Tag: reductionism
The Many Sides of Extremism
I just finished two books that shed new light on service and sacrifice and put them in perspective. The first, Strangers Drowning, discusses multiple examples of moral extremism; the second, When Breath Becomes Air, describes the experience of a 37-year-old Stanford neurosurgeon who died of cancer the year he finished his residency and was about to embark on a stellar career. In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar shares the stories of people who broke all norms and […]
Range and Reach
I recently visited the Picasso Sculpture exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. It was a stunning display of the range and reach of Picasso’s work over five decades. As the introduction to the exhibit suggests, Picasso upended categorical distinctions. The retrospective collection provides ample evidence to support that observation. What struck me as I moved from room to room through MOMA’s beautiful exhibit spaces was Picasso’s range of materials (plaster, bronze, wood, […]
THIS and That
After reading a plethora of books on science and spirituality, it strikes me that science attempts to explain things to us and spirituality encourages us to experience events within us. The real conflict between the two is the difference between explanation and experience. Scientists want to explain our experience and spiritualists want us to experience our explanations.
Transcendental Possibilities
My hunch is that we are all searching for transcendental possibilities, but what in hell does that mean? I have been on a long journey trying to figure out what those possibilities might look like and how I can have any real degree of assurance that what people claim can be true. Thirty-two years ago I co-founded Possibilities, Inc. with Barry Cohen, a PhD philosopher, as a discovery vehicle for this journey. I’ve covered a […]