Science of the SpiritS


Galaxy

Best of the Web: Trust the Plan

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834
The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834 by J. M. W. Turner
Its nature is quite different from what you may think.

There's an inherent contradiction looming over grand theories about where we stand in the scheme of history, and what we should do about it. Whether it be Darwinian evolution, cycles of elite overproduction, Strauss-Howe's "turnings" or Spenglerian civilizational souls and destinies, this contradiction presents itself in the following popular motif: "there is this natural historical development because of some hidden law, which dooms us all to a certain outcome. However, by becoming aware of it, we can work against it and change our destiny." Lately, for example, Bret Weinstein has been a strong proponent of such a theory, in his case referring to Darwinian maladaptation to the modern world and how we need to counter it.

Postulating the existence of some sort of natural law guiding human destiny, and then advising us to break that law, presents us with an obvious problem. Either this really is a natural law, which means we cannot escape it anymore than we can breathe underwater or escape death. Or, we can escape it by an act of will — but if we can do that now, so could various people in the past at different historical junctures, which then raises the question of how much of a law this really is, or why people in the past should have had less free will than us.

Hearts

An upward spiral - how acts of kindness changes the world around you

An Upward Spiral
Political chasms, wars, oppression... it's easy to feel hopeless and helpless watching these dark forces play out. Could any of us ever really make a meaningful difference in the face of so much devastation?

Given the scale of the world's problems, it might feel like the small acts of human connection and solidarity that you do have control over are like putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds. It can feel naive to imagine that small acts could make any global difference.

As a psychologist, human connection researcher and audience member, I was inspired to hear musician Hozier offer a counterpoint at a performance this year. "The little acts of love and solidarity that we offer each other can have powerful impact ... " he told the crowd. "I believe the core of people on the whole is good - I genuinely do. I'll die on that hill."

Hearts

Q&A: Does expressing love make us feel more love?

expressing love
Love really is all around us. From the love of romantic partners and family to small acts of kindness borne of love for neighbors or even strangers, all of love falls into one of two dimensions: feeling or experiencing love from someone else and extending or expressing love towards another person. Now, researchers are beginning to understand the nature of how giving love reinforces feeling love.

Zita Oravecz, associate professor of human development and family studies and faculty co-hire in the Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, studies how people feel and express love in our daily lives, as well as how it connects to our mental health and well-being.

Oravecz started studying the quantitative dynamics of emotional experiences in daily life in 2005, beginning her focus on everyday experiences of love around 2013. She has published nearly 10 papers based on her love research, much of which is supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

Comment: More on love from Paul to the Corinthians:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers - that is, the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose; and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love I am nothing - a useless nobody.

Even if I dole out all that I have to give food to the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy; is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

It is not conceited - arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude, and does not act unbecomingly. Love does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it - pays no attention to a suffered wrong.

It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstance and it endures everything without weakening.

Love never fails - never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end. As for prophecy, it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will be superseded by truth.

For our knowledge is fragmentary and our prophecy is fragmentary.

But when the complete and perfect comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away - become antiquated, void and superseded.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.

For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim reflection of reality as in a riddle or an enigma, but then, when perfection comes, we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part; but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood by God.

And so, faith, hope, love abide; these three, but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13)



Sherlock

Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?

text pink
© Devonyu/Getty ImagesThe allure of conspiracy theories may be too powerful for some to resist.
Anyone may be susceptible, given the right circumstances.

Conspiracy theories lurk all over the internet and cover a dizzying range of topics — from the idea that the moon landings were faked to the belief that Earth is flat. Often, believers will readily dismiss any and all evidence that contradicts such claims, and suggest that witnesses or experts who dispute the ideas are simply part of the conspiracy.

As a general rule, people don't like being unable to make sense of things; we are curious, and we want to understand the world around us. In the past, science couldn't explain many of the phenomena humans encountered, and so the easiest and most efficient response to an unanswerable question was to credit an omnipotent, omniscient higher power. Science is now able to answer many of the questions that once stumped us, and while we don't always have the answers, now, more than at any point in our history, we have the capacity to accurately explain and understand all manner of phenomena.

With that in mind, why do people believe in conspiracy theories, even when there is a mountain of evidence to show that they are incorrect? Why are conspiracy theories so prevalent today — and what exactly is a conspiracy theory?

Comment: Article bias aside: The mechanics of choice matter.


Gear

The demoralizing downward spiral of algorithmic culture

digitized brain
In need of a letter certifying that I do not suffer from a disease of international concern, I headed out to my primary care practitioner last Monday.

Knowing how busy most doctor's offices are these days, I decided I'd make it easy on the staff by bringing a) a copy of the WHO's International Health Regulations (IHR) regulations on diseases of international concern b) a list of the diseases currently covered under this rubric and c) explicit instructions about the elements such a letter must include (i.e. letterhead of the practice, stamp of the practice, doctor's signature etc.).

They assured me that they were familiar with this procedure and that it would be no problem.

