One of the reasons I wanted to write a book on the philosophy and psychology of psychedelic experiences was to defend a sceptical attitude towards these experiences. (You can find preorder links and more information about my book here.) The book’s title, Altered Perspectives, is partly related to this motive. Just as psychedelics can alter our…
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It may seem intuitive, in evolutionary terms, why we would find natural settings attractive and appealing. The biologist Edward O. Wilson argued that humans possess a trait called biophilia (fondness for nature, or an innate tendency to seek connections and affiliations with nature and other forms of life), which he argued makes sense evolutionarily. It…
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Soft animism is a term I use to refer to an acceptance of the animistic ethic, sensibility, and mode of perception but a rejection of the belief in spirits that reside in nature. Alternative terms for this position could include weak animism and naturalised animism (the latter emphasising that this is a form of animism…
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As much as psychedelics hold great promise in alleviating all kinds of psychological distress, they are not a mental health panacea, which they are sometimes touted to be. Based on positive media stories surrounding psychedelic research and anecdotal reports of people being forever cured of chronic, severe mental illnesses, it’s easy to get the impression…
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Fractal architecture refers to a type of architecture that employs fractal designs, that is, the sort of self-similar patterns that can be found throughout the natural world. Fractals are self-similar in the sense that part of the pattern resembles the whole pattern or is a copy of the whole. Fractal architecture, given its utilisation of…
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