01. Daniel C. Dennett – “From Bacteria to Bach and Back” (II) - Jan 28, 2020 8:41:45 PM

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   “Could something as intellectually sophisticated as a digital computer, for instance, ever evolve by bottom-up natural selection? This is very hard to imagine or even to take seriously, and this has inspired some thinkers to conclude that since evolution couldn’t create a computer (or a computer program to run on it), human minds must […]

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02. Daniel C. Dennett – “From Bacteria to Bach and Back” - Jan 25, 2020 5:35:27 PM

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   “Even the simplest bacterial cells have a sort of nervous system composed of chemical networks of exquisite efficiency and elegance. But how could just the right combination of membranes and do-loops ever arise in the prebiotic world? “Not in a million years!” some say. Fair enough, but then how about once in a hundred […]

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03. Thomas Asbridge – The Crusades: “The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land“ - Jan 24, 2020 10:09:58 AM

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  “Notably, Pope Urban II did not invent the term ‘crusade’. The expedition he launched at Clermont was so novel, and in some ways still so embryonic in its conception, that there was no word with which it could be described. Contemporaries generally termed this ‘crusade’ simply an iter (journey) or peregrinatio (pilgrimage). It was […]

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04. Rodney Stark – „God’s Battalions „ - Jan 15, 2020 8:08:55 PM

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“In 711 an army of seven to ten thousand Muslims from Morocco crossed the Mediterranean at its narrowest western point and landed on the coast of Spain at the foot of a mountain jutting out into the sea. Later this mountain was named after the Muslim commander, the Berber Tariq ibn-Ziyad, as the Rock of […]

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05. Culinar-literar: Amelie Nothomb – „O forma de viata” - May 19, 2019 6:10:48 PM

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   Am mâncat pâine cu miere. Mă dau în vânt după gustul mierii. Cuvântul „sincer”, care azi e atât de la modă, ei i se datorează, etimologic vorbind: „sine cera”, literal, „fără ceară”, desemna mierea purificată, de calitate – în vreme ce şarlatanul vindea un amestec jenant de miere şi ceară.

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06. Octavian Paler – Dürer, între măsură şi exces ( IV ) Melancolia - May 1, 2019 8:15:36 AM

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   De ce ne regăsim în Melancolia lui Dürer atât de mult încât vorbim mereu despre ea ? Nu putem ocoli această gravură, la fel cum nu putem uita de soarele negru a Melancoliei lui Gérard de Nerval. E una din acele opere emblematice despre care s-a spus totul şi nimic. Şi la care simţim […]

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