Another insight from Jules Henri Poincaré is worth considering, to finish this review of Sean Carroll’s The Big Picture. Recall that Poincaré was a first-rate mathematical physicist in the late 1800s who also contributed to the philosophy of science. He said the only objective reality humans can get any sense of is “the internal harmony … Read more
The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, by Sean Carroll, hardcover, published 2016. This post is a beginning and will be followed by others which delve further into the book’s interesting material. photo credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O’Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and … Read more
My surname is Moore, not uncommon in America. The first of my ancestors came to the colony of New Hampshire in 1738. Since that is eight generations before me, I have 256 grandparents from that time, only one of which was a Moore. However, many other ancestors related by marriage to those eight Moore generations … Read more
Jesus calls us to love God and also other people. How? It has nothing to do with infatuation and maybe little to do with emotion. Can this love be mostly an attitude? Can it be, to begin with, an acceptance of our common predicament as created earthly things? Other people, other animals, rocks, plants—we are … Read more
Spirituality These posts concern spirituality from a Christian perspective. i dig Jesus June 2023 The Big Picture review & summary (introduction) April 2025 Big Picture review, part 2 April 2025 Big Picture review, part 3 (conclusion) May 2025 Demons Tag Along to Boucher Creek Nov 2024 (prep for spiritual retreat) Going Down Willingly December 2024 … Read more
I know why the demons declined to join me on my Grand Canyon spiritual retreat. One of the things they most enjoy is watching me get annoyed with day-to-day living. They may not have a hand in creating annoyance, but they probably try to help me focus on being annoyed and feeling justified instead of … Read more
Like all great storytellers, Rudyard Kipling knew how to turn a phrase. He spun tales for children that would hold the attention of any adult. In How the Whale Got His Throat a small ‘Stute Fish advises an unsuspecting hungry cetacean where to find a solitary shipwrecked mariner adrift on a raft. The fish has … Read more
I have returned safely from a solo backpack trip into one of the most remote backcountry areas of Grand Canyon National Park. I mentioned in a previous blog post that this would be a spiritual retreat of five days and four nights. Here is a photo from the South Rim at Pima Point: Details will … Read more
People today yearn for spiritual things but are less and less attracted to churches. Religion provides an organized way to delve into spiritual matters, but most people would rather wing it. Why call yourself Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or Jew when you can simply be a spiritual person? This attractive idea suggests that we should be … Read more
Of course, that title is a riff on the essay by Sigmund Freud about how societies need religion to function. He was not religious but saw the ideals of selfless love, generosity, and care for poor people as foundational for human communities. The title also riffs on a song that riffs on the Freud essay. … Read more
Many people sometimes feel a certain sense of place. This feeling can come from varied ideas and experiences and, therefore, be impossible to pin down. Whatever it is, many acknowledge it, and few are oblivious. While physical places take up space, like cities, houses, restaurants, mountains, and beaches, the sense of them is primarily mental. … Read more
If you have read Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, you know the novel is long, and the author goes off on numerous tangents. These can be engaging, depending on the reader’s personality. None of them make it into the movies. One side story is how the evil innkeeper, Thénardier, had previously been at Waterloo with … Read more
The title, Words Connect Us, is a hypothesis if one asks, “Connect us to what?” I suggest two primary connections: ourselves and other people. The third way is connecting to our physical surroundings, the world, the universe, and the simple fact of our existence. Humans use words as symbols, metaphors, and mental placeholders associated with … Read more
People come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. And with widely varying music tastes. I’m a boomer, so Taylor Swift doesn’t do much for me. Yet, that might not be the only reason, O Reader, that you may avert your eyes or click away from this post. I will try to keep you here a … Read more