Truth is relative and contingent. In as much as we can ever stake claim on any notional Archimedean external point of rational certitude and observation, Facts are necessary and form the warp and weft upon which Truths may be woven. Political, ideological and falsifiable scientific Truths all possess histories which themselves derive from the Facts of our existence in the world…
Category: culture
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Christmas: Festive Stress
Disclaimer: Christmas can be a great time for spending time with family and friends and for just generally doing nothing (i.e. relaxing). This post is a reflection on the stress of over-commercialised, hyper-competitive, shopping-intensive Christmas chaos. Another year of work is over. Office Christmas parties have been had, the last rush of work has been […]
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Deconstructing Self in Zen
We internalise the projected structure and logical matrix of the world, of our understanding and when that narrative is no longer anchored in any concrete sense in the world, in perception or belief, we are ourselves cast adrift…
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“Truth” or Reality ?
Bruce Lee is interesting because, among other things, he saw the ways people bury the creative essence of a good idea in repetition and blind formality. To see things as they really are we perhaps need to see ourselves first, even if that means unravelling the tangles…
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The Value of a Complex Text
I was recently reading some of David Hume‘s opinions on the values of keeping philosophical explanations as brief and to the point as possible. He criticises overly convoluted and unnecessarily esoteric language as demonstrating poor mastery of the topic being communicated. Hume believes it possible to explain essential truths and philosophical revelations without resorting to […]
The natural world around us is creative, complex, chaotic, dynamic and fundamentally self-organising. Any response to the world which hopes to successfully manage human beings and our many little worlds into anything resembling a sane organisational structure requires us to whole-heartedly embrace this complexity and chaos. Repetition and rote-learned, blindly regurgitative behaviours lead largely to […]
This is no great revelation: we are positively drowning in information. Awash in billions of words and sounds, squawks and squeaks, bits and bytes of marketing, ideas, symbols and ideology: we can all hear the information pandemonium in which we are embedded but we are switched (or switching) off to it. We can all hear […]
I remember a print hung on a wall in my father’s house when I was a child. I puzzled and fretted and stared and wondered about this image and it’s impossible, unsettling reality. The print was of M.C. Escher’s 1953 lithograph “Relativity” and I was probably only 9 or 10 years old at the time. […]
It occurs to me that the endemic iniquity of the global financial and economic system is not an outcome or a consequence of its function and activity. The positively obscene yawning chasm between the rich and poor is an essential precondition and sustaining feature of global economic mechanisms. Truly equitable wealth redistribution, social justice and […]
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Hate Speech: Caveat Emptor
Context: Hate on the Rise After Trump’s Election. It is no surprise, really, that hate crime has surged. As a far-flung observer of these events it has always been apparent (because it has always been the case) that politicians who do not cautiously vet their own words and public statements can let loose all manner […]
We have now graduated past “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge” and have entered a “post-truth” world where any witless assertion whatsoever might be interpreted as defensible fact. There can surely now be no turning back. There can be no “peak post-truth” or “post-post-truth”. We appear to be inextricably trapped in an infinite […]
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Technosphere
It’s interesting to consider the collective, aggregated mass-density of all of our associated technological paraphernalia, our Technosphere. The aggregated totality of all our buildings, vehicles, dwellings, cities, the flotsam and jetsam of commerce and industry, our possessions and everything we throw away: it all has an estimated mass of 30 trillion tons. More information after […]
Daedelus Kite 