Published

4 months ago

March 9, 2026

Alice Rush

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico‑Philosophicus

I often think about this. It does seem plausible that people who speak and read different languages experience their lives in ways that may be materially different than I do my own. This seems to imply that our conversance with our language affects the way we think.

But I wonder if this is simply a frailty of the Western world. Do those who achieved Zen Buddhist enlightenment mentally pronounce each word of their thoughts, like I do my own? I doubt it.

I used to know a polyglot who told me that when she travelled, it would take her a couple of days before she started to dream in the local language. That’s food for thought, isn’t it?

The Limits of My Language

Renewable Energy

Wrong State

Published

5 hours ago

July 15, 2026

Alice Rush

Minnesota is home to intelligent, well-educated people whose approval of Trump is lower than that of toenail fungus.

If Lindell wants to lead a state, he needs to choose one at least 800 miles away. Oklahoma?

He may also want to consider that Trump is easily the most detested person in this nation.

Wrong State

Renewable Energy

The Existence of God

Published

6 hours ago

July 15, 2026

Alice Rush

I wouldn’t say that the burden of proof lies on religion. No one knows how the universe got here.

The Big Bang was an event in which there was no chaos, no “entropy,” as we say in thermodynamics. How did all this orderliness get there 13.87 billion years ago? No one knows. This is an issue in cosmology which is quite likely to outlast human civilization on this planet.

I’m an atheist for a few reasons, one of which is that saying that God created the universe doesn’t get us any closer to an understanding of the cosmos, if only because it raises the question: Who made God?

More to the point, there are hundreds of moral reasons to disbelieve in God. Each year, 9 million children will die unbaptized on this planet before their fifth birthdays. In the bible, we learn that God punishes them all with an eternity of torture in hell. To what sort of weirdo does this make sense?