I remember it well: 2 times 1 is 2, 2 times 2 is 4, 2 times 3 is 6, and so on.  Up to 12 times 12 is 144.

What a great way to learn.  I still know that 9 times 7 is 63, and lots of other tricky multiplications too.  Has this gone out of fashion with smart-phones?

Everywhere you look in the blogosphere people seem to be bothered by their inability to teach and their students' failure to learn, especially in higher education. 

Alison Gopnik, Professor of Psychology, writes: “children learn by exploring—by experimenting, playing, drawing inferences.”  True—undoubtedly and it sounds so liberating.  But they also learn by repeating things 10,000 times: for example that’s how they learn to stand up or play the violin. More...

We all want to know reality. But have we become too dependent on scientific knowing? 

The sad truth of science is that the best it can be is less wrong. But as we live our everyday lives, being less wrong can be not good enough. 

Don’t get me wrong: for knowing, being less wrong is wonderful—it is a great advance. But living is more than knowing. Living is loving, it’s committing, it's creating, it’s telling it how it is. It is acting without knowing.  

In modern society, we often want to know More...

I mentioned, in a recent blog, the need to formulate the dimensions of our existence.  I want to pursue this mystery about 'being human' now.

The existence of two realities is weighing on me every day in every way.  Do you remember C.P. Snow's famous Two Cultures lecture (and later book)?  That Science v Humanities debate came and went because it was targeted at UK society of 1959: over half a century ago.  In any case, the sciences are now doing fine, in the UK and everywhere.  The PR machine has been cranked up and is doing a fantastic job. 

However, there is now a conflict as to which reality is to be scientifically investigated.  It's fundamental to understanding being human, and it is emerging as a battle for pre-eminence.  I call the two realities: Psychosocial Reality and Empirical Reality. The one you bring into being by your choices, and you have the power to alter.  The other exists independently of your choices and you only have More...