Month: July 2023

The mind of Charles Hartshorne was of such high genius that over the course of his long philosophical career he came up with insights that are so elegant, and of such beauty, that they can be thought of as conceptual miracles. This is not to say that these miracles of thought are supernatural, rather, they… Continue reading The Conceptual Miracles of Charles Hartshorne

The famous name was accidental. In 1938, when almost the only well-defined character on the lot was Porky Pig, a director who answered to Bugs Hardaway thought a rabbit might play nicely opposite Porky, and commissioned one from the resident character designer. The designer, a Disney alumnus named Charles Thorson, sent back a model sheet… Continue reading How Bugs Bunny Got His Name

Hyatt Carter A controversial topic in philosophy is the so-called mind-body problem.1  For the materialist, who claims that matter is the only reality, the mind can be reduced to chemical or electrical processes of the brain. The pure idealist, on the other hand, turns in exactly the opposite direction, with his claim that the ideal… Continue reading Not One. Not Two.

In the Book of Genesis, a biblical story begins and ends in laughter: And God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, you shall not call her Sarai, but her name shall be Sarah. I will bless her; indeed I will give you a son by her.” Abraham threw himself on his face and… Continue reading Laughing Out Loud with Abraham and Sarah

Philosopher Ken Wilber poses a question that I’ve often wondered about: what does Enlightenment—total Enlightenment with a capital “E”—what does this mean in an evolving universe where creative advances accumulate in an ever-increasing totality? Wilber’s answer: “Enlightenment is the realization of oneness with all states and all structures [or stages] that are in existence at… Continue reading The Sliding Scale of Enlightenment

“like that waterfall on the upper Suli Gadthat turns to mist before touching the earthand rises once again into the sky.” — Peter Matthiesssen,The Snow Leopard The word levity derives from a root “lev-” that is also found in words such as levitation, and in virtually all the world’s religions there are stories not only… Continue reading Let There Be . . . Levity

A Good Prayer Ends in Laughter Ha-Ha-men! The sacred syllable AUM is said to be made up of four elements: aaah—uuuh—mmmm: representing birth, life, death, and these three enclosed by the fourth element: the creative silence out of and back into which it unceasingly comes and goes. It is of more than a little interest… Continue reading A Good Prayer Ends in Laughter