Posts by pwsadmin

I’ve written about free will before because I find it a fascinating subject, but I still struggle with some of the concepts around the idea. Mostly, I want to believe I have it, even as I increasingly believe none of us really do. Many physicists believe (like Einstein) that we live in a deterministic universe,…

We now know that plants are intelligent – not in the same way people or animals are intelligent, perhaps, but they are able to learn and communicate, share nutrients with fellow plants, and even move in their own way. In short, they’re not as different from us as we like to believe. This is all…

I’ve noticed a few troubling trends lately – a correlation between obesity and dementia, a correlation between pollution and obesity, and a correlation between pollution and diseases like Parkinson’s and ALS. It’s like the world is conspiring to get back at us for everything we’ve done to it. If pollution, particularly air pollution, is leading…

When we learn things, we generally acquire a superficial level of knowledge about them. For example, we learn that leaves turn color in the fall, and perhaps we understand that that’s because they stop their food-making process. The chlorophyll breaks down and since chlorophyll is what makes leaves look green, the leaves now take on…

I’ve been stalking nostalgia for a while now, back through the recesses of my mind, where it likes to lounge in a pleather recliner, reliving good times, meaningful events, old friends, and wiping away the occasional onslaught of tears, pretending they’re nothing more than ragweed allergies. By nostalgia, I’m referring to a sentimental longing or…

I used to have a landline. Pretty much everyone I knew had one too. Then cell phones became more ubiquitous and they gradually took over the industry. But I kept my landline for a variety of reasons. First, I’d had it for 40 years. It felt comfortable, and it was an easy number to remember.…

The Free Will Problem Whenever I bring up the problem of evil in the world, believers talk to me about free will. That’s why there’s evil. God gave us free will and some people choose to act maliciously. That’s not God’s fault. And if God forced us to act with kindness, we wouldn’t really be…

We tend to think that we came out of an ice age about 12,000 thousand years ago, and it’s true that we were in a glacial period from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago. That was known as the Quaternary or Pleistocene Glaciation and is considered a major ice age. Subsequently, we had what’s called…

I worry at times that I’m not a better steward of the environment. Walking along a path in the park, I often spot a discarded can, bag, wrapper, etc. and sometimes hesitate to pick it up. What is my responsibility to the world with respect to this item? Do I have an obligation to clean…

I accept that we can’t solve the big problems in America (and around the world) because there’s just too much divergence of opinion and animosity to the opposite point of view. But it turns out we can’t solve even a lot of smaller problems either – like changing the clocks twice a year. With big…