Author: H.D.

I find myself in constant awe of human creativity.  Human creativity in its ordinary form, beyond the masterpieces, the unceasing churn of fonts, gadgets, fabrics, toys and tools, gushing into existence in such voluminous torrents the mind short-circuits to infinity.   Unless you are a fanatic minimalist just have a look about your house.  If you… Continue reading This is not a Pipe and Other Instruments →

Imagine a world where we could barbecue brisket, kebabs, tavuk and langoustine to ensure adequate protein intake without reliance on industrialised agriculture and the ruin it has wrought upon the biosphere. Better still, without the moral dissonance required to justify the mass torture and mechanised slaughter of domesticated animals. There was a time these lofty… Continue reading Adults in the Room Behaving Badly →

Occam’s Razor is one of those ideas that slipped out of philosophy and wandered into popular culture, shedding its actual meaning along the way. Ironically, the very process that made it famous - simplifying it for wider distribution - also hollowed it out. It’s journey towards accessibility stripped away nuance leaving something simple, catchy, and… Continue reading What Occam’s Razor Can’t Cut →

You’ve just stumbled out of bed, slowly emerging from the dark syrup of sleep, your mind a fogged window. In the hall or kitchen stands someone who’s been awake for hours, upright, caffeinated, and burning conversational octane at a high rpm. They greet you with that buoyant, easy cheer that can only radiate from a… Continue reading Household Thermodynamics: The 2nd Law →

through the day. “Good morning.” “Good afternoon. It’s 12:16 p.m.” You know the type — that wry, pedantic smirk. Fack off. English, among other tongues, has turned noon into a change of guard, a hinge-hour demanding we adjust our greeting like a uniform. Compliance is obligatory. There’s no way out of this small tyranny. You… Continue reading The Battle of Midway →

It had been several minutes since the tug pushed us away from gate 3C and left us idling in the middle of the tarmac at Hamad International. From 6A’s porthole, the sea swayed gently at the edge of the runway, the Gulf sun making the ridges on the water and in the concrete slabs shimmer.… Continue reading Yute →

They call it a ceasefire. Officially, the agreement is titled “Implementation Steps for President Trump’s Proposal for a Comprehensive End of Gaza War.” Presented by Jared Kushner and Steven Witkoff, emissaries of a second Trump era, it bears all the confidence of a real-estate brochure masquerading as salvation. While the negotiators have been brokering a… Continue reading Apocalypse Now and Again (Intermission) →

“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” — Genesis 3 : 7 Long before Darwin described natural selection, before we mapped the brain’s hemispheres or charted consciousness in cortical diagrams, humanity dreamed. And its dreams, recorded through myth and poetry, seemed to orbit, if not converge, on the… Continue reading First Thoughts: Myths at the Dawn of Consciousness (Introduction) →

Nature: The phenomena of the physical world collectively; especially plants, animals and other features and products of the Earth itself, as opposed to humans and human creations. Oxford English Dictionary 1. At a gathering of the Eden Project in Cornwall a year ago, the foregoing definition of Nature left attendees shocked over our collective exclusion.… Continue reading The Unnatural Animal →

My son K and I watched neurosurgeon Michael Egnor’s talk at the 2025 Dallas Conference on Science & Faith. It had been suggested to me by someone with whom I was discussing my sense that we were, as a species, on the verge of a major breakthrough in understanding consciousness. In his talk Egnor argues,… Continue reading Watching Egnor with Mon Fils →