Category: on human nature

Towers of Hanoi

Towers of Hanoi

This Modicum is an expansive one that attempts to close out a number of recent Modicums. Context is everything when it comes to understanding a mindset, just like the above sentence helps prepare you for this Modicum. We are so subjective to the world view at any given moment, that it is almost humorous to …

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Pascal Was On To Something

Pascal Was On To Something

Broad sweeping generalizations to explain everything at once are the bane to all good deliberation and advancement, from philosophy to politics to science to well being. But.. my soul craves creating Grand Unified Theorems (GUT) at a biological level akin to the innate need to classify everything we see. So it doesn’t come as a …

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Do Dogs Think?

Do Dogs Think?

Alright, yeah – I am back into thinking about consciousness. Ironically, this is as much due to reading The Social Animal as it is due to working my way through Heidegger’s Being and Time. This time, I promise to be short(er). If you’ve read the last few Modicums, you’ll know that I’m increasingly of the …

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The Empty Driver’s Seat

The Empty Driver’s Seat

It’s New Years (oh, Happy New Year and New Decade, sort of) and thus I’ve been a bit delinquent on sustained thought in lieu of friends, family, libations and well, skiing. So for this week’s Modicum (or as my eldest daughter calls it, “Adult Homework“), I thought I’d do a quick revisit of two passing …

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I Feel, Therefore I am Not

I Feel, Therefore I am Not

First to set some context, I have been in exploring for the better part of the past year three large influencing mindsets on the subject of rational reasoning versus emotional intuition, and subconscious versus conscious thought. These mindsets are exemplified by their source readings: David Brooks’ The Social Animal, which argues that the emotional mind …

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The Premise of a Big Goal

The Premise of a Big Goal

We all know that tasks fill the void of time and energy based on the allotment given to them. I also have argued that many of modern society’s ills are caused by the fact that we now have too much truly discretionary time in our lives. That combination presents a powerful death spiral to frenetic …

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Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror

I  am not sure I even had the choice this week as to what thought would be most prevalent in my mind because throughout this week, the same word keeps hitting me over the head. The word is mirroring – specifically the tool in which one person mirrors the actions or thoughts of another.