How could we ever do anything without power? Power empowers: yet we know power is a problem. Social interaction is the human condition—and it cannot possibly be improved without exercising power.

The problem is that it is now a universally recognised truism that power corrupts. Why? Read on for a taxonomic answer! But first let's explore some issues.

Recent academic research suggests that power heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies. But this sort of study actually avoids the power issue. It confuses «having power» with «exerting power».  Power in the political or social sense is not just being powerful or having authority, but using it on others. More specifically: “using it to get someone to do what they otherwise would not do”— More...

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2012 but not posted till 2025.

This life is not just physics and biology. 

It is also experiential and social. Any reduction or contempt for this meta-reality (metaphysics) prevents us studying how we are creative and ethical. When we create or make a moral choice it feels real because it is real. Being real, it has real-world effects apart from neuronal firing. Ignoring these effects is dangerous, really dangerous—just as ignoring a safe falling onto your head is dangerous. On the other hand, you can ignore your neurons entirely: there will not be the tiniest difference to what happens. 

If you have a scientific bent, as I do, then you will believe that anything that is real can and should be studied.  I call this meta-reality: psychosocial reality.

Grasping personal psychosocial reality is tricky because More...

Like all truly great philosophers, Wittgenstein had a gift for words.

  "Uttering a word", he said, "is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination."

THEE could be viewed as codifying many elements in his thinking.  There is certainly support for many taxonomic propositions that look strange on the surface e.g. the notion that at the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded. He recognized that “man has to awaken to wonder—and so perhaps do peoples. Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.”

His view that anything that can be said should be said is clearly an approach to using language that I share.  However, my taxonomic researches make it clear that this logical method is but one of 7 approaches for using language (available soon in the TOP Studio).  It suits some purposes and not others. 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...

Those who blow the trumpets for spirituality seem to be a dangerous breed.  Perhaps because we are all suckers for charisma.

I suppose it's like smoking.  Obviously unhealthy in my eyes from the day I was exposed to it as a child, it took decades till others recognized that.  Charisma is as easy to recognize as tobacco smoke.  So just see it for what it is.

Spirituality is a vital component of human functioning.  When spirituality works, it enables us to be fully human in a very ordinary, everyday sort of way: we know who we are, we are aware of what goes on around us, we contribute, we care about others, we take responsibility for ourselves, we say 'yes' to life, we realize that we are each part of something bigger and greater than ourselves, we see through flattery and shrink from corruption.  And so on and so on. 

When spirituality is cut off More...