beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Ricardo on 9th April 2013

I have an ongoing preoccupation with vision – not only ours, but that of other creatures. For us vision is such a dominant and personal way through which we experience the world, that it can be surprising to learn how limited it is in comparison to that of other creatures. We have more limited perception of colour – for example – than not just birds, but also lizards, amphibians and even many fish. The retinas …

lançamento do Terceiro Deus

Ricardo on 15th April 2010

o lançamento do Terceiro Deus 4 de Maio, e a Feira do Livro em Lisboa / the launch of The Third God in Portugal and my attendance at the Lisbon Book Fair…

the intelligence trap

Ricardo on 26th September 2014

Many believe that human intelligence has escaped the gravity well of ‘animal stupidity’, and that now we roam an unlimited space of thought where everything must eventually come within our understanding. Beneath this belief lies another: that humans are set apart from other animals – an idea that may be an expression of species neuroticism, and that finds its clearest expression in many religions. This special pleading has been eroded by the discoveries of science, …

do we need a Butlerian Jihad?

Ricardo on 29th October 2015

humanity's inheritors

Increasingly I have begun to appreciate the wisdom that there may be in Frank Herbert’s Butlerian Jihad. What is the point of allowing – or, more accurately working to bring about – a way of being that is going to be disastrous for us?

House Vennel Family Tree

Ricardo on 14th April 2022

House Vennel family tree

Vennel is shown just scraping into being of blood-rank 2—only because his blood-rank 1 father managed to obtain access to a woman of blood-rank 2

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