Category Archives: spurts of thought
On Science and Meta-science
For more than two thousand years now keen human minds in many cultures explored, discussed, and debated why the universe came about, why humanity is there, why there are patterns in the world, why there is good and evil, why there is beauty and ugliness, why there is pain and pleasure, enjoyment and suffering, and …
The Perplexing Predicament
Oh but what’s this world coming to! It’s not a world of peace I once dreamed of. Nor a world of plenty that science once promised. Nor a world of love and caring that religions preach. Nor a world of tolerance imagined by the Enlightenment. Nor a world of social justice idealized by philosophers. Nor …
On Collective Minds
Recall the Lovelock-Marguli Gaia principle according to which the living and the non-living on Earth are so inexorably interconnected that we may consider their totality to form one complex interconnected Whole whose parts, though they locally function as separate integral units, are actually subunits, not unlike the cells of a living organism. Whether this Gaia …
PAUL ERDÖS
We have all heard of unusual geniuses in art and music, even in science sometimes. But there are extraordinary individuals in every creative field. It is not easy for everyone to understand, let alone appreciate, the work and value of their contributions to human thought and culture. In the field of mathematics, for example, there …
Disaster in Japan
Life-destroying disasters arise from Nature’s periodic whims such as hurricanes and earthquakes. But there are also calamities that result from social injustice and iniquities, fanatical beliefs, racial and religious tensions, and the like. Reflections on these matters are certainly stimulating and clarifying when we are in the comfort zone of home and hearth, but when, …
Scientific understanding of ethics and experiences
People have traditionally attributed love of children to non-natural causes, which is fine. However, suppose that science/empiricism is able to establish that through our efforts to understand fully how all these wondrous dimensions of being fully human (as also the not-so wondrous aspects) happen to arise? Wouldn’t that understanding make us a little richer, without …
Thoughts on Music
On Music Most normal people who have time to spare enjoy music of one kind or another. As Shakespeare’s Lorenzo said in the Merchant of Venice, The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit …
Remembering Galileo
Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564. He was not just one of the giants in the first phase of modern science: he is reckoned as its founder. But he also got into trouble with ecclesiastical authorities, as much for espousing views about the world then declared to be heretical, as by his intransigence …
Unity and Diversity
We all belong to the same biological species, or as we say in more humanistic terms, we are all members of the same large human family; biologically speaking, we are all descendents of the same great apes. Yet, an important aspect of the human condition is that, over the eons, due to various historical and …
Retreat to Literature
When I feel gloomy at the state of the world, when I get depressed reading and hearing news about conflicts and wars, assassinations and genocides, hate and threat, and such, I retreat to literature and delve into some ancient writer from no matter which language or culture: for the great writers of the past have …
