Postmodernism has always seemed to me to be an over-reaction to absolutism, which its adherents see as pervading modern society. They deride “scientism”, mistakenly believing that science lays down laws that are not challengeable. As Sir Karl Popper showed us, nothing in science can ever be said to be definitively proved. Carl Sagan, the American […]
Well, what a frustrating week it’s been! To my great chagrin all the newspapers and the television content have been swamped with the royal visit. As a republican, it is embarrassing to watch the fawning press running after them and an adulatory public swarming to catch a glimpse of this irrelevant pair of freeloaders and […]
A Meditation on Meditation In his opera Thais Jules Massenet wrote a superb piece of music which has become to be known as Meditation. It is certainly one of my own personal favourites. It is a serenely beautiful rhapsody with the violin predominating. In every day parlance we use the term “meditation” quite loosely. It […]
Many of you have asked me how it is that I can write a blog essay every week. My normal response is to say it is not as hard as you think. There are many likely sources for my weekly dabblings. I have normally been reading a book about something stimulating. I read the newspapers […]
Most of you don’t realise this and to the amazement of the more practical and pragmatic of you, you are all visionaries and mystics! Let me state a fact that might surprise you. No human being has ever experienced an objective world! Whatever you are experiencing right now is in fact a visionary experience. It […]
We have heard a lot in the news in recent times of loss or potential loss of jobs at Qantas, Holden, Ford, SPC Ardmona, Gove Alumina Refinery, Port Henry Aluminium Smelter and so on. There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth because the Government wouldn’t step in and have the Australian taxpayer prop […]
It was the good Dr Phil who introduced me to that wonderfully insightful book by Thomas S Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn showed that the progress of science has been largely discontinuous. Most scientists work within a generally accepted set of theories (which Kuhn termed a paradigm) and are largely content to make […]
In psychology to “confabulate” means to fabricate a reason for something in order to rationalise our behaviour when in fact the behaviour has an unconscious cause. Most of you will think this is an academic concept that has little application to normal human behaviour. Surprisingly it is a very common human phenomenon. As the good […]
Despite his prolonged protestations of innocence, Craig Thomson has been finally found guilty of fraudulent use of his credit card whilst an official of the Health Services Union. In the face of a number of other complaints regarding alleged criminal conduct of unions (not the least of which included one involving the former Prime Minister, […]
In the Western world it was probably the increasing influence of science that caused the rise in atheism. Atheists tend to be philosophical naturalists – people who attempt to understand the world without invoking anything supernatural. As the ability of science to explain the physical world increased, the need for the supernatural decreased commensurately. Indeed […]