Friday 15 October 2021
I have had a trip to Brazil planned but I didn’t know if it would come off as intended because of the additional constraints placed on travel at the present time. I had to get a negative PCR test result less than 72 hours prior to departure (for which I…
Friday 08 October 2021
In my essay “Bound in Shallows” I described the social and historical processes by which the space programs of nation-states, and the industries that serve these space programs, become detached from any sense of investment (much less urgency) regarding the space program, and a shift in social attitudes occurs in…
On Not Knowing How We Know What We Know and Related Puzzles
In a post of some years ago, Boundary Skirmishes in the Limits of Scientific Knowledge, I identified as one of the possible epistemic positions we can take in regard to the big bang the proposition, “There was something before the big bang, but we can’t know what it is.” Thinking…
Friday 01 October 2021
One of the things I have encountered especially over the past few years, during which time I have been engaged in more conversations with space enthusiasts and people in the space industry, is the persistent idea that humanity can start over from scratch in space. More than merely having encountered…
Friday 24 September 2021
This past week I started collecting definitions of “historicism.” Historicism is one of those infinitely Protean terms that have been used in countless ways, though there is an attempt to get at an elusive idea in all these diverse definitions. …
An Ellipsis in Our Intellectual Engagement with the Past
While philosophy today has become a technical discipline that has its own specialized concepts and jargon, there is always the possibility of returning to the ancient tradition of philosophy that tries to understand and to elucidate the good life for human beings. For example, when I was at the library…
Preempting US-Chinese Conflict in Space
Recently the Chinese have begun the process of building a space station, and they have conducted several successful space missions, including sending spacecraft to the Moon and Mars. Moreover, the Chinese and the Russians have signed a Memorandum of Understanding regarding cooperation in the construction of an International Lunar Research…
Hazel Barnes’ Lost Television Series Recovered
Hazel Barnes, who translated the whole of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness into English, also presented a ten part (thirty minutes per episode) television series for National Public Educational Television called Self Encounter: A Study in Existentialism. …
Infinitistic Reticulate Ontology and the Depths of Nature
During the last three days of March I participated in an online conference held by NoRCEL (Network of Researchers on the Chemical Evolution of Life), “How did it all begin…?” The virtual conference included a presentation by Lowell Gustafson of the IBHA, “The Origins of Life within Big History: Meanings…
Taking Prisons and Schools as Case Studies
If we think of institutions at all, we usually assume that they were created to serve a particular purpose, even if they are flawed in fulfilling this purpose. Carroll Quigley postulated the social process of the “institutionalization of the instrument,” according to which institutions are created as instruments to attain…
