Imagine two geological maps of your zip code, one made a thousand years ago and one made today. Chances are they would be nearly identical. Now imagine two road maps of the same area, one from 1965 and one from today. Could you find your way around? Probably. Finally, imagine two maps of your zip code, charting house color, one from 1987 and one from today. Would you recognize your own street?
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Of Mappaemundi, Myth and the Material World
When it comes to maps and reality, there is simply too much to get in. But maps can perhaps succeed in suggesting what is important. What is important about a place — its topography, history, global position or even mythical value?
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The Eccentricities of an Evolving Odd-Toed Ungulate
“Odd-toed”? Horses have hooves; why not say “single-toed” instead of “odd-toed”? Turns out, depending on who you ask, horses may have three or even five toes on each limb.
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Of Travelers and Itinera: From Jerusalem to Japan
When it comes to maps and reality, there is simply too much to get in. But maps can perhaps succeed in suggesting what is important. What is important about a place — its topography, history, global position or even mythical value?
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Zombies on Your Mind?
Just what is consciousness and how does it work? What does it mean that I am aware? That I am aware of myself? Does it arise entirely from the brain? Is it a function of a soul? Are other animals conscious? How would we know? Does individual consciousness survive beyond death? And what about ... zombies?
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Hammurabi the Humane
While the ancient world was a world that may very well have been more violent than ours, the law codes of even the most ancient peoples (flawed though those laws were and as ours are) echo through the ages with a basic, humane instinct for justice, mercy and peace.
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Drawing or Color, Part IV: The Philosophers Weigh In
Over the past several months, Veritas Journal has featured several quick takes on the long-running debate between line and color in the history of western art. Imagine for a moment if we could transpose this debate into another key ... What might modern philosophers have to say on the question?
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The Infinite Coast
According to the U.S. state department the coastlines of Washington, Oregon and California together measure 2,131 km. This would seem to settle things. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (N.O.A.A.) says that number should be 3,288 km. Has at least one of these agencies measured ... poorly?
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Public Domain 2020
Gutsy piano students everywhere can now legally photocopy Chopin’s Préludes as they sweat over its tangled passages.
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Drawing or Color, Part III: The Neoclassicists vs. The Romantics
Ingres considered bright colors “anti-historic” and warned his students against them. “Better to fall into gray,” he said, “than into bright colors.” Color, as Delacroix saw it, was essential to painting. “Remember,” he urged in his journal, “the enemy of all painting is gray.”
