The map isn’t the territory — Re-Assembling Reality #26, by David A. Palmer and Mike Brownnutt In our essay on life, we considered vitality as a primarily individual phenomenon. But humans are social beings. We can never survive alone. One of the worst punishments ever given to humans is solitary confinement. Social life is not an…

Why biology tells us a lot about life, but not about how to live your life. — Re-Assembling Reality #25, by David A. Palmer and Mike Brownnutt In essay #24 on What is life, we compared different conceptions of life: the contemporary biological definition of life, Chinese conceptions of vitality such as qi and sheng, Aristotelian conceptions of psyche, and Biblical conceptions of khahee and zoe, among…

Bios, anima, psyche or zoe? — Re-Assembling Reality #24, by David A. Palmer and Mike Brownnutt What is the meaning of life? I’m not asking a deep question here, just a literal question: What does the word, life, mean? Can life be objectively defined? If not, can we meaningfully talk about life? And can life be…

Considering subjective realism. — Re-Assembling Reality #17d, by David A. Palmer and Mike Brownnutt In Re-Assembling Reality #17a, #17b and #17c, we have discussed three kinds of realism that always come into play in the work of both science and religion: ontological, epistemic and semantic realism. …

Where collective knowledge is generated — Re-Assembling Reality #12. In Re-Assembling Reality #4, we described religion as a domain concerned with questions about the core relationships that structure our existential engagement with the world. People who ask themselves questions, discuss them and try to find answers, are generating collective knowledge. …

And is commitment necessary? — The New Mindscape #T3–2 Some of the greatest religious figures in history are persons who seemed not to have a trace of negative energy in their hearts. They always responded to negativity with positivity, with compassion and love, or at least with detachment and neutrality. We can’t imagine Laozi getting…

Don’t let the enemy control you — The New Mindscape T3–1 I argued in Designing and Cultivating your Mindscape that the negative or positive energy that we get from our objects of consciousness comes from ourselves: we empower the objects of consciousness with our energy. As in the scenario of Jack punching you: he punched you, but…

Relational non-dualism is life and love. The New Mindscape #T1–4 The key flaw of the dominant Human Operating System (HOS) of our society — and many alternative operating systems too — is that they tend to be based on a dualism that always divides things into two. Dualistic battles between…

One foot in, and one foot out. The New Mindscape #T1–3 I said that “you need to be deprogrammed”. I’m trying to be provocative here. Obviously, it’s impossible for you to be completely deprogrammed. Our own DNA is a kind of program. That can’t be changed. And when we get…