Latest Posts
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Going where the Evidence Leads
My reason for believing that a Deist, non-interventionist God created our universe, is that, while no evidence for God has been found within the universe, there are enough reasons to assume one created it. This is because: The universe is… Continue reading
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What is the shape of the universe?
What is the shape of the universe? Cosmologists aren’t sure what shape the universe is. And, while this may sound like a pointless thing to think about, it is actually a profound question that has significant implications. Continue reading
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And Still the Weeds Grow
A story about a lifetime with ADHD. My seed was not chosen from the finest organic stock, then gently scattered on a bed of finely tilled soil. No, mine was a mangy spore, spread through the root of an irksome… Continue reading
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An Elegant and Persuasive Power
Why should we believe in something that only adds an immaterial layer to the scientific view, and which takes away the profound, revelatory nature of religion? I’ve set out in earlier blog posts what my evidence is for believing there… Continue reading
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I am that I am
I am that I am. A poem by Mike Flanagan, to be read at my funeral. Continue reading
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Oaths to Yourself
Things to help you lead a more fulfilling life. Continue reading
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More is Different
The phenomena of Emergence is how incredibly complex, profound things stem from humble components and flies in the face of Reductionist science. Continue reading
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What Matters?
Is matter all there is? The prevailing scientific viewpoint leaves some big unanswered questions. Here are my answers. Materialism is a philosophical and scientific viewpoint that states that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including… Continue reading
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Explaining premonitions of future events during dreams
Much has been written about premonitions during dreams, which seem to be a recurring phenomenon throughout human history. My theory is that some people can ‘tune in’ to EMF waves emitted by temporal future events during deep sleep. Continue reading
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Is God an invention?
Are religious people deluded? Do we simply invent Gods that don’t exist in reality? Evidence shows that religious belief is actually a natural state of human consciousness. This may actually prove God’s existence, rather than disproving it. I argue that… Continue reading
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Evidence the Universe was created
A scientific summary, from an agnostic viewpoint, as to why I believe the universe was created. I’m not religious, or an atheist. I am agnostic, but I am coming to the increasing conclusion that the universe was created. My reasons… Continue reading
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Does evil exist, and if so, who or what creates it?
An agnostic’s analysis of the big question: is God evil? One of the biggest questions philosophers and theologians ask about our universe is: if there is a Creator, how could He/She possibly create a universe with such evil and suffering… Continue reading
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What is a flower?
If you want to know what a flower is, be mindful of who you ask, because this will determine the answer you get. Continue reading
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The hard problem of Paul
What is it about us that makes us, us? What is it that makes our conscious experience? Scientists and philosophers battle it out to try to define it, but in the end, we just have to sit back and enjoy… Continue reading
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What in the World…
Why do we exist? Where do we come from? Science tells us that everything is made from particles and forces, but this does not tell us why these things exist or where they come from. Continue reading
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Am I going bananas?
Alethea thought she was going mad. When she awoke that morning, she went downstairs for breakfast and her banana started talking to her! It said it wasn’t really real. It told her it was just a shadow on a cave… Continue reading
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The Great Creative in the Sky
“I often wish (God) would manifest himself a bit more. He limits himself to once in a million years if we’re lucky.’ Peter Cook ***** I’m not an atheist – I don’t disbelieve in God, but I’m not religious either.… Continue reading
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The Electric Life Orchestra
How bioelectricity shapes the whole universe and every living thing. Why is life so incredibly persistent, energetic and determined? Where does this vitality come from? What is it that makes us alive? Wherever it is encountered, life is imbued with… Continue reading
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Where do we go when we die?
