Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
I've noted before that religion is a tricky thing to define. Simple definitions, such as belief in gods, have a tendency to leave out movements that everyone agrees is religious, such as non-theistic versions of Buddhism. We can be a bit more inclusive by including any belief in a superempirical reality, but that still leaves … Continue reading Defining religion polythetically
I rarely post about contemporary events, particularly ones involving any kind of armed conflict. Too often we don't have a clear view of what's happening, and what we do know comes through the fog of war. Which I definitely think is the case in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's often years, sometimes decades, before we … Continue reading Some history possibly related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Given recent events here in the US, there have been a lot of statements made about our political future, often with implicit or explicit comparisons to one of the most famous societies in antiquity: the Roman Republic. Often the narrative is, once a democratic norm has been shattered, it puts us on an irreversible course … Continue reading The decline of the Roman Republic
Related to some of our recent discussions, Scientific American has an interesting article on the spread of farming during the neolithic. From the article: Roughly 9,000 years ago farmers from the Middle East headed toward Europe, seeking new land to cultivate. The farmers traveled either along the Mediterranean coast or the Danube River, encountering hunter-gatherers who lived … Continue reading Invasion of the farmers
This is the final post in a series about or inspired by Yuval Noah Harari's book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. This final post is a brief summary of the overall book and some final comments. Harari's subject matter, as the title suggests, is the history of the Homo sapiens species. He breaks that … Continue reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Related to our discussion on religion, I found this series of posts from Bret Devereaux on Practical Polytheism pretty interesting. It matches descriptions I've read from writers like Bart Ehrman, on how ancient polytheism worked. In summary, at the center of polytheism was ritual, ritual to appease the gods so that the harvest would come … Continue reading How polytheism worked
Noam Chomsky published an essay on his web site a few years ago: Science, Mind, and Limits of Understanding. Chomsky's thesis is that there are areas of reality that science is simply incapable of understanding. He uses as his principle example, the case of Isaac Newton's understanding of gravity. Chomsky acknowledges that this is a … Continue reading The mechanical philosophy and mysterianism
This is part of an ongoing series inspired by my reading of Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. A while back, I discussed the discovery of discovery, the historical development of the idea that there were things to discover in the world, things the ancients didn't already know. Harari flips this around, … Continue reading The crucial knowledge of ignorance
This is an ongoing series of posts on topics that catch my interest as I read Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Religion is one of those concepts, like life, beauty, or consciousness, that are difficult to define. I used to think it was just worship of God, or gods. But many … Continue reading The superhuman order definition of religion
In an ongoing series, I'm covering topics that catch my interest as I read Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. One topic that Harari returns to often is the idea of imagined worlds. Homo sapiens acquired the ability to create imagined worlds in what he called "the cognitive revolution". Most anthropologists see … Continue reading The maturity of fiction awareness
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