And when I mentioned that it would be great if they could do it in both English and Spanish, I was assured that would be no problem either as there was a Spanish-speaking provider on staff who could write it up in that language.

Life Preserver

Feeling political distress? Here are coping strategies a psychologist shares with his clients

Statue of Lib
© Unknown
I began practicing psychotherapy during the Reagan administration. Thirty years went by before distress about politics became a clinical issue for any of my clients.

I remember the moment it first happened: There was a long voicemail from a distraught woman requesting therapy for anxiety and depression in reaction to the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump. I listened twice to make sure I hadn't missed something. I hadn't. There were no other issues. This woman wanted therapy for political distress.

That was a new one for me and every therapist I knew. But now I see no sign of this clinical challenge abating.

Political polarization in the U.S. is at the highest level ever measured. Growing majorities of both Republicans and Democrats say they consider members of the other party to be unintelligent, dishonest and immoral.

What I'm calling political distress is a bipartisan mental health problem. It is based on a belief that, because the country is in the hands of bad leaders, awful things might happen. Many people experience intense fear about what the other side might do. Both Republicans and Democrats have experienced this anguish, but it peaks at different times for the two parties, depending on who won the last election.

Comment: We could utilize the coping methods above...and finish with a rousing round of 'politickles' - a 'laugh off' at the absurdity of it all.


People

Preference Falsification and Cascade

broken mirror
Tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen posted the following: "We are living through the most dramatic preference cascade of my life. Every day I am hearing the most amazing things."

What an unusual phrase, I thought, so I looked it up. It comes from a book written 30 years ago: Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification, by Duke University economist Timur Kuran.

I downloaded and read it. It's brilliant. It seems to explain everything. Maybe it explains too much. Regardless, Kuran has given us a language to describe a remarkable feature of our times.

How is it that only a few months ago, people were afraid to wear MAGA hats and then Trump, having survived multiple assassination attempts, won not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote, sweeping the House and Senate in with him?

How can it be that during this transition time, people widely assume that the president and vice president is already not Biden/Harris but Trump/Vance?

How can it be that foreign leaders are making pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago while Royals praise him as a great leader?

Fire

From Gaza to California: The flames that connect us all

Palisades fire
© California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection/Cal Fire/FLICKRThe Palisades Fire that started in the City of Los Angeles • January 2025
The fires burning in Palestine and Los Angeles today are symptoms of the same disease: a system that values conquest over conservation, profit over people, and expansion over existence.

For the last few days, I have stared at my phone watching houses, history, and memories burn. But this time, it wasn't Gaza. I was watching the Palisades burn. The hills are alive with fire, a haunting echo of another inferno raging thousands of miles away. For fifteen months, I've witnessed Gaza's land, and people, burn through screens and headlines, and now as I watch the skies over an American city fill with smoke, the distances between these catastrophes collapse into a single, searing truth: these flames speak the same language of destruction - colonialism.

The fire consuming the Palisades isn't just a California wildfire - it's a mirror reflecting a global crisis of connected catastrophes. When I close my eyes, the images blur together: hills ablaze in California, olive groves burning in Gaza and historic Palestine, horizons choked with smoke that knows no borders.

Cross

'Rosary' beats Rogan: Is faith-based media becoming mainstream?

joe rogoan rosary podcast
Podcast legend Joe Rogan's 'The Joe Rogan Experience' currently sits at #3 on Apple Podcast's Top Shows, just behind Father Mark-Mary Ames' 'The Rosary in a Year,' which fell to #2 on January 4th after three consecutive days of topping the chart.
Self-described 'country club kid' turned friar hosts the new Rosary in a Year podcast that's beating the best of them

The number one podcast in the world to start off the new year doesn't belong to Joe Rogan.

It doesn't belong to Alex Cooper, Mel Robbins, or anyone from the Kelce clan.

It belongs to Father Mark-Mary Ames of Ascension Press. Or, really, as he told Fox News Digital, it belongs to God.

In a time when Bible sales are seeing a sudden spike amid research that suggests people are unsubscribing from religiosity at large, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that The Rosary in a Year (with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR) climbed to #1 on Apple Podcasts to start off the new year — holding that spot for three consecutive days before falling to a noteworthy #2 on January 4.

Cell Phone

Why Dostoevsky is trending on TikTok

Dostoyevsky white nights tiktok graphic
© Dasha Zaitseva / gazeta.ru
How Russia's darkest writer became trendy among British teenagers

Throughout December, the internet buzzed with surprise over the sudden popularity of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella White Nights among British youth. Thanks to viral posts on TikTok, people in the UK quickly snapped up a new edition of the book. This phenomenon isn't entirely surprising; social media can turn any topic into a trend overnight. However, it's nice to think of White Nights as something special — an enduring fragment of Russian culture that can't be dismissed. And that's true.

White Nights has been adapted for film 30 times, with only five adaptations produced in Russia; the rest come from the United States, Spain, Italy, South Korea, India, and Germany. In just the past 20 years, this novella has been translated into English five times. There's something about it that calls out for regular reinterpretation and revival.