Disenlightenment is on its way...

EducationGuardian.co.uk | Higher | I'm not guilty - but my brain is

We still have no idea how the brain works. But neuroscientists, holding journalists in thrall, are spreading a creepy idea. "It wasn't me, it was my brain what did it."

Read on. Singer doesn't think that criminal justice should change as a result, he just wants to preach the Existentialist gospel. Men still make decisions, unaware of the structures that govern their lives, for which they cannot be held responsible.

So much for thousands of years of the pursuit of self-knowledge. Neither Plato nor Freud thought that the excavation of the soul in the name of Enlightenment would operate with the efficiency of a convenience machine. Trying to distinguish the social and biological structures in which one operates, the freedoms in which one moves, and the negotiations between the two, has been the way upon which philosophers, mystics, and psychologists all write their work.

So why are neuroscientists scared off? Perhaps because it makes their lonely work with sea-slugs look all the more special.

The New York Times > Arts > Art & Design > Avant-Green: Landscaping as a Fine Art

A gallery of gardens in Sonoma county attempts at exhibiting avant-garde landscape architecture. Can we begin to re-define a garden?

Rudyard Kipling : My Own True Ghost Story

Argument in the office this Monday afternoon: can Indians see white ghosts? Can white people see Indian ghosts? Also, Dumbarton Oaks is haunted.

It turns out that the Dak Bungalows of the Grand Trunk road are the most haunted. See this lovely Kipling tale.

The New York Times > Arts > Music > 'Götterdämmerung' in the Garden

18th century ideals revisited in EnglandThe New York Times > Arts > Music > 'Götterdämmerung' in the Garden