Category Archives: Meaning

How Beliefs Prevail over Evidence and Reality

Posted on Sunday 8 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Democrats have fixed the economy, but many people don’t “believe” it; CBS News’ Ted Koppel visits a Wisconsin State Fair; The crowd cheers Trump’s latest word salad; How conservatives actually hate American values; And how the mainstream press in America … Continue reading →

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Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 5

Posted on Saturday 10 August 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Final post summarizing this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4. The final three chapters return to the cosmic scope of the book’s overall theme, exploring what we’ve concluded about the far future and the … Continue reading →

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Brian Greene: UNTIL THE END OF TIME, post 4

Posted on Friday 9 August 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

More summary of this Brian Greene book. Earlier: post 1, post 2, post 3. In these chapters Greene summarizes how imagination, extrapolating from dreams and the perception of patterns, led to the formalization of myths into religions, which may have … Continue reading →

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The Incoherency of Religious Rationales

Posted on Saturday 20 July 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s generally considered impolite to point out the irrationality and incoherency of religious faith, but sometimes the examples are so blatant, you wonder if they aren’t signs of some mental disorder. Like those cases where brain damage causes one side … Continue reading →

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A Table of Moral Polarities, Initial Take

Posted on Saturday 11 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve been making notes over the past month for a table of moral polarities, in order to align and summarize some of the concepts and the many news examples I’ve compiled lately. Recall how I’ve mentioned that certain attitudes, especially … Continue reading →

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Two Thought-Provoking Pieces, and Notes about the Fringe

Posted on Wednesday 6 March 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Adam Frank on science and the need to account for human experience; How “entropy bagels” and other complex structures emerge from simple rules; Headlines about the fringe: that North Carolina GOP nominee; how Trump is degenerating; his empty pseudo-religion; his … Continue reading →

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Progress in 2023

Posted on Sunday 31 December 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

For this last post of the year, I’ll link several year-end pieces about progress in the world, where most people see only continued doom. (I’ll do a separate post, about progress against my goals in my own life, soon.) NY … Continue reading →

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Sources of Meaning

Posted on Thursday 21 December 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

How the Catholic League finds meaning at Christmas only in its own teachings, while presuming everyone else must be miserable; How Republicans have found tribal meaning in Christian Nationalism; How Republicans search for voter fraud only among populations who would … Continue reading →

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I Don’t Know. Not Everything has Meaning. And Nihilism. Not What You Think.

Posted on Monday 27 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Essay by Anne Lamott about what she’s learned at age 69; NYT’s Brad Stulberg about traumatic experiences and finding, or not, new meaning; A summary of my recent thinking about the narrative bias, metaphor, and “meaning”; Considering what “nihilism” is … Continue reading →

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How “Meaning” is just another example of the Narrative Bias

Posted on Saturday 28 October 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Three pieces from Big Think. How history is told by story-tellers, and cannot be taken literally; How philosophy advances science by asking forbidden questions; How questions about the “meaning of life” reveal the narrative bias. —— Three sciency links, all … Continue reading →

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