The history of philosophy is polluted by centuries of ersatz "explanations" that are really simple stories to be told around the campfire. For example, the sun rises and sets "because" a god is riding his flaming chariot across the sky. Nobody around the campfire asks why the god is doing this or how the storyteller know this is the case. I carried my own twisted ideas of "explanation" into my first year of University physics whereupon, after mastering the math behind Newton's theory of gravitation, I asked the instructor, But what is gravity? He said that it was not a proper task of physics to answer such questions. Physics only describes the world. Of course, this does not stop some physicists who still want to know "why" the gravitational constant is what it is, or "why" the Big Bang happened. It is obvious to anyone, that such explanations if they are ever discovered, will only lead to more questions. Most people are not terribl...

Strange Order Of Things This is a hard review to write. In my opinion, Damasio is one of the greats when it comes to figuring out the secrets of "mind". I looked forward to this book. I reserved it from the library and when that was too slow, I bought the book. Damasio's approach is original and profound Sadly this particular book is flawed in so many ways I doubt it will have the impact it deserves.  The biggest problem is the " Fog Factor ". Great stretches of this book would be virtually inaccessible to all but the most determined reader due to run-on sentences, big words and tiresome repetition. It's just abominably written. The issue is compounded by the fact that Damasio seems to lose his thread of thought to ramble on in the final chapters about the sorry state of the world. Damasio is a brilliant brain scientist. As a commentator on world affairs, he has little of interest to offer. This is particularly disappointing since his general theory comes so...