Vīta Brevis, Wit Artefāctōrum Ætērna Podcast

In the previous episode, I provided an introduction to the fundamental questions of being, becoming and knowing, and as explained by a preeminent thinker on the topic - and of course using a certain train of logic and argument. You might say, well, ok it may be ‘logical’ but surely someone else could come up with different logic? How I can really know - or do we leave it to the so-called sages? To...

So yes, let’s start at the very heart of the matter: what is money after all? Now even though we might think we know it all too well, it could turn out to be more than what we think. On the most basic level, money is a measure of value -- strictly speaking money itself has no value . This may seem odd to us, as we’re used to thinking of money itself as having value, but the distinction will become...

Greetings one and all. Everybody loves money! Or at least, everyone needs money. Money is an essential reality in our life. Yet, the word ‘money’ can evoke strange reactions - and I want to explore this together. Allow me to introduce this new series: The Story of Money. What it is not Let’s get this out of the way first. Most emphatically, this series is NOT: * A get-rich-quick scheme * How to cr...

As described in Episode 33C , in a fractal spinoff starting with this episode, I shall be covering the achievements of the greatest minds of a forgotten golden age of innovation and intellectual achievement, and making a case for why they matter to us in the modern day, how they shaped the course of innovation and intellectual progress since their time to our own. Back in Episode 23 I traced the e...

In Episodes 43 to 45 we saw some of the foundational developments that characterize the Renaissance, or what we specifically understand to be the Italian renaissance. Now, let’s cast the net wider, and to see similar revolutionary developments emerge elsewher e. Read full article here. Article written by Ash Stuart Images, voice narration and some footnotes generated by AI Further Reading & Refere...

Ever so often arrives a titan of skill supreme and sublime Whose life and works will with achievement itself rhyme Such as may have set the stage, mayhaps even defined an age But our man, if you will, was not of an age, but for all time We’ve already seen in this mini-series, a trilogy tracing the development of the English language, such as in Episode 35 A becoming slimmer, stronger and sleeker h...

Today I’ll discuss, even explain, a very weird phenomenon that we are confronted with every single day. If not justify it, I hope to partly answer a burning question underlying it. Read full article here Article written by Ash Stuart Images, voice narration and some footnotes generated by AI Further Reading & Reference * Crystal, David. (2012). Spell it out: the singular story of English spelling...

So last time we discussed what might appear to be largely a theoretical point - linear perspective, promising to give you a sort of ‘live demo’. So here we are, demo time! I also withheld the name of the guy who essentially ‘invented’ linear perspective. So this article is about him as well. Finally, as part of this, I will also extend the promise or case I made in the earlier Episode 24 . Let’s t...

Back in Episode 24 , I made a what-might-seem-bold claim about a certain method being the best tool we have to understand reality, with Episode 32 being one case in point. Today, I’ll explore another one - an altogether more visual one. But first... Read full article here Article written by Ash Stuart Voice narration and some footnotes generated by AI Further Reading & Reference * Ruggiero, Guido....

What is it that makes genius? How much of it is in the persona of an individual and how much of it comes from, what I’ve called, institutional technologies? How does it organize and amplify knowledge and skill? How does that relate to innovation? Let’s start unpacking this today. Read full article here. Article written by Ash Stuart Images, voice narration and some footnotes generated by AI Furthe...

We tend to use the words ‘invention’ and ‘innovation’ somewhat interchangeably, and we probably don’t pause to think about the difference between the two. Not only are they different, but their difference has a fundamental bearing on our journey here. Perhaps no other story demonstrates this better than that we are going to explore today. Let’s get to it. But first let’s see what... Read full arti...

On the grand march of life, there are but forces few, Like green shoots in the soil, like early morning dew. After disease and despair, after death and destruction, Nothing comes close to reviving, as the new, as the new. Welcome to the New Era! Happy New Era! That’s right, that’s not an error, not a typo. Even as this piece is scheduled to go out as my first release in the new year, it also marks...

