Category Archives: Music

The Mathematics of Beauty

Posted on Tuesday 11 August 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The deep picture. Humans invoke God for things they find beautiful, without understand why they find certain things beautiful, and other things not. (Whereas God must surely be responsible for everything, including the ugly and disgusting.) The answer, rather, is … Continue reading →

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Faith Excuses Everything; Process Models Accomplish Things

Posted on Monday 10 August 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

By way of Jerry Coyne and Jason Arday, comments from Richard Dawkins about physics, natural selection, and human intuition; To JD Vance, a tumbling glass is evidence of God; Conservatives hate social responsibility, e.g. they would repeal helmet laws; A … Continue reading →

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Can People Out-Think Human Nature?

Posted on Tuesday 4 August 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Two items from Steven Pinker: One about modernism and beauty; The other about a Thomas Sowell book about human nature and human reason. – – – Yes, we’ve been doing it for some time. Two items today via Steven Pinker … Continue reading →

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Religion, Mythology, Reality

Posted on Tuesday 28 July 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Sure, teach the Bible in school, alongside Greek mythology; How Anthony Fauci was an early MAGA success at tearing things down; Heather Cox Richardson on how the Trump administration is trying to rewrite American history; Jim Palmer on religious ideas … Continue reading →

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Growing Pains

Posted on Wednesday 22 July 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Perspective on humanity’s growth into a global civilization; Perhaps religion is a kind of story-telling crucial to human evolution; How Christian support of Trump is making GenZers less like to attend church; Bernstein: Mahler 5. – – – Big picture. … Continue reading →

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Uni-context and Flattening

Posted on Tuesday 21 July 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Derek Thompson on philospher Agnes Callard’s idea of “uni-context,” which matches my notion that human thinking “flattens” different levels of understanding into a single, human-centric context; How conservatives hate “The Odyssey,” quoting Al Franken; Briefly noted: To get a Trump … Continue reading →

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The Drive to Preserve an Idealistic Past, Which Will Inevitably Fail

Posted on Saturday 18 July 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

We probably don’t realize how often conservatives are successful at rewriting the past; How the military is resistant to change; Right-wing figures resist commonsense health advice about wildfire smoke; People of faith discover that AI tells them what they want … Continue reading →

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Testosterone?

Posted on Thursday 16 July 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Pete Hegseth’s obsession with testosterone; Fallacies; My own experience with testosterone injections; The far right’s list of people they blame; How it’s selfish to think for yourself; Robert Reich’s ideas for making America affordable; Cliff Martinez’s score for George Clooney’s … Continue reading →

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“We think and dream and fuss and project entire worlds into existence”

Posted on Saturday 11 July 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

A new NYT newsletter called Gravitational Pull; Remembering Roger Williams, an early American advocate of religious liberty; And about early American philosophers Jonathan Williams and Benjamin Franklin; And revisiting Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, after 30 years; it’s still beautiful. … Continue reading →

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Are the Best Years Behind Us? No.

Posted on Monday 29 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The US is better off than 50 years ago, yet people feel worse (another version of this recurring story); Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1. – – – Yet another story on this general theme. It’s about human nature, not … Continue reading →

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