Introductory Pages
GLOBAL
© COPYRIGHT ©
ALEXANDER PETER DUKES
LONDON 2024
The author asserts
all legal and moral rights under
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
to be identified as the author of this work
First Edition
Alexander Peter Dukes
is a barrister-at-law and a member of
the Inner Temple at the Inns of Court in London.
After a career primarily as a constitutional lawyer,
he is now a writer of aphorisms on many subjects.
Special thanks to Mike Watt
for all his help and encouragement
PREFACE,
APHORISMS & LAYOUT
Resulting, on the one hand,
from events, experience or observation,
and on the other, from theory or speculation,
this e-book of around 1600 original aphorisms
strives to convey ideas of varying complexity
in concise, easily accessible form.
Covering a wide diversity of subjects,
each aphorism is allocated a separate page
on an identical black background.
But depending on length of wording
and category or mood of issue,
several fonts are used in various sizes
as well as five different colours.
According to authoritative sources,
an aphorism is a short pithy statement or maxim
that defines, expresses, encapsulates or illustrates
a principle or precept. Among several features,
traditional opinion holds that an aphorism
should be self-contained – i.e. stand alone
in the articulation of its essential meaning
without being dependent on
any other piece of writing, which is exactly what
most of these aphorisms do. However, many gain
additional significance from their context.
For all of the topics covered in this book
are expressed in the form of longer or shorter
groups of roughly related aphorisms
developing the philosophy of its themes.
To reduce visual distraction
individual pages remain unnumbered.
In any case,
computers, tablets and smartphones, etc.
often indicate page number.
In contrast, to assist navigation and search,
groups of aphorisms are named, numbered
and arranged to appear under
five chapter headings which,
with largely consonant content,
are colour coded accordingly –
White – covering practical topics
such as politics and science;
Blue – focusing on psycho-emotional issues;
Red – dealing with conflict and aggression;
Purple – concentrating on religion and spirituality;
Green – featuring the natural world and evolution.
OVERALL THEME
Saving the Earth
by identifying
the kind of problems
that prevent
Saving the Earth
UNDERLYING THEME
The search for
for ultimate reality
in the debate between
religion and science
THEMES IN COLOUR SUMMARY
Exceptionally for a composition of aphorisms,
theme are developed from beginning to end
which may loosely be described as follows:
Things in the world and universe exist,
or in part happen because human beings
are emotionally or psychologically flawed,
and consequently often behave very badly,
though many hope for a better future,
not least by saving the Earth.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY APHORISMS
FIRST CHAPTER –
QUESTIONABLY (and mostly) WHITE
1. What is or isn’t what – i.e. politics
2. History
3. Leaders
4. Democracy
5. Boundaries
6. Money, age and youth
7. Racism etc.
8. Cosmology, science
and information technology, etc.
9. Concerning reality, principles
and the relationship between
science, religion and philosophy,
between the objective and subjective,
and more cosmology.
SECOND CHAPTER –
DEBATABLY (and mostly) BLUE
10. Law and love, morality, sex and libido,
family and friends
11. Conscience and Integrity
12. Consciousness and the Unconscious
13. Wisdom etc.
14. Imagination, memory, forgiveness, genes,
choice of thought and dreams, and freedom
15. Intelligence, the sexes
people and community
16. The Psyche
THIRD CHAPTER –
REGRETTABLY RED
17. War and sport
18. Extremism, totalitarianism,
love and hate
FOURTH CHAPTER –
OPTIMISTICALLY (and mostly) PURPLE
19. THE GOD OF REALITY
20. Love
21. Faith
22. Religion, Science & Reason
23. Time to believe
24. Atheism
25. Paradise and Afterlife
26. Subatomic Particles,
The Arrow of Time
and how to live forever
27. Sin
28. Religions and the Moral Instinct
29. The miraculous
30. Seeing Stars
FIFTH CHAPTER –
HOPEFULLY GREEN
But Words of Warning
31. Machine life
32. Extinction or Distinction
33. Demography, Origins
and Consciousness
34. Evolution
35. Words
36. A New Beginning
37. Survival
38. Music, Magic and Mystery
39. Divine Mind
40. Saving the Earth