In “The Kekulé Problem”, Cormac McCarthy asks why the unconscious communicates with ambiguous images rather than in plain language. Why, when Kekulé was perplexed by the chemical structure of benzene, did the image of an ouroboros come to mind rather than the word “ring”? The answer is straightforward. The unconscious speaks in images because it […]
Category Archives: Science
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The Renaissance polymath Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa defined occult qualities as those whose “causes lie hid, and man’s intellect cannot in any way reach and find them out.”1 Though his Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic was condemned by Catholic and Protestant authorities, it remained influential in esoteric circles. The Scientific Revolution dealt the greater […]
In 350 B.C., Aristotle wrote On the Heavens, a work in which he laid down his geocentric view of the universe. Earth was at the center, and everything else orbited around it. For roughly 1,800 years, astronomers tried to understand the motion of the stars and planets in the night sky using Aristotle’s view, and […]
Dr. Loren Eiseley, the former Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, once wrote: “…we must also observe that in one of those strange permutations of which history yields occasional rare examples, it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear, articulate fashion to the […]
Non-scientists know Erwin Schrödinger best for his curious thought experiment of “Schrödinger’s cat”. But the Austrian quantum physicist ought also to be known for Physics In Our Time, wherein he outlines a basic philosophy of science. Those dedicated to the revival of the liberal arts have special reason to consider Schrödinger’s remarks, for this world-class […]