In the previous section on the Dantean Cosmos we saw that in considering the Afterlife, it was necessary for Dante to examine the Whole World as he knew it. This gave him widest berth possible in his masterwork, The Divine Comedy. When I consider all of the ramifications, I find it impossible to fully comprehend…

It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy of him. -Francis Bacon as quoted by Martin Gardner in The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener The consignment of souls to eternal torment and damnation not only of what may be viewed as evil persons, but unbelievers,…

Some of my previous posts had featured the limits of human cognition. It seems to me that every thinking machine has finite capacity. Our brains of limited size. Working memory utilizes a finite number or engrams, units of memory, which can only be organized and related in a finite number of ways. A larger brain…

My previous essay on Carbon and Silicon, I hoped, turned round the oft-asked question about whether computers are like brains. I worried more about human cyborgs and people forced to act like computers and robots. Are human (and animal) brains really just complex computers? Ifso then simply as a matter of time, computers and robots…

Below is sane totally practical fallout of my readings. I treat a lot of stroke patients and my other medical colleagues turn the latest technologies on consumers of the American, more properly, the industrial diet in hopes of saving them.  The industrial diet contains huge amounts of simple carbohydrates (sugars) such as is contained in…

 Every one who tries to know the following four things, it were better for him if he had never come into the world, viz.: What is above and what is beneath, what was before creation, and what will be after all will be destroyed. And every one who does not revere the glory of his…

The next 10 years or so will determine the critical relationship between Carbon and Silicon. These tetravalent elements belong to the same family on the periodic table.  Carbon is the main versatile constituent of life, basis of organic chemistry,  while Silicon is the main elemental component in computational devices. Many of our most brilliant and…

The first question asked in sleep research is why the state of sleep exists, in other words, why do we need sleep at all, why spend one third of our lives sleeping? Assuming that the brain adapts an animal to its environment, why has sleep evolved? It may be the other way around. The sleeping…

I personally  attend opera mostly for the music but surprisingly the story and performance at the Philadelphia Opera of the Dialogues had a strange synergy for me.  I say surprisingly and strange because I am more scientist than religionist by belief, and I am not a music or opera professional, just a music lover, an amateur.…

I was psyched today having finally attended The Philadelphia Flower Show.  I wanted to go for years but never found the time. I was drawn by the unexpected, little reproductions of houses that transport you into another world,  made entirely of plants.  They had plenty of giant horticultural displays with explosions of color and that…