Where do we go when we die? I’ve been thinking quite a lot about spirits lately, and what happens to us when we die. Unfortunately for me, the spirits are the out of body kind, not the alcoholic kind, as… Continue reading
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Remembering past lives
Reincarnation: There are many compelling cases of children who recall past lives. They are able to provide such convincing accounts and details of events that are not easy to dismiss. One such case is that of James Leininger, a young… Continue reading
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A kinder, grumpy old man
How kindness can help you lead a more fulfilled life: As I get older, I find it harder and harder to be kind. Grumpy old man’s syndrome, or irritable male syndrome, is a real phenomenon for me. I seem to… Continue reading
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My beautiful, time travelling, adventurer
A time travel short story about a soul lost to time: Priya paused before putting the sleek, black headset over her weary, hungover eyes. A sudden surge of reflux engulfed her mouth, no doubt a residue from last night’s ill-advised… Continue reading
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The kindness conundrum
How kindness can become your human superpower: Kindness is linked to improved happiness and a reduction in stress, anxiety, and feelings of isolation. There’s hard science to say it boosts mood, compassion, empathy, and self-esteem. But why are we kind?… Continue reading
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Emotions in the driving seat
Far from being a weakness, your emotions may actually be a source of strength: All of my life I have been labelled as an emotional person. “He’s moody.” “He’s a sulker.” “Cry baby.” “Whinger.” “Moaner.” Later in my life, work… Continue reading
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Microbe Series 2
Microbes 2 – pencil on paper. Another very satisfying transfer of digital drawings into traditional media. There’s something beautiful about this subject matter combined with the process of drawing. #drawing #microbes #scienceart Continue reading
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The will to live
What is the mysterious force that pervades all things and drives all of life on Earth? How knowing it can help us lead richer lives: Throughout recorded history, thinkers and natural philosophers have commented on the innate, energetic spark that… Continue reading
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What should life be like?
An analysis of life in the 21st century. What you should expect from being alive: What should life be like? What can we reasonably expect from our existence? I’m not referring to those ultra people, with extreme lifestyles, who live… Continue reading
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Draw Like a Boss
In this interview, author Ashley Edge and Paul Carney explore the purpose of drawing and learning to draw, including explicit instruction. Ashley Edge is a Lake District based artist and the author of the Draw Like a Boss series of… Continue reading
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It’s Life Jim!
How the building blocks for life may be scattered around the universe : Some scientists now believe the chances of life emerging on Earth by itself are too remote. In a very honest, refreshing, (but complex), scientific paper, Robert Endres… Continue reading
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Finding God in an age of reason
What is the evidence for a Deist Creator and how can this belief bring a sense of purpose to our lives? What evidence is there that God exists? In my opinion, the likelihood of the universe springing into existence by… Continue reading
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The Blob
An evolutionary short story that illustrates the origins of complex life forms: The blob floated mindlessly in the darkness. It had no eyes, or senses, save the ability to touch. To feel. It had no explicit conscious thoughts as such.… Continue reading
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One in a billion
The incredible unlikeliness of our existence, and why our universe should not exist at all: In the Big Bang, when the universe was formulated, there should have been a blinding flash of radiation as these opposing forces cancelled each other… Continue reading
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Welcome to the spirit world.
A ghostly short story. It had been another excellent meeting, Wendy thought, as she tidied her props away into her handbag and picked up her phone. Her back was killing her from sitting on a hard seat all night, but… Continue reading
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Reality is a load of balls
What do the world’s greatest minds say about the metaphysical nature of matter? It is easy for imaginative humans to slip into science-fiction, or non-evidence based beliefs, simply because they fit our own world view and yet the reality is… Continue reading
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Stephen Hawking: Is there a God?
What did Stephen Hawking believe about the nature of God? “One could define God as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of as God. They mean a human-like being, with… Continue reading
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Beyond Words
How do the limitations of language affect your existence?: All of our thinking is through words, all of our actions, all of our science, all of our literature, all of our history, all our technology, all our kingdoms and empires.… Continue reading
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Pure awareness is heaven
What will life after death be like?: What are your thoughts on life after death? Where do you think we go when we die? Perhaps you think you’ll live eternally in a heavenly paradise surrounded by your loved ones. Maybe… Continue reading
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How to find truth in the chaos of modern life
How do we form our beliefs? We all construct our own truth, a personal, world-view mindset that we feel is right and just, from our own experiences, thoughts, happenings and memories we collect over our lifetime. Our beliefs are shaped… Continue reading
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Has feminism destroyed the traditional family unit?
Feminism is a force for good: I heard a young US woman talking recently about how Feminism has destroyed the traditional family unit. She called herself a Trad wife, which is another new term to me, and she said that… Continue reading
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Part of something greater
Is the universe alive? If the Earth were a hydrogen atom, and I looked out from my window at the electron whizzing past in the air above, I might be tempted to think that this was all there was. After… Continue reading
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What is the purpose of our existence?
