That last piece on the nature of consciousness provoked some interesting responses. It makes me wonder why the philosophy departments are always so small. Probably because we feel more comfortable being error-prone lunatics, like unfastening the top button on the jeans after a big meal. I wonder what that says about people who always wear [...]

Here is a simple question. Is your consciousness solely a by-product of biochemical processes?
In other words, is your awareness of the world and who you are, simply a condition of electrical and chemical interactions between cells?
This is a very simple question. It’s the simple answer that reveals enormous problems. Yes, or no.
My consciousness is considering [...]

More often than not, there is difficulty communicating between people. We have established languages, with vocabularies representing conceptual objects that we string together in a feeble attempt to lift our consciousness from ourselves and offer it to another. Some people claim the vocabulary of our language shapes our thoughts. Others instead claim that our thoughts wrestle with the clumsy limitations of linguistic representations for expression. What we do know is that our consciousness exists as certainly as another consciousness, and the avenues between them are a wilderness of language-constrained train wrecks.

There is always something refreshing about returning our attention to origins. One thing is clear, we live in very different times than René, when Western civilization was taking its first steps toward the Age of Enlightenment. They were trying to make sense of the physical within a world of the spiritual, while we are left trying to find at least some room for the spirit in a world of mathematics.

It may seem I have focused on “dissing” scientists lately. The focus of my irritation is mainly limited to theoreticians who fancy themselves somewhat more than scientists, who overlap, stepping into other disciplines with flagrant disregard, without bothering to educate themselves first. In this, they commit the same transgressions they complain about. Actually, I admire [...]