Interconnected webs of meaning. — Re-Assembling Reality #32, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer If you have ever been pushed to think about metaphors, it was probably in an English class. “When Shakespeare wrote that ‘all the world’s a stage,’ what did he really mean?” You probably didn’t learn anything very significant from the…

Evolution and the stories we tell ourselves today. — Re-Assembling Reality #28c, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer We tell ourselves stories about who we are and what our place is in the world. We care deeply about these stories, and we react strongly to anyone who would tell us that our story is wrong. When Darwin was…

Science’s dirty secret. — Re-Assembling Reality #28f, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer The stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves are powerful. Evolution can be co-opted to be involved in various stories but, having got evolutionary theory involved, we suddenly think that we are arguing about how many toes protohippus had, and…

How big corporations take your money. I saw a headline this morning which I found… problematic. Financial news on TV is often aimed at screwing the viewer over while lining the pockets of The Man. But this was a particularly special example. What they said “Stocks can’t bottom until the retail investor gives…

You cannot separate what you say from how you say it. — Re-Assembling Reality #28d, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer Religion seems like it might reasonably be poetic: we cannot find base words to express something that transcends the mere literal meaning, so we wax lyrical. By contrast, science — surely — should say what it means and mean what…

Evolution and the stories we used to tell ourselves. — Re-Assembling Reality #28b, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer You hold an opinion about who you are and what your place is in the world. Maybe you think that as a human you are superior to all other life on earth. Maybe you think that as a man you…

Science, religion, and the stories we tell ourselves. — Re-Assembling Reality #28a, by Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer There are two kinds of stories: stories that are barely worth telling and stories that can change the world. And humans tell stories — important stories that can change the world — all the time. Some of the most powerful…

The necessity of risking everything you are. — Re-Assembling Reality #31. By Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer In Essay #30, we shifted the questions we were asking from “How do I know what is true?” to “How do I decide what to believe?” …

Because we can only know afterwards. — Re-Assembling Reality #30. By Mike Brownnutt and David A. Palmer In the last Essay (#29) we considered what to do in a storm at sea, when abstaining from action is not an option: We can sink or we can swim, but we can’t do nothing. …