Category Archives: Physics

Secular Values, and Reality as Evil

Posted on Friday 22 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Two thematic follow-ups to yesterday’s post. OnlySky, Bruce Ledewitz, 20 Aug 2025: Can people thrive in a secular society?, subtitled “Are secular values the cause of our malaise?” Yesterday’s post extended a theme on this blog concerning a range or … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, Meaning, Philosophy, Physics, Science | Comments Off on Secular Values, and Reality as Evil

Emergence, Complexity, and the Potential for Human Understanding

Posted on Sunday 16 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here are a couple scientific topics that I don’t pretend to understand, at least not in any depth. What I find fascinating is how, while the big-scale scientific conclusions have been fairly stable for several decades (as noted two weeks … Continue reading →

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Visiting the Profound

Posted on Sunday 2 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Brian Greene on understanding reality as a collection of nested stories; Recalling analogous thoughts by Sean Carroll and others; Big Think’s Ethan Siegel on the success of modern fundamental science. Perhaps today we can step back from the paranoid, delusional … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Narrative, Physics, Science | Comments Off on Visiting the Profound

Those Who Believe Things that Are Not True, and Those Who Try Not To

Posted on Tuesday 30 January 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

There’s a spectrum of people from those who settle into narratives, believing things that are not true, and those who try to escape those narratives and try to perceive the real world; Paul Krugman on how MAGA is not grounded … Continue reading →

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People Prefer a Softened Reality

Posted on Wednesday 20 December 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

A Big Think piece about over-hyped science and astronomy claims from this past year; Adam Lee on Benjamin Franklin’s “noble lie”: that people need religion in order to behave; And an Endpiece about current holiday activities. I’ve mentioned before that … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Personal history, Physics, Science | Comments Off on People Prefer a Softened Reality

Christmas Presents and Consumerism; Beauty in the Universe

Posted on Monday 11 December 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Christmas presents, consumerism, and Adam Lee’s take on minimalism; The idea of ‘beauty’ in the universe, as another component of science fiction’s “consilience”; First take on the new Peter Gabriel album. Like many people as we get older, when Christmas … Continue reading →

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Last Questions and Possible Answers, 3

Posted on Monday 20 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

This is my third post, following this one in March and this one in June, in which I consider the John Brockman book The Last Unknowns, in which he gathers deep unanswered questions about “the universe, the mind, the future … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Last Questions and Possible Answers, 3

Sapolsky’s New Book and the Idea of Free Will

Posted on Friday 20 October 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Five items about Robert M. Sapolsky and his new book, Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will. Which I haven’t read yet. ——   Robert M. Sapolsky, who published a big meaty book six years ago called Behave: The … Continue reading →

Posted in Physics, Psychology | Comments Off on Sapolsky’s New Book and the Idea of Free Will

A Crisis in Cosmology?

Posted on Saturday 2 September 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

NY Times, Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser, 2 Sep 2023: The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel This is a piece about some of the fall-out of the photos from the James Webb Space Telescope, and the … Continue reading →

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Intuitive TV and Movie Physics

Posted on Wednesday 26 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Remember this? Remind you of anything? This is the logo that would appear at the end of a Universe Pictures movie in the 1930s.

Posted in Astronomy, Physics, science fiction | Comments Off on Intuitive TV and Movie Physics