Recently, when I heard the phrase “the post-literacy era,” I began to wonder whether we humans might be on the verge of crossing a threshold after which the ecology of new communication media and interconnection technologies could drastically reduce our once-undeniable human capacities to th…
Recently, an incident from a few years ago jumped out of the past into my memory after reading about one of the strange paradoxes of our time: our universe keeps expanding, but, at the same time, our reality keeps shrinking. In fact, many people today inhabit the smallest possible world: theirs.
I recently heard in the news that some Chinese astronauts aboard the Tiangong station found themselves without a safe return vehicle. Only months earlier, two NASA astronauts faced a similar situation when their planned return craft malfunctioned, forcing them to remain in orbit far longer than …
I recently heard a short radio segment mentioning that throughout history—from ancient Greece to the 21st century—numerous philosophers, both men and women, have examined the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. Hearing that, I reflected on how the question of extraterrestrial intel…
What the return of the word abomination reveals about our collective disconnection
After receiving a message from an acquaintance calling “an abomination” the recent results of an election at a major American city, I couldn’t help thinking about what that word really means and why it appears …
There is a wide range of beliefs that can be considered harmful because of the negative effect they have on our lives once we accept them—most often unconsciously and uncritically. One such belief, now widely prevalent, is the assumption that there are no possible alternatives or new opportuniti…
Every year around this time, the (almost) eternal debate resurfaces about whether or not Halloween should be celebrated. Personally, I’m not afraid of children who, once a year, dress up as monsters—but I am terrified by the monsters who, day after day, disguise themselves as humans with the sole pu…
It is profoundly unsettling—and offers little comfort—that, due to the current epidemic of epistemological loneliness, one must ask AI whether it is true that humans have become zombies. The very fact that such a question is valid, and that AI participates in the dialogue, already anticipates the an…
In a recent radio interview, biologist and writer Rob Dunn suggested that certain microorganisms have domesticated humans for millennia, changing human DNA and behavior for the benefit of those organisms. From that perspective, even though we think of ourselves as the dominant species on the planet,…
The more we delegate to AI and related technologies what until very recently was something strictly human, the more we reveal our own fragility—usually hidden behind a false sense of omnipotence, masked by grand words like “progress” or “future,” now meaningless.
In fact, at a recent co…
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a building in the Colorado mountains, originally built about 150 years ago and remodeled in recent months. As I entered, a small but bright, flickering light caught my attention on the far side of the large main hall. I thought it must be an emergency lamp th…
Some years ago, I read the sad story of a moose that, somewhere in Canada, was struck and killed by a train. According to the report, the moose was running along the tracks in the same direction as the train and, despite the engineer’s desperate attempts to avoid the collision, the animal never step…
I recently came across a short and seemingly irrelevant story, yet it stayed with me and made me think more deeply than I expected.
The story was about a little dog somewhere in the United States that was feeling unwell. Instinctively, when his owners took him for a walk, he began to eat grass—a …
The recent discovery of microscopic entities known as “viroids” (or “obelisks”) living in the human mouth made me reflect on how much we still don’t know about our own bodies, even though we often boast that we already know everything—or at least most of what there is to know.
Acc…
The recent discovery of microscopic entities known as “viroids” (or “obelisks”) living in the human mouth made me reflect on how much we still don’t know about our own bodies, even though we often boast that we already know everything—or at least most of what there is to know.
Acc…
Contemporary German philosopher Richard David Precht stated some years ago that the question is no longer “Who am I?” but rather “How many am I?”—a statement that, much like Walt Whitman’s “I am large, I contain multitudes,” does not point to any pathological condition needing treatment, but rat…
Recently, I stopped to photograph a flower whose vibrant colors, illuminated by the early morning sun, inspired me to take several pictures of the same flower, in the same spot, at almost the same moment, and with the same camera—but using different filters. The result was the three images share…
When Isaac Newton announced the laws of what we now call classical physics in the late 17th century, few could have predicted the enormous impact his discoveries would have on everyday life and on the structure of business and institutions. Yet from our 21st-century perspective, Newton’s influence i…
I recently came across this quote by Argentinian philosopher Tomás Balmaceda that struck a deep chord:
“We struggle to sustain our attention, read a long text, tolerate the void. This time intolerance—the constant rush for information—erodes our capacity for reflection. Intelligence, in this con…
Book 12 of the Odyssey recounts Odysseus’ encounter with the Sirens—those dangerous creatures whose seductive songs lured sailors to a deadly fate. Following Circe’s advice, Odysseus prepared himself and his crew in such a way that, working together, they all escaped the trap unharmed.
Odys…
Comments
There are currently no blog comments.