Lightbringers: A Philosophy Journal

The University of Melbourne recently hosted a public lecture "Monsters in the math: Black holes at the end of physics" by Dr Matt O'Dowd. Dr O'Dowd is an astrophysicist at City University of New York, and most famous as the writer and director of the YouTube Channel PBS Space-Time. With some 500 people in attendance, it was a fairly high-level and historical presentation, covering many of the great contributors to the subject, including Newton, the underrated Mitchell (who coined "Dark Star"), Cavendish, Eddington, Chandraseker, and concluding with Hawking radiation, which, if true, means that everything is lost, which is the ultimate end of the universe. The "monsters", such as they were, included divide by zero possibilities in Newton's universal gravity law, and the same again in the Schwarzschild metric, which occur at the Event Horizon and the Central Singularity.

The topic reminded me of another physicist whose presentation I attended over a decade ago, which included contributions to the return of a static universe. Expressed simply, the idea is that gravity will pull nearby galaxies closer together, whereas those with sufficient distance and velocity will increasingly move farther apart, resulting in a universe of tightly packed galaxies (a very bright night sky) but with enormous distances between these clusters. Of course, in this case, it isn't literally a static universe; rather, the effect of accelerated cosmic expansion will erase evidence of the Big Bang, making it appear static. An obvious issue I have with this is that almost every large, mature galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its centre, and these black holes tend to be proportional to the size of the galaxy. Combined with Hawking Radiation, one is drawn to the uncomfortable conclusion that, ultimately, everything reaches a complete thermal death, in which all matter dissolves into a featureless sea of radiation.

It is inevitable after decades of living a Bohemian lifestyle that one is going to meet some colourful characters, and I don't just mean poets and artists, although they make up a fair portion of our subjects. It's the queers that I speak of, those for whom their assumed gender doesn't match their sense of self, those who are same-sex attracted, those who practise ethical non-monogamy, those who have kinks and fetishes, and, of course, the sex-workers. My political sensibilities have always advocated respecting such choices, and my personal sense has been toward a sympathetic understanding. Too often, attempts to psychologise or apply sociological explanations to such people become prescriptive, denying their individuality and agency, and sometimes are downright cruel. But one sociological fact is certain: both transgender people and sex workers are two groups that are subject to discrimination and violence, even in those societies where they have formal legal protection and equality. It is with this in mind that I'm writing two short reviews from friends of mine: "Double Exposure: Life in Two Genders" by Meredith Lee and Derek Moo, and a chapter of "Embracing Your Eros" by Sapphire Woods.

by Lev Lafayette; a presentation to the Existentialist Society, Melbourne. May 2, 2026

Transcript:
http://lightbringers.net/files/2026habermas-presentation.pdf

Transcript: "The Decline of French Philosophy" (French version)
Transcript: "The Decline of French Philosophy" (English version)

Across multiple disciplines (e.g., archeology, architecture, physics, psychology, sociology), "phenomenology" refer to the experiental and, unsurprisingly, it is a core branch of philosophy where the contributions of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Ihde are particularly notable and, in my opinion, Ricoeur's unifiction of phenonmeology with the the interpretative methods of hermeneutics ("hermeneutic phenomenology").

I give thanks to David Miller for inviting me to present here today on the topic "Stoicism, Daoism, and Apathy" and I'm glad that my audience was sufficiently bothered to attend! David, of course, is deserving of some praise organising these "philosophy of the street" lectures for many decades now, whether it is through the title of the Existentialist Society, the Atheist Society, the Agnostic Society, the Sea of Faith in Australia, and more. He has even seen fit to invite me along to speak at these events on several occasions, including on such riveting topics as "The Phenomenology of Technology", way back in 1995, but more recently "Do We Have Enough Time? A Eudaimonic Answer" in June 2024, "From Stoicism and Naturalistic Pantheism to Effective Altruism" in April 2022, "Pantheism: Beyond Atheism and Theism" in July 2021, and "The Continuum of Needs and Wants" in November 2020. There have been many others, of course, but the aforementioned presentations are part of an ongoing research and related research project, relevant to today's topic.

David has introduced me as the University Outreach Officer for the International Society for Philosophers. This association was formed in 2002 to bring professional and amateur philosophers together and claimed over two thousand members across 93 countries, along with publishing the online journal "Pathways to Philosophy", which began in 1995 hosted at Sheffield University. Whilst there is a board governing the Society's activities, I fear it has become mostly moribund since the founder and main driver for the Society, Geoffrey Klempner, died in 2022. It serves as a valuable warning for any unincorporated and loose association that heavily depends on the activities of one person.

Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to attend a few Shakespearean-related events. On Saturday, July 19, I hosted "A Midwinter Day's Awakening", replete with Shakespearean readings, people in appropriate costume (I quite enjoy the role of being the wizard Prospero), Elizabethan music, and some impressive operatic singing (thank you, Angela L). Several days later, on July 27, Justine M., Simon S., Kate R., and I ventured to the Fairfax at the Arts Centre to see Bell Shakespeare put on their performance of "Coriolanus", a marvellous take of arrogance, betrayal, and vengeance. which has been very well received, which has not been performed outside of the UK since 2000. Peter Carroll provided an especially superb peformance as the elder statesman Menenius and, as one would hope, Hazem Shammas provided a very fine Coriolanus.

