Main Topics I Will Cover On This Blog
I have started at least a dozen blog posts and articles on various subjects. Since this is a new blog that covers several topics, I figured I’d give an overview of what you can expect based on what I have been interested in for the past few decades and what I am currently researching and reading.
My main, long term reason for creating this blog was I want to write on major intellectual interests of mine. I am an artist, but since I am on the high end of the autism spectrum, I have an intellectual bent and find writing things down helps me to process my thinking better.
Here are the main topics I plan on writing on and covering:
Critical Thinking/Cognitive Biases I will continue to post on cognitive biases (see previous posts for examples). I will have a couple posts in the near future on critical thinking issues. I will first look at the traditional issues and topics in critical thinking such as logic and logical fallacies. For these, I will try to use as an example something that is important to me that will be a regular topic of future posts. This will take up the bulk of the posts. So I will use the posts on cognitive biases and critical thinking going forward also as an introduction to subjects I will cover frequently.
I will continue to post on these as they are fundamental to studying and interpreting information and subjects such as the ones below. I will post on where I think others have failed here based on my and other’s research. For example, on the well known straw man fallacy, I will use atheists’ straw man caricature of the cosmological argument, which is a pet peeve of mine (I am currently writing an article on it). For the fallacy of equivocation I will use physicists who claim the universe came from “nothing” such as Lawrence Krauss and Stephen Hawking. That’s another philosophical or philosophy of science pet peeve of mine.
Astronomy/Cosmology. I have been interested in astronomy and cosmology for the past 45 years. It was perhaps the first subject I was autistically focused on (after drawing). I will post on issues in these fields as they come up.
Extraterrestrial Life. This is a main interest of mine for 45 years or more. I will probably post a lot on various issues related to this such as galactic habitable zones, the Fermi paradox, the origin and evolution of life, exoplanets, the search for ETL, UFOs, etc. (See previous post)
Paleontology. I have also been interested in the history of life on earth and the fossil record since the early ’80s at least. This is a topic though, that I haven’t pursued with an autistic focus and haven’t studied in recent years. I have been mainly interested in the history of life in the fossil record and episodes such as the Cambrian Explosion (major interest) and various major extinction and “radiation” events. I was a fan of Steven J. Gould’s writings so that may explain my interests here. I haven’t been a big fan of traditional Darwinian accounts of the history of life as a result (sorry, Dawkins). I was more interested in Gould and Eldridge’s PE as it seemed a better fit with the fossil record. But that was based on Gould’s accounts, so I will probably revisit this.
Philosophy. I have been focusing on philosophy for the past 10 years. So there is a lot here I will post on: Metaphysics, philosophy of religion (classical theism, cosmological arguments, the PSR, etc.), philosophy of science (what are “laws of nature,” causes, and powers, etc.), Aristotelian/Thomistic/Scholastic metaphysics. Mostly issues in metaphysics and philosophy of religion and science.
Near Death Experiences. I have been reading material and watching people’s testimonies/interviews on YouTube on their near death experiences (NDEs) for the past 5-10 years. It has overlapped my studying issues in philosophy. I wish philosophers would take this issue up as it deals with many issues they are debating such as the nature of time, the “problem” of evil (unique “solutions” here not discussed in the literature), God, consciousness, mind/body issues, etc. Why not investigate people’s stories of clinically dying and leaving their bodies (sometimes with veridical details) and being in a different space/time (most say there is no “time” on the “other side”), with an expanded consciousness (360 degree vision, enhanced senses), etc.? At least as fodder for philosophical thought experiments on the nature of these issues. It has caused me to reflect philosophically on these issues and expanded my thinking while I was simultaneously reading books on the philosophy of mind, etc. I will post on this subject, interpretations of it, and it’s possible philosophical/scientific implications.
Art and Music
I am an artist, so my main website on my art is for that. I don’t plan on posting about my artwork here as a I have an art blog for that. I will post a little on art and music by others from an exploratory and intellectual perspective. I have started two posts on Minimalism in music for example. Hopefully I can expose readers to music and music genres they haven’t been exposed to they may want to check out. Expand your musical taste and interests.
Controversial Cultural Movements and Issues
In addition to the above intellectual oriented issues, I have studied or at least superficially looked at numerous issues the past few decades. Some of these have no real intellectual merit to them to warrant much attention, so I will not blog much on them. These include flat earth beliefs, young earth creationism, the new atheism and the like. The New Atheists, however I will deal with at times despite thinking of them as being on the same intellectual level as flat earth beliefs. At least when it comes to their lack of knowledge of philosophical issues and theism in particular. At least that’s mine and other’s assessment.
Other issues include conspiracy theories such as government cover-up of UFOs, QAnon, black budget and special access programs, secret space programs, etc. Political partyism (in/out groups), cancel culture, censorship, and so forth. I actually own numerous books on conspiracy and related topics. I don’t know if I’ll blog on these except as they relate to cognitive biases and critical thinking issues. Unless something of interest to me comes up.
Book Reviews
I read a lot of books on various topics listed above and more and will post book reviews. I will write up reviews of groups of books on a topic. I will also provide longer reviews of specific books I think are important or have been important to me in expanding my thinking, etc.
- The Possibility of Extraterrestrial Life
- When Prophecy Fails: The Story of a UFO Cult, Cognitive Dissonance, and Belief Perseverance