The (fictional) story is told of a young man who, after living his entire life in a small village in the rainforest, for some reason decided to go out to explore the world and when he returned to his village two years later, he explained that he had visited a place in which there water was motionles…
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Artificial intelligence has already begun to impose its digital monoculturalism
These days, especially thanks to large language models, you can hardly read anything that hasn't been written and translated by artificial intelligence. Therefore, regardless of the topic or language, articles and news have the same structure and follow the same sequence. It is the dawn of digital m…
What generates us more anxiety, intelligent robots or the destruction of the planet?
Since 2019, people have begun to talk about eco-anxiety, a concept that was first applied to that negative feeling generated by the destruction and contamination of the planet and by climate change (whatever its cause) and that was later expanded to include all kinds of of anxiety related to the fut…
Neither obsession with the present nor rejecting the present are viable options
In the same way that certain people suffer from inflammation of the appendix, that is, appendicitis, many people suffer (or enjoy, as the case may be) from a metaphorical inflammation of the present, which should be called presentitis. In either case, it is a situation that, sooner or later, will li…
Can juries and judges really decide what is real and what is not?
In 1818, in the court of Manhattan (New York), the state inspector James Maurice took the merchant Samuel Judd to trial for the crime of insisting that whales were mammals, and not, as everyone believed at the time, fish.
Although the naturalist Lineo had already said in 1758 that whales were mam…
Sharing the same space does not imply sharing the same time
Recently, Spanish philosopher Daniel Innerarity proposed (and he is right) that the new social challenge consists of solving the dilemma interacting with those people who "live in the same space, but with different time horizons." Although we rarely think about it, let alone admit it, it is true tha…
The global meta-metamorphosis is almost here while we look the other way
Now that the great tide of that European experiment called Modernity has begun to recede, ideas, desires, and hopes that have been drowned for the last 500 years can be seen all over the world. But as the tide of Modernity continues to recede, there is a growing possibility of a tsunami of global an…
What needs to happen for us to accept that reality has changed and act appropriately?
One of the basic characteristics of the human being is, or rather, was the ability to adapt to new environments and new circumstances. But, it seems, that capacity is disappearing and there are already legions of those who, even knowingly, prefer to perpetuate the past or repeat the present before v…
What will happen when quantum supercomputers are the brains of intelligent robots?
According to a story published earlier this month, a new quantum supercomputer from Google can solve in seconds problems that it would take other quantum supercomputers 47 years to solve. In other words, the processing time was reduced from almost half a century to a few seconds.
If that same rat…
To what extent have we become undesirable to the planet that even orcas attack us?
The similar increasing number of attacks on ships by killer whales in the Strait of Gibraltar area has been explained (at least preliminarily) as the reaction of adult killer whales having negative encounters with ships. Since the attacks are concentrated on the helm of the ships (and not on humans)…
Without thinking by ourselves, the inevitable result is the cult of ignorance
In a recent column in Clarín, Argentine journalist and philosopher Miguel Wiñazki rightly affirmed that we live in the era of the "cult of ignorance." And while such a statement is focused on the context of his native country, that cult of ignorance is already a global cult that worships an ignoranc…
There is nothing good about a small, closed mind in this immense universe
In the last two and a half millennia we have gone from living in a small universe (about 40 miles in diameter) to living in a huge universe that is perhaps part of an infinite multiverse. And I went from assuming that our city was the navel of the universe to accepting that the center is everywhere …
How long will we insist on the crazy claim to be the only and the best?
When I was still in elementary school (not that many decades ago) we were taught that one of the differences between humans and "animals" was the ability of humans to create and use tools. Later, with greater knowledge and with advances in zoology and biology, that "difference" disappeared, since th…
Blindly trusting AI deprives us from telling and sharing our own stories
Last week, according to newspaper reports, two sisters who were visiting an area to the west of the Island of Hawaii as tourists, unaware of both the route and the place of destination, decided to follow the instructions of the satellite navigator (GPS). And they did it so well that they ended up si…
The galaxies form an immense cosmic river, to the delight of Heraclitus
A recent announcement (April 24, 2023) by NASA indicates that the James Webb Space Telescope revealed that galaxies form an immense river of cosmic proportions, a finding that would have delighted the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who 2,500 years ago expressed a similar concept.
More precisely, a…
Disconnection from the other leads to the dangerous path of aggressive irrationality
In recent days, there have been events in different cities in the United States that exemplify the disconnection between human beings (we no longer see the other as “another one like myself”) and, therefore, highlight the dangers of falling into irrational aggressiveness, that is, seeing another hum…
Careful! What we think of as “junk” may be something of real value
For many decades modern researchers have wondered how the cement used by the Romans two millennia ago could last longer than the cement of our time, since Roman cement contains a not insignificant amount of rubbish. Answer: that "garbage", far from being it, was the key ingredient to give cement dur…
Careful! What we think of as “junk” may be something of real value
For many decades modern researchers have wondered how the cement used by the Romans two millennia ago could last longer than the cement of our time, since Roman cement contains a not insignificant amount of rubbish. Answer: that "garbage", far from being it, was the key ingredient to give cement dur…
Nothing works when the lie enjoys greater credibility than the truth
I recently needed some rather urgent electrical repairs at my home. The electrician I hired told me that he was half an hour late because I was at the wrong address. In fact, he suggested that I should check the title of my property because, he said, surely that important document was wrong.
I ex…
What will be the last truly human element to disappear?
I can't find any other way to start this column than by sharing a question that is being heard more and more frequently, but to which little attention is paid and which, in my opinion, continues to be ignored by most people: which truly human element will be the last one to disappear? And what is th…
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