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A word beneath the words with which i speak Oh founding unfound wisdom finding me." Malcolm Guite

"I cannot think unless I have been thought. I cannot speak unless I have been spoken. I cannot teach except as I am taught. Or break the bread except as I am broken. A mind behind the mind through which i seek. A light within the light with which I see ...

@bernardtjoy Depends if you're using the modern or older (polis/common good) meaning of the word political. If modern, definitely not. If older, many things have a political dimension (they can affect or be ordered to the common good), but not everything is political.

Is everything political?

@MrDanielBuck I agree with your point, but I don't think it negates the point the cartoon is making either.

Looks like this cartoon is making the rounds again Need I remind everyone: 1) Tests in school are not arbitrary like climbing a tree. They measure whether kids can read or do math, both very important, universal skills 2) Different people are not akin to different species

@FrPeterGruber Congratulations!

Nine years a priest today.

@Kierkegaarddd Ourselves.

The most overrated philosopher. Go.

@DoctorPerin The majority of learning disabilities are teaching disabilities.

And beneath that, just by thinking - does this actually make sense? Does it contradict basis principles of how the world works - what I see? Does it resound with the natural law? Or does it not? Am I persuaded simply by what others say? I was brought up not to be. That was it.

I think there's something very persuasive about the idea that writing helps us think. It feels like it might work. But I wrote an awful lot of things at school, countless useless words, in cursive blotty ink - and almost none of it stuck. I learned by reading, not writing.

If we haven't gotten to realism yet, I am skeptical as to how much it helps to write on bits of pieces of paper, cross out words, or use fountain pens. That's not how I did it. It might help others understand. I don't know. But if our pride won't budge, it's like drawing on sand.

@serenelyjoyful I would agree with that. For me, in order, it's Aristotle > Plato > Socrates, but they're all great.

@CoFormation impishly, I'd suggest our understanding of JC seriously shaped by long Hellenistic tradition (via Paul) and Socrates shaped pre / long H tradition

I never wanted to be a writer. I only ever wanted to help communicate truth as best I can understand it & following the best reasoned sources for it. I'd use smoke signals, comic strips, charades, memes ... anything ... if they'd work better and if I was any good at them.

@serenelyjoyful Yes, I fully agree with Jesus Christ.

@CoFormation none come close to Jesus or Socrates

@serenelyjoyful I'm not sure that's correct as a blanket statement for the most influential, but I think think there are some cases where I'd agree for the greatest. The most influential thinkers right now are those studied in modern universities (Foucault, Derrida, Hegel, Marx, etc.)

@CoFormation the greatest/most influential thinkers published nothing

너무 싫다 이런거 😖 이런게 로봇이 생각한다고 “믿게” 만드는거

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The video operates within a distinctly anthropocentric worldview: one that treats human industrial activity as the primary force shaping the planet's future, and consequently frames emissions reduction as a moral obligation rather than merely a policy choice. This is not unique to this video; it reflects the dominant logic of mainstream climate discourse, originated in IPCC scenario modeling and net-zero policy frameworks. All of these share a common assumption: that humans are both the cause of the problem and the ones uniquely capable of solving it. In this sense, what the video presents as straightforward fact-reporting is actually a constructed moral reality, where climate models become near-certain prophecies, renewable technological progress is treated as inherently redemptive, and a techno-optimist vision of civilization targeting CO₂ reduction is quietly universalized as the standard worth saving. The video follows a familiar narrative arc: traditional power plants and anthropogenic pollutants are cast as the villains, while green policies and technologies arrive as redemption. But this framing conveniently sidesteps an uncomfortable reality: green technologies are not environmentally neutral. Lithium extraction, to take the most well-known example, causes serious ecological damage to the very landscapes it claims to protect, yet remains foundational to the "green" transition the video celebrates. In this sense, the video does not resolve the underlying problem so much as displace it - substituting one set of environmental harms for another, rebranding the cause of "the crisis" rather than rethinking the applicability of the narrative that produced it. CO₂ emission and reduction is, after all, one narrative among many others when it comes to environmental restoration... and treating it as the whole story forecloses a much broader and more honest conversation about humanity's relationship with nature. youtu.be/LxgMdjyw8uw?si…

Compared with human scientists, Robin ("the first multi-agent system capable of fully automating both hypothesis generation and data analysis for experimental biology") can miss: (1) true human judgment grounded in intellectus/ratio, (2) the ability to make final, responsible decisions, (3) safeguards against over-generalizing from statistical outputs, (4) the lived unpredictability of human beings and the moral and ethical dimensions of translational work, (5) neutrality concerns around bias in categories and data, and (6) the human "heart" that grasps meaning beyond computation. What concerns me, however, is the growing likelihood that modern scientific institutions will increasingly choose to employ Robin over human scientists. nature.com/articles/s4158…

The benefits & downsides of LLMs will scale in direct proportion to our grasp of the things St. Thomas Aquinas explains best: human nature, virtue, prudence, final ends, truth & rightly ordered tools. That is what will determine which way this all goes. It could be beautiful.