Continuing on the theme, Kate and I delved into a viewing of Julie Taymor's "Titus", a violent, indulgent, and surreal piece of work with Anthony Hopkins and Alan Cumming being particularly excellent in their performance. Then, a few days later, Martin P., took me out to the Brighton Palace to see a pre-release screening of "Mr. Burton", which involves the days of Richard Burton at the start of his career and his friendship (and eventual adoption) by the teacher, director, and producer, Philip Burton. Strictly not a Shakespeare performance, it makes a multitude of direct references to The Bard, and is very notable for its emotional depth, and portrayal of poverty among the Welsh working-class. Finally, I have Luhrmann's 1996 "Romeo + Juliet" on order to re-watch, notable for its 1990s "crass, violent and superficial" setting, which juxtaposed the contemporary setting with Elizabethan dialogue. Naturally enough, I have taken the opportunity to reread "The Complete Works" (a truly dedicated person should be able to get through this in several days).

Inevitably, because it is in my character, as these events accumulated, I started to ask myself "Why Shakespeare?"

For most of the twentieth century, belief in a flat earth was in serious decline due to a lack of evidence. Today, thanks to the disruptive and often ridiculous power of the Internet, there is an amusing increase, with three common types of adherents. Those who engage with the idea as a bit of a harmless joke, those who engage in classic trolling pretending to be flat-earthers whilst secretly testing the knowledge of their interlocuter, and those who literally believe in it. Surprisingly, most "flerfers" are in the latter category, and come from a perspective of selective Biblical literalism mixed with conspiracy theories.

Whilst the evidence for an oblate spheroid Earth (quite close to a sphere, a bit squashed on the poles and bulging at the equator) is quite overwhelming, the physical problem with flat earthers invariably comes down to their astounding inability to comprehend scale. Often, they will argue, for example, that airline pilots would have to dip the nose of the plane to account for the planet's curvature, and that isn't observed. Well, matter of fact, pilots do exactly that - about 22m for every 1000m travelled. The Earth, it turns out, is quite big relative to the size of the human observer.

For most of the last two decades, I've had a "somewhat larger" physique, usually around the 100-110kgs mark. This did peak at 120kg about five years ago and, following a negative health assessment, I attacked the problem like an angry bear and shed 25kgs in six months. Unfortunately, this did not last and my weight levels crept up again.

In June 2024, following a few hedonistic months (I was in hedonistic company), I found that I had put on 10kgs in that period and weighed in at 117kgs. At that point I dedicated myself to getting myself down to what I had previously weighed. Subsequent events would change that initial commitment even further to the point where I have reached a weight (82 kgs), which is lower than I've had for rfour decades and with a better physique. I'm probably not as fast as I was in my athletic youth, however.

The following describes what I did, and includes nutritional and exercise theory I gleaned in the process. If you are interested it might be useful to you, too. I acknowledge my good fortune in life to be able-bodied and sufficiently compos mentis to have the privilege to able to undertake this change.

In the past six months, I have lost 20kg. It is true that in the few months prior to that I had put on 10kg and, already chonky, that was not healthy. For context, I was spending a lot of time with a rather fabulous woman, and various culinary and other hedonistic indulgences took the better of me. A flip-side to my driven dysthymia is that if I am feeling happy, I can become a bit lazy, at least by my standards, and that's something I have to be aware of. Anyway, I realised what was going on, so I started being a lot more attentive to exercise (weights, running, cycling) and diet (vegetables, fibre, protein), which really amped up a level in October when I decided to seriously really pull back on the drink. Since September 31st, I've had but one boozy night (hosting a cocktail party on November 1st). For what it's worth, my summary is that exercise is for fitness and musculature, and diet is for nutrition and weight control. To lose weight successfully, your total energy expenditure has to be greater than the input, and the only regimens in both fields that will succeed are those which are sustainable. This is about lifestyle changes, not short-term solutions.

In addition to this, following my Sinologist interests, I have taken up sanda at the Melbourne University Club, the Chinese equivalent of mixed-martial arts. With the caveat of operating from an absolute rank beginner (the only thing I've done close to this is a little bit of foil fencing), my instructor seems satisfied with my beginner's strikes, grapples, and escapes. However, my throws are middling, and my kicks could do with a lot of improvement; I'm pretty strong but need to work on flexibility. The club and its members are very supportive of having this almost-grey-fur in their midst. Last Saturday, my sparring partner (whom I hadn't met before) raised a quizzical eyebrow in conversation: "How old are you?" "Fifty-six" "That's the same age as my father! But you have the body of a thirty-year-old!". Those are very kind words, my friend, but you didn't see me six months ago, and I still think I need to shed another 10kg. At least, that's the plan for next year.