Noam Chomsky’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky) book Syntactic Structures (1957) was one of the first serious attempts on the part of a linguist to construct a comprehensive theory of language which may be understood in the same sense that a chemical or biological theory is understood by experts in those fields. It proved to be a seminal work in linguistics. It is […]
Syntactic Structures Noam Chomsky Read More »
The idea of emergent properties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence) is a fascinating defence against reductionism. The notion is that genuinely novel features and patterns can arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions at a ‘lower’ level. E.g. psychology can be understood as an emergent property of neurobiological dynamics. Crucially, psychological behaviour cannot be fully understood, accounted for,
Is there such a thing as human nature? Sartre denied it with his epithet that ‘existence precedes essence’. We are free to choose what we become, he argued. Indeed, in a memorable phrase ‘we are condemned to be free’. Of the opposite opinion are thinkers like Steven Pinker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker) (Cf. The Blank Slate: The Modern
On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson Read More »
Brian Greene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Greene), one of the world’s leading string theorists, peels away layers of mystery to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions, where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself, and all matter — from the smallest quarks to the most gargantuan supernovas — is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny
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Simon Winchester (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Winchester) examines the legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa), which was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar.
Krakatoa by Simon Winchester Read More »
This book (published 2013) about nothing sounds like a plain oxymoron. However, there are fascinating possibilities in the concepts of emptiness and non-existence. Scientists have suspected for centuries that ‘nothing’ may be the key to understanding absolutely everything, from why particles have mass to the expansion of the universe – so without nothing we’d be precisely nowhere. Absolute zero (the coldest
Nothing by Jeremy Webb Read More »
Dirt, soil, — it’s everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of soil, and it’s no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern
The World Until Yesterday (2012) is a visionary new account of humanity’s past from Jared Diamond (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond), author of the international bestsellers Collapse (2005) and Guns, Germs and Steel (1997), which have sold over 1 million copies and won the Pulitzer Prize. Indeed, anything by Diamond is worth reading and this is no exception. In The World
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Cosmologists tell us that the Universe is 13.75 billion years old (roughly!). It’s not that I’m disinclined to believe this. What is staggering is the ingenuity that it must have taken to work this out. John Gribbin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gribbin) and (http://www.johngribbinbooks.com/) tells the story in this most useful book. In the 19th century astronomers, geologists and evolutionists first
