This is an introduction of sorts to a blog which, if all goes well, will appear in several posts over the coming weeks.  I need to begin with a few caveats and acknowledgements:

• As no surprise to those who know me, I am not a scientist, never was one, and never claimed to be.
• I speak to this topic as a humanist and as a once-upon-a-time, wet-behind-the-ears philosopher. I taught a number of classes over the years that addressed this topic but it has been many years since I engaged students in the classroom, prior to going over to “the dark side” of academic administration.
• So why now? These reflections were stimulated, while I was looking for something else, by my literally “stumbling across” the notes for a presentation I made on a similar topic back in the mid-1980s.  So, while I am indebted to those notes for some of what will be said here, they also set up what I call “a termite in my brain” that just wouldn’t leave me alone—i.e  they kindled an urge to do some research on scientific advances during the last three decades, as well as some contemporary commentary on views of our relationship with the natural world, which resulted in my decision to work on these blog posts and maybe send that “termite” to you!
• None of that, of course, makes me an expert, nor do I claim to be one. I was surprised, however, that in spite of the advances in the sciences, much of what was true three decades ago is still relevant today.

What I will try to do is partly descriptive, partly impressionistic, and loaded throughout with my own values—they will be evident to some of you both in what I say and what I don’t say, especially to those who know more about my subject than I do!

Let me begin with something likely to be familiar:

            “Did you say ‘pig’ or ‘fig’?” said the Cat.

            “I said ‘pig’, replied Alice; and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly; you make one quite giddy!”

            “All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

            “Well, I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice, “but a grin without a cat. It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!”

Matter, the scientists once told us, is some sort of wave or vibration of energy. Not “something” waving. Just the waves themselves. Like the grin left behind by the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s  Alice in Wonderland. Modern science, like the world it describes, is as difficult to characterize as that “catless grin”. Nevertheless, from the perspective I have, and with copious comments—some optimistic, some less hopeful—from scholars and scientists far more qualified than I, we will “muddle on.”

I hope you will join the conversation and feel free to tender your own comments in agreement, in disagreement, in offering your own point of view.