How the calendar runs our lives. The time of science in the season of love
Do we need a calendar for the season of love?
2
03, 2016
23
02, 2016
How books lengthen our lives
Umberto Eco explains how books, as our familial elders, deepen our emotional lives across generations. Valentino Bompiani once circulated a saying: “one person who reads is worth two.” It was said by a publisher probably as a clever slogan, but I think it means that writing (and in general language) lengthen one’s life. From the time when [...]
6
02, 2016
Mathematical and intuitive minds
Thus the reason why certain intuitive minds are not mathematical is that they are quite unable to apply themselves to the principles of mathematics, but the reason why mathematicians are not intuitive is that they cannot see what is in front of them: for, being accustomed to the clearcut, obvious principles of mathematics and to [...]
2
02, 2016
A Dream of Cicero
A Dream of Cicero Marbles: What’s wrong, Swan? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Swan: I have! I had a crazy dream last night I met Cicero. Marbles: You’re kidding. You’ve been reading your books too much. Swan: As little as I can, in fact, with all my teaching. I don’t have time [...]
1
02, 2016
Forgetting Cervantes in Spain (El Pais)
“All the recent Spanish governments have been contemptuous of culture, but the current one is downright aggressive towards it” - Arturo Pérez Reverte
25
01, 2016
The Two Cultures of Scientists and Non-Scientists
In fact, the separation between the scientists and non-scientists is much less bridgeable among the young than it was even thirty years ago. Thirty years ago the cultures had long ceased to speak to each other: but at least they managed a kind of frozen smile across the gulf. Now the politeness has gone, and [...]
16
01, 2016
Medicine, neurology, and Sherlock (BBC)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the doctor from Edinburgh, teaches new doctors about the mind.
7
01, 2016
Sakharov, Pushkin, and the prison camp
Pushkin brings a desire for spiritual fulfillment between prisoners and their guard.
30
12, 2015
Times old and new: “objective” creative engagement vs. “subjective” inward regression
"As long as poets express merely their puny subjective impressions, they are not worth the name; but as soon as they know how to appropriate and express the world, they are poets. For then they are inexhaustible and can be constantly new, as opposed to a subjective nature, which quickly expresses its meagre inner life [...]
16
12, 2015
Society’s True Aristocrats
Every society is based on aristocracy, because this one, the true one, is demanding with regard to itself, and without this demand every society would die. Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1954