Spirit and matter

How to start from self-referential notions? In this article I try to coordinate the following notions: individuation, information, communication, arrow of time, cause. Each of these notions is self-referential; impossible to define it in absolute terms; I am obliged to appeal to the concept itself. This shows that they are not ontological but properties of … Read more

Quantum strangeness in Helgoland

Quantum theory is disturbing Helgoland’ is an excellent popular work by Carlo Rovelli. Tied with Étienne Klein, Carlo is the best at enlightening amateurs. More salient incursions into the philosophical field for Étienne, while Carlo does the same at the forefront of fundamental physics. Author of one of the most prominent theories of quantum gravity. … Read more

Disappointed predictions

Oracle crashed 2022: The honest prophet finally admits illusory his belief that the world is predictable. The illusion is reinforced in periods of relative calm, by detecting in the past everything that makes the world today. Brutally the illusion explodes on an unexpected turn. The foot slipped on a virus. The mind goes off the … Read more

The suffering of whom, of what?

A highly sensitive concept While our fundamental concepts are constantly advancing, for the most part, that of suffering is in a kind of sacred tabernacle. It is extracted only to contemplate it with fear and immediately place it back in the same place. Its meaning is so repulsive that the phobia extends to the container … Read more

How should we study religion?

A representative for each look Debate in 2006 between philosophers Daniel Dennett and Richard Swinburne on the best way to study God and religions. Dennett is a naturalist philosopher. He favors ontological reality but is not a reductive materialist; he does not think that science should always impose itself on introspection and common sense. Swinburne … Read more

Intelligence

Multiplying the intelligences does not say what unites them By reducing the scope of IQ to appreciate intelligence, and by multiplying its varieties, has we not aggravated the opacity that surrounds the concept? Indeed, by what are the different intelligences brought together? If we specialize them too much, should we not already recognize that, in … Read more

Entropy and second principle: the great mystification

The mystification of the ultimate disorder Entropy is the measure of the disorder of an isolated system. The second principle is systematically associated with it: the system can only evolve towards greater entropy / disorder. It is an additive quantity (science say extensive): the entropy of the system is equal to the sum of the … Read more

God, science, the proofs

See first : How should we study religion? A dishonest bestseller What is Michel-Yves Bolloré and Franck Bonnassies’ bestseller published in 2021 worth? Its mediocrity is confounding. Clearly written to seduce people confused by the antagonism between religion and science, it does not bring any new idea, nor the slightest proof. Beliefs are backed by … Read more

How to overcome the dichotomy between monism and dualism?

Leibniz’s monads Descartes’ dualism (mind and matter are separate realities) is opposed to Spinoza’s monism (there is only one level of reality). Leibniz, at the end of the 17th century, wanted to overcome this dichotomy with his monads, infinity of points of active substance. Independent, each of them expresses the entire universe. Leibniz uses the … Read more