Category Archives: Coherence

I want to think out loud a little about certainty – how and why it arises in thinking, what function it serves, what it produces and so forth. Ultimately, I think certainty is basically a mirage, albeit a harmless one (so long as one is clear it’s a mirage). Say that I want to beContinue reading “Reflecting Uncertainly on Certainty”

Is it possible that the search of the Self or the World or the Lord is confused at the outset? That its very premise is suspect, inevitably contaminating whatever apparently proceeds or emerges from it? Say that I resolve to search for an Xlkerd. I pledge not to rest until I encounter an Xlkerd. MyContinue reading “Examining the Grounds of our Spiritual Search”

I wrote this a few weeks before Christmas and then forgot about it, but while going back through my notes the other day found it again, and liked it. So it’s out of sync with our shared calendar, but you know. Better late – or early, perhaps – than never. *** It is a clicheContinue reading “Quietly Insisting Each Day be Holy”

I have written before that in a sense there are no objects, only processes. You can look at it that way, if you like. Some processes – like the moon or the earth, say – are sufficiently stable that we can treat them as objects. But if we look closely and honestly, they are inContinue reading “On Objectification, Observers, Observation and Objects”

What works is what makes us happy, where “happy” is defined in a relational way – that is, where it is not a brief personal elevation of emotion but a solid network of entities each working to ensure the other is better off. In saying this, I am thinking of Heinz von Foerster’s observation thatContinue reading “Happiness is Relational”

How does one live an understanding? Let’s say that to understand something means that we a) are familiar with it, b) are confident in our familiarity and c) are able to extend, or contextualize, that familiarity into other domains. On this view, understanding is basically relational, and affords an overview, or meta-perception, of those elementsContinue reading “Living Understanding”