Alright, batten down the hatches, I’m not going to lie, this one is going to be grim. This story is about the greatest natural disaster ever known to strike humanity. It’s not pleasant, so feel free to stop reading and close this right away. That said, this is an essential part of the story of human progress and thus it cannot be left untold. For all the untold misery it did unfold, it’s also a st...

Reaching the end of this phase in this series, 31-40, before begining a new era in the next ‘decade’, this decade is poised to end climactically on a couple of developments that were bloody consequential, in line with previous curtain-closers at Episode 20 and Episode 30 . Fasten your seatbelts! Read full article here. Article written by Ash Stuart Images, voice narration and some footnotes genera...

It’s been at least 40 episodes now, counting Part-B followups, in our series where I explore, as often mentioned, innovation, progress and achievement in this paradigm where I look upon both material and institutional innovations as “technology”, hence the technocentric, inspired by the original sense of the Ancient Greek tekhne, meaning skill, art. This time, I’m going to do something a bit diffe...

You might have realized reading the last few articles that they have been heavy on the question of intellectual activities and achievements, perhaps more so than in the previous decades of our treatment (until Episode 30). But we have to talk about the very medium that underpins a good part of this progress. First let’s see... Read full article here. Article written by Ash Stuart Images, voice nar...

Over the last few episodes in our story, we followed various movements and developments that worked towards the spread and sharing of knowldege, a key component in the story of innovation and progress, most notably in the synthesis of Indian, Greek and Persian knowledge by the scholars of the Islamic Golden Age in [ Episode 33 ] and then its translation into Europe via Muslim Spain in the follow-u...

In this episode, I intend to create a convergence of two different threads of previous articles. [ Episode 29 ], where I talk about the emergence of Common Law with its Anglo-Saxon origins, and the very last episode, which talks about the emergence of the English language - stronger, slimmer, sleeker, after being ‘underground’ for more than two centuries, its own wilderness years which could have...

In the previous episode towards the latter part of the Middle Ages, we uncovered a bunch of tensions and contradictions reflecting the soon-to-come transition beyond the end of the medieval period, including notably between Latin and the vernacular Italian, which all have a bearing with the progression of society and so of relevance to our story. Today, let’s explore similar trends on a topic clos...

More than 15 years ago, I wanted to write poetry, poetry as in, proper verse, like the ... ...Today I hope to take you on a journey to that fount, to the very origins of more than one type of Romance, buckle up! Read full article here. Article written by Ash Stuart Images and voice narration generated by AI Further Reading & Reference * Kirkham, Victoria & Maggi, Armando. (2009). Petrarch. A Criti...

After writing Episode 34, I realized that some of the key points I’m making there might not be sufficiently clear without going back in historical time to lay the foundations of it. Plus, in the previous released Episode, [ 33B ], we have discussed the revival of only one strand of the intellectual literature and legacy from what’s called the (European) Classical Antiquity. Let’s briefly go back t...

In the previous episode I said we were going to explore the bigger story underlying a unique case of transcultural synthesis of knowledge and the resulting innovation. That story is not over, so we have this episode as a follow-up. I trust in that episode I've... Read full article here Article written by Ash Stuart Images and voice narration generated by AI Further Reading & Reference * Dalrymple,...

In the previous episode we saw the creation of a new branch of science that's proven indispensable to much modern progress and achievement, and in the process we saw a small example of a transcultural synthesis of knowledge and the resulting innovation. Let's now dive deeper into the bigger story underlying this. But first let's... Read full article here. Article written by Ash Stuart Images and v...

In Episode 24 , Reckoning Reality's True Rules, I reiterated a claim that mathematics was the queen of the sciences. I went so far as to proclaim: Mathematics, at its most fundamental level, is a tool that not only allows us to represent reality, but with its sheer predictive power, offers us the best available means to find solutions. I'll now show you why. With real-world examples and in a way t...

In the previous episode, TecC 30 we looked at the fall of Rome. Or rather the many 'falls' of Rome. Or even, whether Rome fell at all! You might have noticed that Episode 30 is what I'm calling a 'milestone' article. Just as [Episode 20] was. Both represent a certain curtain-closing, an end of an era, if you like - one, of the Bronze Age, and the other, of the Iron Age/Classical Era, in some sense...