There are many reasons why humans are attracted to the idea of a spirit-filled Universe. "Theory of mind", which gives he brain a perception (not just a "theory") that other beings are conscious and act with intent just as we do. These days, we see this as a brain function that does not reflect reality, just as the illusion that things get smaller as they move away from us. Even our modern, scientifically-trained minds make us see life where there is movement. Another consequence of they way we are built is a survival strategy that involves manipulation of the environment (tool use being the most obvious aspect of it). We expect to control the world around us and we are frustrated at the limitation of our power to do so. It is easy to imagine that the world can be (or actually is) controlled by a mind and a mind can be persuaded to help us do things we can't do for ourselves. The illusion of time is strong in the human brain. We don't remember the past as ...

The original idea behind this blog (Dragon Theory) is that there is a dangerous tendency for human beings to be assimilated into machines, giving up their essentially human nature to serve the nature of the machine. By "machine", I mean a system that operates by impersonal inflexible rules, in contrast to the chaotic, creative behaviour of real human beings. We use "machine" in this way when we talk about an army as a "war machine". I still love this idea. Like all good ideas, it raises more questions than it answers. Today, I'll consider some of these questions. In some cases, the questions are more interesting than the original thesis, which is a good thing. I have always thought that progress results from asking impertinent questions rather than from the answers we discover. The theme of a recent issue of Scientific American (August, 2015) is "How we conquered the planet". Curtis W. Marean puts forward the thesis that the key to our worl...