Category: Philosophy

George Carlin's Last Interview

Reading Time: 3 minutes Psychology Today recently posted the last known interview with George Carlin (interviewed on 6/13/2008). Whether or not your a fan of George’s comedy is beside the point. This interview is hands down one of the best I’ve read in a while, and gives some great insights into Carlin’s history, personality, and creative process. From the…
Read more

The Value of an Integral Perspective

Reading Time: < 1 minute Whether it be Integral or some other comprehensive philosophical framework or mental model, there is something to be said for the theories that help us to grasp with better understanding the world around us.  I recently wrote an article on my main blog (Want to Remember Everything You’ll Ever Learn?) about Piotr Wozniak, a Polish…
Read more

Semantic Wikis and Faceted Browsing: The Ultimate Knowledge Database

Reading Time: 2 minutes Every 6 months or so I mix things up and alternate my primary area of focus between studying philosophy and pursuing my creative technical interests (e.g. my multitude of pet/geek projects). I decided to switch gears a couple weeks ago and have been back into academic mode. My primary focus has been studying the history…
Read more

Consensual Reality: The Importance of Subjectivity

Reading Time: < 1 minute “A tree is a tree — although its meaning to the man who views it (“the truth”) depends upon his relationship to it.  Does it give him fruit or shade, or is it an obstacle in his path” — Surveying Kierkegaard, Homer and Buhler, 1969 While reading Monsters and Magical Sticks, the following quote and…
Read more

Music and Life

Reading Time: < 1 minute A little bit of philosophy from Alan Watts…

The Undiscovered Self

Reading Time: < 1 minute Jung on the state and religion: “All mass movements, as one might expect, slip with the greatest ease down an inclined plane made up of large numbers.  Where the many are, there is security; what the many believe must of course be true; what the  many want must be worth striving for, and necessary, and…
Read more

The Conjunction

Reading Time: < 1 minute “In the beginning God created one world (unus mundus).  This he divided into two – heaven and earth.  Beneath this spiritual and corporeal binarius lieth hid a third thing, which is the bond of holy matrimony.  This same is the medium enduring until now in all things, partaking of both their extremes, without which it…
Read more

Potentialities: Borne Along the Stream of Time

Reading Time: < 1 minute Jung’s commentary on The Golden Flower: “Now and then it happened in my practice that a patient grew beyond himself because of unknown potentialities, and this became an experience of prime importance to me.  In the meantime, I had learned that all the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble.  They must…
Read more

Nature, Personality and Actualization

Reading Time: < 1 minute More Jungian wisdom: “To the extent that a man is untrue to the law of his being and does not rise to personality, he has failed to realize his life’s meaning.  Fortunately, in her kindness and patience, Nature never puts the fatal question as to the meaning of their lives into the mouths of most…
Read more

You Should Know That You Don't Know Enough To Know That You Don't Know, You Know?

Reading Time: 2 minutes I’m sometimes amazed at the sites that make the del.icio.us popular list. I enjoyed the following entry on Wikipedia: the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon whereby people who have little knowledge systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge. The phenomenon was rigorously demonstrated in a series…
Read more