In a pithy sentence that has been quoted many times since he first wrote it more than three hundred years ago, the English philosopher John Locke declared: Nothing is in the mind that was not first in the senses. Another great philosopher, Leibniz, came up with a clever, and insightful, reply to Locke: Nothing is… Continue reading What Do You Have in Mind?
Author: hyattcarter
Hauntology or Ontology: That Is the Question
The French writer Jacques Derrida coined the word “hauntology” for his variation on the philosophical term “ontology.” Since the initial “h” is silent in French, the two words are the same in sound. For my purposes, the general sense of “hauntology” is about revealing the absences that haunt, or are present in, all presences.1 Whereas… Continue reading Hauntology or Ontology: That Is the Question
Hold Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand
Michael Gelb celebrates the power of play as our most effective way to learn. Most widely known, perhaps, for his best-selling book, How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, which has been translated into 24 languages, Gelb is the author of a number of other books and a pioneer in the fields of accelerated learning,… Continue reading Hold Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand
Book of Many Happy Returns: “Process and Reality”
Whitehead’s magnum opus, the magisterial Process and Reality, began as the Gifford Lectures he presented at the University of Edinburgh. Process and Reality is a book of legendary difficulty but it repays the considerable exertions required to come to terms with its neologisms, and to come to an understanding of the speculative metaphysics in this… Continue reading Book of Many Happy Returns: “Process and Reality”
The Magic Number 34
In the year 1514, the great German artist Albrecht Dürer completed a famous engraving that he named Melancholia. In the upper right-hand corner he placed a “magic square” that contained an arrangement of the numbers 1 through 16, as pictured below: Is there something really magic about this square? See for yourself: if you add… Continue reading The Magic Number 34
Whitehead Turns Things Upside Down
One of the many surprising adventures of reading Whitehead is to discover what to some may seem an extravagant claim: that much of our received wisdom is not only wrong but that some of our most venerated thinkers got it exactly backwards. Whitehead reminds us that “the doctrines which best repay critical examination are those… Continue reading Whitehead Turns Things Upside Down
Hello, Silicon; Goodbye, Carbon
Raymond Kurzweil makes a fascinating observation: “Computers are about one hundred million times more powerful for the same unit cost than they were a half century ago. If the automobile industry had made as much progress in the past fifty years, a car today would cost a hundredth of a cent and go faster than… Continue reading Hello, Silicon; Goodbye, Carbon
Whitehead’s Use of Chiasmus in “Process and Reality”
“Ask not what your country can do for you,ask what you can do for your country.” That sentence, spoken by President John Kennedy in a famous speech, is a good example of chiasmus, a rhetorical figure that reverses the terms of the two clauses that make up a sentence, or a part of a sentence.… Continue reading Whitehead’s Use of Chiasmus in “Process and Reality”
Knot So Simple: Self-Interfering Patterns
Just what is reality, and what makes for a good model of reality? One model that offers both clarity and simplicity and, upon reflection, turns out to be most satisfying, was used by Buckminster Fuller in one public lecture after another as he toured cities all over the world speaking to audiences about his new… Continue reading Knot So Simple: Self-Interfering Patterns
Meta-Fours
Along with three and seven, four is a richly symbolic and mythic number that seems to turn up all over the place: four elements, four seasons, four directions, four dimensions (in our universe), DNA and RNA both have four bases . . . the list is long. The number “four” figures prominently and frequently in… Continue reading Meta-Fours