The Dualism Quandary

Having studied physics, chemistry and mathematics, I have always been intrigued by what is the nature of the natural world. Conventional science would have us believe that science is about “discovering” the Laws of Nature that have governed the Universe since its creation. If you are religious you probably believe that God laid down these […]

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Guarding Our National Values

I am now in my eightieth year and remain a loyal and grateful Australian. As others have rightfully said, “To be born Australian is akin to winning the Lotto”. But being Australian has become more problematic in recent decades. As a young man, I and my peers were unabashedly patriotic. Sometimes our beliefs might have […]

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How the Middle East Succumbed to the Enigmatic Donald Trump!

As I write, Hamas seems to have agreed to a peace deal brokered by Donald Trump. This is a great achievement for Trump and, although many things could still go wrong in prosecuting the peace plan, we should give credit where credit is due. The struggle between Israel and Hamas was a seemingly intransigent problem […]

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The Perversity of Transgender Politics

It is such a strange phenomenon, Transgender Politics. It is built on the fantasy that human beings can voluntarily choose their gender. Many other aspects of our biological endowment are not challenged in such a way. I haven’t heard for example of brown-eyed people demanding that they should be called blue-eyed or short people demanding […]

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Making Up Our Minds


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 […]

March 29, 2014

Dealing with Unemployment


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 […]

March 22, 2014

The Power of Paradigms


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 […]

March 15, 2014

Confabulation and Forgiveness


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 […]

March 8, 2014

After the Royal Commission


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, […]

February 28, 2014

Pascal’s Wager


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 […]

February 22, 2014

Irrational Fear


My wife would certainly attest to the fact that I have a particular abhorrence of spiders. It is hard to know how it originated. Our progenitors no doubt had some fear of spiders and even more so of snakes. They, as hunter gatherers would routinely have encountered these potential threats. As a result over the […]

February 15, 2014

Science and Certainty


I once had a strange discussion with the author of a so-called “New Age” book. He had some disparaging things to say about science and mathematics. To illustrate a point he maintained that even the universal constant pi could not be accurately determined. He, of course was misled. Because pi was unable to be defined as a proper […]

February 8, 2014

Causality and Blame


The world is endlessly complex, intricate and surprising. Conceptually we find that hard to cope with and consequently we spend a lot of effort in trying to simplify it. Some of our models of the world and its component parts have proved very useful first approximations and have aided our general understanding. However sometimes our […]

February 1, 2014

Thoughts on Australia Day 2014


Here we are in a New Year and traditionally that has offered us the opportunity to pause and take stock. Australia seems to be in transition again. There are a number of influences having an impact on our country and our way of life. As we approach Australia Day I thought I would elaborate on […]

January 25, 2014