Humberto Maturana

given much thought to the knowledge of how we know? What allows us to understand the world around us? How can we explain behavior and our cognition itself? We are always set to think that what we see, hear, experience is certainty. What we experience day-to-day is reality, and there is no other form of it. However, can I be too certain that how I see things is always how others will as well? With a little outside-of-the-box thinking, the answers to these questions lie in the basics of our existence. In the book The Tree of Knowledge, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela explain this idea of perceived reality and the theory of the cognitive thought by breaking down the concepts of biology, evolution, and the impacts structure…

James Joyce’s “Eveline”: Wrong Decisions People are faced with many decisions throughout their lives. These decisions could be important, or they could be very minor. Eveline was faced with an important decision. She had to choose between staying with family in her house and take the consequences of doing so, or she could start a new life with her charming new lover. Eveline made the decision to stay home with her family. Eveline made a terrible decision, to stay with her family and will…

“It is necessary, if you want to master her, to beat and strike her” (Machiavelli, The Prince). In this quote, Machiavelli is referring to fortuna, or luck, as a lady and the individual as the potential master. In order to achieve this status of mastery, becoming a virtuoso, one must deal roughly with luck. In essence, this means that one must be bold and strong in one’s decisions in order to succeed over fortuna. This ability is referred to as one’s virtù. Virtù is one’s intelligence and…