How can you find more happiness and meaning in your life? For the majority of the world’s population, God is the purpose of their existence. According to the 13th-century Italian scholar Thomas Aquinas, the ultimate goal of human existence is… Continue reading
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Loneliness of the long distance space traveler
Why you’re unlikely to ever see your loved ones again if you went into deep space. I’m a huge fan of Sci-Fi programmes such as Star Trek where they travel from star to star, trekking the universe in search of… Continue reading
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Believing in Something is better than Believing in Nothing
Why believing in implausible things can be good for you. Learned people tell us that there is nothing to this world, save that which can be observed, measured and recorded. They state quite firmly that we must savour things in… Continue reading
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Hand of God?
Is there a Divine Hands moulding and shaping your life? Many years ago I had a marine fish tank which took a lot of hard work to keep. I had to make sure it was always at the right temperature.… Continue reading
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The Spirit Within Me
How important is spirituality in your life? I define the spirit as the living essence of a person, which includes consciousness, and the bioelectrical life force within all living things. In this way, the spirit is my mind and my… Continue reading
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Beyond Words
Knowing what lies beyond the limits of language is an incredibly powerful and profound aspect of our existence. All of our thinking is through words, all of our actions, all of our science, all of our literature, all of our… Continue reading
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Valuing our Values
How can you shape your values to help you lead a better life? We live in a creative universe; an incredible cosmic web of galaxies, miraculously derived from an infinitesimally small singularity. By default, the universe produces positive things; things… Continue reading
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How to lead a good life
What are the most important things needed to live a good life?Here are five life lessons I’ve accumulated over the years. I hope they will help you become happy and healthy when you grow up. There are many more life… Continue reading
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Make your head a nice place to be
What fears have you overcome and how? Phobias have been a constant ‘associate’ of mine throughout my life. They have sometimes been so crippling that I have been unable to work and my relationships have certainly suffered. Breakdowns and traumas… Continue reading
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Get away from it all
It’s hard to be happy if you’re constantly looking inward. When we focus on ourselves too much, when we live inside our own heads, or even when our ailments occupy more of our time than they should, we suffer. It’s… Continue reading
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Chemical Queen
In the nitric town, The furnace fires have faded, And melting pigs lie cold and charred on foundry floors. Desolate towers of concrete and steel, Like tombs that betray the blackened hearts of beaten men. Trains of fire and flame… Continue reading
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The Way of Paul : updated for 2025!
How do you balance work and home life? It’s easier for me to answer this question now I’ve retired. When I was working, I can tell you I was a workaholic. I had a full-time teaching job, and I built… Continue reading
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Facts about electrons
Taken from the article What is an Electron? by Peter Ripota Continue reading
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Suspicion album
In 2010 I recorded an album of my own songs, using what was then state-of-the-art software in GarageBand and Logic Pro. Everything was either played and recorded by me, or built from samples. The vocals were done by singing into… Continue reading
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The Arthrobot Scriptures
I used AI to create some illustrations for my young adult fiction novel, the Arthrobot Scriptures which is out on Amazon. It’s a humorous adventure about an old woman who has her brain uploaded into a robotic insect and must… Continue reading
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Strict Father Model
The strict father model of government is the mainstay of the Conservative, Reform, and Republican party’s manifestos. It helps keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor, yet it is incredible how many poor people think it is ‘right’. It… Continue reading
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The fuse of time
It occurred to me that our perception of time and reality is like a burning fuse. We experience the point of ignition in unison, all of us moving along in the heat of a singular moment, burning our available energies,… Continue reading
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Truth seekers and way seekers
There’s a fundamental difference between the approach western philosophy takes to living and that practised in the east. Truth Seekers – Western philosophy and science seeks to find the ’truth’ of nature and reality. It tries to describe the basic… Continue reading
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Classroom Catastrophe’s: Silver Spoon
The thing I learned in school was that there are some people with a hell of a lot more advantage than others. For example, there are people my age now who talk about how much they loved their Crombie coat,… Continue reading
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Reality? There’s nothing to it!
