The Three Illusions · The writing
Writing, questions and dialogues from the Three Illusions archive.
51 essays
I am grateful to Árni Sigurðsson for introducing me to the conversations between Romain Rolland and Sigmund Freud. Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915. He was also strongly influenced…
I was wondering today about the connection between the words "happy" and "happen". It turns out that both derive from the old Norse word "happ" which means "good luck, chance". A few hundred years ago, the word "happy" was used…
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." - John Lennon, I Am The Walrus. When discussing the nature of what each and everyone of us is - i.e. the undivided, eternal,…
I'm currently reading Stephen Hawking's most recent book (co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow) "The Grand Design" and was pleased to find the following paragraphs about free will. “Do people have free will? If we have free will, where in the evolutionary…
My mum is visiting from Bundaberg today and we got talking about philosophy this morning over coffee (as you do). I mentioned that the universe is eternal and infinite (because it incorporates all of space and time) and she pointed…
The latest edition of New Scientist has a fascinating article titled "Quantum shadows: The mystery of matter deepens" by Anil Ananthaswamy (requires free registration to read). It discusses recent experiments conducted to try (yet again) to determine why photons sometimes…
Chrissy and I were sitting around a campfire near Noosa last night, talking about dreams. Most people have no problem with the idea that the world that exists inside their dreams, including themselves, their friends, family, inanimate objects, etc, are…
Inspired by a question from James Bryden, this video is about cognitive dissonance.
Answering questions about free will from the Facebook group.
A short video (about 10 minutes) talking about what life is like after the realisation that we are nothing but atoms. If you have ideas for subjects or questions for future videos, let me know in the comments section.