Dec 16
Our inner-life has a stronger resemblance to our direct experience than Nature’s genes have to organisms; so much so that it even spills over this presumed inner-outer divide as overt ‘playfulness’. Is this why we become easily ‘attached’ to our thoughts? (And why it’s taken me three days to write the next paragraph?) A long tradition of dharma …
Dec 13
I was at a local Green Party meeting the other day1 where we were all asked to identify ourselves and to say something about why we wanted to be involved in the upcoming election campaign. (I’m the sign delivery guy.) I tried to respond thoughtfully, which takes time as you know, but when this aging …
Nov 22
As you can see from reading other postings on this website, my understanding of population evo-ecology doesn’t allow me to see humans as having a ‘place’ within coevolving Nature, not just because of the faster-than-Nature evolution of technology but mostly because of technology’s niche-transcending capacity.1 Modern humans are not a species (hence the quotation marks …
Jun 10
In this perilous decade of transition, for both Humans and Nature, an awakening mind must not underrate the evolutionary value of a wandering and occasionally fixating mind. A human mind cannot be creative if it doesn’t wander freely, and regularly; and must even hold onto hypotheses long enough to ignite the curiosity, and ultimately the …
Feb 27
Fourteen reasons to view humankind as separate from the co-evolved Natural World: Principles of population evo-ecology to which humans do not conform 1. — genetic structures evolve only in response to a functional shift. That is, structures do not change until environmental change calls for intergenerational adaptation by Natural Selection. https://www.extremophilechoice.com/2022/06/20/young-buddha-part-1-overturning-the-mortal-conformity-of-structure-and-function/ 2. — opportunism means behavioral flexibility, but …
Nov 11
In case you’re wondering why I haven’t posted on my https://www.extremophilechoice.com/ blog lately, it’s not because I’ve lost interest in species conservation, rewilding, or looking at any other issues through the lens of Natural History. I just don’t have anything to say lately that I haven’t already said in these pages. I know most blogs …
Feb 09
“The devil of complacency is in the ignorance of detail.” This is another post that I’ve resurrected, and updated, from four years back, because it places the Extremophile Choice hypothesis in the context of the broader, and not the currently fashionable, ecological discussion. The original has earned more attention from ecological nerdom than many of my other blogposts, so …
Jan 09
I’ve updated this post from four years ago because it seems to speak in voices everybody can identify with. Jennifer Jacquet: Survivor guilt may also exist at a species level. That humans have helped bring on other species’ end times is not an easy feeling to deal with. Small farms on the tattered edges of second- …
Dec 11
I started writing this on December eighth, my brother’s birthday, but also Bodhi Day, which is taken to be Gautama’s enlightenment day in the Buddhist calendar. In Japanese, this day is called ‘Rohatsu’, and it’s celebrated at the end of a week-long Zen meditation period, or ‘Sesshin’. I’ve been practising Zen meditation for 20 years …
A blog series exploring what it means to be Human in the Natural World. (Basically, a condensed version of the book ‘Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice’.) [MANY OF THESE ENTRIES ARE ALSO TAGGED TO BE SKIPPED OVER ON A FIRST READING]
