Musings of a Middle Aged Man

Humanity's fledgling mind was sharpened on the vast plains and rough steppes in the heart of Africa, long before there was a name for the elephant-headed continent, into a finely honed instrument capable of experiencing the material side of reality. The honing experienced exponential growth once they achieved hunting and gathering prowess, giving them the leisure time necessary to turn inward....

I must start off with a caveat (or two). I have two compelling emotional biases when it comes to the ethical question of depriving animals of their liberty and putting them on display for gawkers. On the other hand, I have been an avid gawker visiting zoos for the sheer joy of seeing those magnificent beings in living flesh, blood, and mind. This, despite some of those minds being turned to mush b...

There is a hidden presupposition in this question designed to skew the answer toward either of two implied outcomes. The question seeks to elicit a binary answer of either right or wrong. This tendency in challenging questions ignores the equally possible answers of maybe or irrelevant because a false dichotomy is being imposed. That presupposition encoded is that right and wrong objectively exist...

Sound waves are mechanical vibrations that travel through a medium such as solids, liquids, or gases, carrying energy as oscillations of pressure and particle displacement. Sound waves exist in a wide range of frequencies. For humans, the audible range is 20 Hz (cycles per second) up to 20 kHz. Many animals are sensitive to other frequency ranges. Elephants are sensitive to infrasound, those vibra...

Another question seeking to impose a dichotomy where none exists. It doesn't even consider there may be a middle ground where both can be true or neither reflects a truth. It makes me wonder if the question was generated by a politician attempting to deploy a self-serving law that will line their pockets with Judas Gold mined on the breaking and broken...

The dictionary defines consciousness as the state of being aware of one's existence, feelings, and surroundings. Consciousness encompasses the totality of one's thoughts, perceptions, and sensations, both internal and external. The word is often used to mean the state of being awake, not asleep, as in the ability to regain consciousness after fainting or recovering from general anesthesia....

Equality is the state of being equal in status, rights, and opportunities. It means each individual or group of people is given the same resources and opportunities regardless of their circumstances. One pertinent example is paying the same pay for males, females, or others performing the same job. So important was equality to the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence includes the phra...

Another query designed to create a false dichotomy. A question designed not to derive a thoughtful answer that could fall easily on either side of an imaginary divide, but rather to elicit a response supporting the questioner's view by implying an answer. Psychology calls this a suggestive question, phrased in a way that presumes or encourages a particular answer, often employed in a manipulat...

Right or wrong is an entirely manmade concept that changes depending upon the spurious claims of religions and their ever-changing morality, or on a set of laws codified by government and is subject to a continually evolving understanding of the law's intent by the judiciary, themselves influenced by their religious affiliations. Ultimately, every person picks and chooses their moral foundatio...

Every parent of more than one child is acutely aware of the tear-filled cry of "That's not fair!" when one child has or gets something while the other doesn't. It can be as simple as one child being invited to a classmate's party while the sibling who is in a different class is not invited. Parents must make decisions for the child until they are old enough to pick and choose...

This question is anathema to minds honed on Western ideologies. A stinging bee exploding the fragile ego bubble of people who believe the world was built for humans and revolves around human needs. An arrogance so all-consuming that land, plants, and nonhuman animals were put upon the earth solely to satiate humanity's desires, irrespective of the impact on the natural world that, unironically...

Globalization, to be clear, is a process by which businesses and other organizations develop international influence or operate on an international scale. The world becomes more interconnected with economies, cultures, and populations linked by cross-border trade, technology, and the flow of goods, services, people, and ideas. In simple terms, it is the integration of countries and businesses acro...

Love, in its many splendored forms, has been a primary force in art, especially poetry and its close cousin, musical lyrics, for as long as both emerged from consciousness to express the desperate longings of humanity. Morrissey expressed it with his typical angst in his lyrics, " I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does." The definition of love has as many nuance...

n is phrased as a gotcha, a question that attempts to force a choice between implied extremes, similar to the way lawyers and other biased debaters try and twist words to make a point by employing a false dichotomy. Being human and spiritual are not mutually exclusive. In fact, humans require both physical and spiritual aspects to be fully human. To be spiritual is to seek meaning beyond the mater...

on both sides of the faith divide, so feel fully qualified to broach an answer to this metaphysical question. I was indoctrinated into Catholicism from the moment I could breathe, attended Parochial schooling for 12 impressionable years, finally breaking free of the mental shackles as my brain grew to think rationally. That thought freedom allowed me to see the inherent hypocrisy of those immersed...

Creativity is the ability to generate new and original ideas, solutions, or objects by making connections between different concepts. In other words, creativity is using the imagination or original ideas, especially in the realization of artistic work. Art is the expression of human creativity and imagination through various media, including painting, sculpture, music, and literature. Art requires...

By definition, to be moral is to act according to principles of right and wrong based on personal or societal standards of good behavior. Moral standards serve as a basis for people to live together in groups predicated on established guidelines of proper conduct and character. Personal moral standards are typically influenced by society, culture, and religion, but ultimately come down to what an...

Predeterminism is the belief that all future events are fixed or decided in advance by a divine plan, fate, or other force, rather than being determined by present conditions or random chance. In short, all aspects of the future are inescapable, meaning the future cannot be altered. It is the polar opposite of having free will. In human terms, everything we think, say, and do was set in stone at t...

Morality is defined as a set of principles and standards that define what is considered right or wrong, good or bad within a society, culture, or individual. It encompasses beliefs about proper conduct and character necessary to live cooperatively and make decisions based on a shared understanding of acceptable behavior. I posit morality is subjective...

ath, the, at least, 50,000-year-old question, a date based upon the earliest ritualistic burial sites, assuming they are an indicator of humans looking beyond earthly existence. Probably earlier, considering our minds tend to wrestle with ideas long before those concepts are made manifest in some tangible form. Art is a creative endeavor. The earliest known cave paintings, at 66,700 years old, are...

nism is defined, rather narrowly, as an organic entity bounded by a collection of traits, including cellular organization, the ability to grow and develop, the capacity to reproduce and metabolize, respond to stimuli, maintain a stable environment through homeostasis, and adapt to change. Anything without these characteristics is classified as non-living matter. The first problem arises when we re...

From a philosophical perspective, reality comes in two potential frameworks. Physicalism claims reality is purely physical, that everything is composed of matter and energy, and follows the laws of physics with no existence of spiritual, mental, or other non-physical realms. The other extreme, Spiritualism, claims reality is purely spiritual, with the physical world merely an illusion arising from...

I consider life to be the most sacred, check that, the only sacred artifact in the universes. I am not just referring to human life. Rather, all life in any form it manifests. My wife's pets? Sacred. The disgusting rats I see running around alley trash cans? Sacred. Trees and flowers? Insects? Bacteria? tardigrades? Sacred. Sacred. Sacred. And sacred. While I do not believe sin exists outside...

Nationalism is an ideology and movement centered on the idea that a nation should have its own independent state and govern itself within its perceived homeland. It involves strong identification with one's nation, fostering national pride, and can serve as a powerful force for unity and self-determination. I have no problem with the concept of people identifying with a nation, although dislik...

Consciousness is a complex and difficult-to-define state of awareness of one's surroundings and internal self, allowing for subjective experience, thought, and emotion. It is universally understood human experience, yet remains one of the most profound and challenging questions in science and philosophy, with no single agreed upon definition. It is a phenomenon we know from a first-person pers...