What’s something most people don’t understand? Everything in the universe is made of 17 elementary particles and four forces. Those particles are incredibly small. Barely even a dot. As far as anyone knows, they are point-like, exhibiting no finite and… Continue reading
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Classroom Catastrophes: My opening line
You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence? The opening paragraph to my autobiographical book Classroom Catastrophes is: Autobiographies tend to be written by famous people who have led incredibly rich and exciting lives, so I suppose I’d better start… Continue reading
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Art and philosophy
Kenshō philosophy believes in seeing nature as it is, by aesthetic, rather than rational means. I love this quote by Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida: ‘It is the artist not the scholar, who arrives at the true nature of reality.’ We… Continue reading
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Abstractions of Microbes
A selection from a series of drawings I did based on microbiology. These are produced digitally on an iPad using an Apple Pencil in Procreate. Continue reading
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A bit of a twitch
The birds in my garden are a constant source of pleasure for me. I am lucky enough to live near a nature reserve and so get some real beauties visiting me. Here are some birds I’ve drawn or painted. I… Continue reading
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“This is another fine-tuned mess you’ve gotten me into…”
‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’ John Maynard Keynes ‘We have overwhelming evidence for cosmic purpose. Goal-directedness played some role in shaping the early universe. Professor Phillip Goff I recently outlined that I… Continue reading
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Sweating the small stuff
I made several observational drawings of microorganisms a while ago, and I tried to make them in the style of Renaissance drawings of the masters. Here are two drawings I really like. I hope you like them too! Continue reading
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Abstract Art
When I was an art student, many moons ago, I hated abstract art. Back then, I believed that art required skill to be ‘good’. I thought that art was a craft that needed to be honed and developed. Abstract artists,… Continue reading
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Crows, crows, and more damn crows
I went through a period of drawing nothing but crows for about two years. I really love them and enjoyed this drawing period immensely. The problem I had was that I just couldn’t get enough high quality images in the… Continue reading
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Digitally hand-made crafts
Digital art gets a bad rap from some people. I’m regularly told I can’t enter my art for competitions or excluded from exhibiting because it has been produced digitally. I certainly don’t get the same social media validation as other… Continue reading
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Wise advice
I really love this quote from Plato, written nearly 2,400 years ago. It’s still resonates with me now and I think it’s good for younger people to bear in mind. Us oldies are here to help and guide. (The illustration… Continue reading
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Anatomical Self-Portraits
Here are a few anatomical self-portraits I did in 2022. I find it incredible that all of this is stuffed inside our heads! Continue reading
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Anatomical art
I produced these drawings during lockdown from medical atlases. I have a long obsession with the human body and its many intricacies. I hope you like them. Don’t forget to hit subscribe and like! If any medical students want to… Continue reading
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Everyone is Better than Me
I think this is a common thought among artists. We all doubt ourselves at times don’t we? It’s so easy for me to get caught up in negative thinking. I am diagnosed as OCD ADHD anxiety and depression. Apart from… Continue reading
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Four types of play that help us be more creative
Play is a profound way to learn and is inherent to our species. We can formulate play activities, engineer them in ways that facilitate particular experiences. In other words, we can teach it. #creativitycanbetaught 1. Conceptual Blending Combine or juxtapose… Continue reading
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AI – the artists friend, not foe
A while ago now, I wrote a post called Art is dead, long live AI. In it, I spelled out how AI works creatively, and gave some practical ways in which we can teach AI skills in art rooms in… Continue reading
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My Art
A huge reason why I chose to retire from education was my burning ambition to spend more time in my own art and creativity. I reckon I have a few years left in me yet and so I want to… Continue reading
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The Arthrobot Scriptures
My new novel is finally in the Amazon bookstore. It’s only taken me over 15 years to get it to this point! I wrote and re-wrote it several times during this period, pushed it one side, abandoned it, then picked… Continue reading
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Art Assessment
When it comes to inspection, inspectors are looking to see that a school’s assessment system supports the pupils’ journeys through the curriculum. Inspectors do not need to see quantities of data, spreadsheets, graphs and charts on how children are performing.… Continue reading
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Vision and its impact on learning
Outside-In model of seeing I’ve thought long and hard in the past about vision; how do we see and how is vision processed in the brain? Now, I’m an artist, not a biologist or scientist, but it seems natural to… Continue reading
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The Beatles’ Creative Influences
The Beatles were some of the most creative people who have graced popular culture. So, what inspired the Beatles songwriting and how might we use this to inform our own creativity? Here are some examples I recorded from Paul and… Continue reading
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Fine Motor Skills in Art
When we think of pupils making progress in art, we tend to think of pupils developing their skills or abilities in separate domains such as drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and so on. Certainly, that’s the way most school progression maps… Continue reading
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