. Sometimes I muse about just what is the job of a doctor? Or what makes for a good doctor? I’m pretty sure it involves [...]

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More unicorn hunting…more mysteries to unravel

Towards the end of last year I went unicorn hunting. It opened up whole unknown areas for me, not least that of medieval art. I’m still exploring this and learning all the time and, frankly, its awe-inspiring. Well, here’s another part of that adventure. When I read about the unicorn hunt tapestries which are in [...]

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Reinventing the sacred

That reductionism is limited, however, does not mean it is not powerful, amazingly productive, and tremendously useful scientifically. We simply need to understand its place, and recognise that we live in a very different universe from that painted by reductionism alone.
So writes Stuart Kauffman in “Reinventing the Sacred” (ISBN 978-0-465-00300-6). I agree with that. As [...]

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Myths which improve life

People often use the word myth as if it is the opposite of the word truth. It’s juxtaposed to reality. You hear that a lot. An explanation about something is dismissed as a myth, meaning that it’s not true, not a fact, that’s it’s unreal. It’s quite strange how we’ve developed this way of using [...]

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Making a mark

Out walking the other day and I came across this mark on the ground,

It’s like a butterfly or a flower or something. What was it? Isn’t it strange and beautiful?
Actually I’ve a pretty good idea what it is. Take a look at the other mark which was nearby,

One of the interesting things about these marks [...]

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