The Creative Playground - Ralph Ammer
Have fun with drawing! Create yourself a creative playground we need a goal and rules. Here is why and how:| Ralph Ammer
About 2300 years ago, the great Chinese thinker Xunzi 荀⼦ wrote: “Human nature is bad“. But he wasn’t just having a bad day. The question—Are humans fundamentally good or bad?—is a major fork in the road. How you answer this question profoundly impacts your morals and how you live your life. Previous to Xunzi, another famous scholar had claimed that human nature was inherently good. Mengzi 孟子: Human nature is good The Ox Hill Mengzi had illustrated his idea with a story about...| Ralph Ammer
Should we just live in the moment? In “Matter and Memory” the French philosopher Henri Bergson claims that this is not even possible. 1. Perception is physical First of all: How do we perceive the “current moment” anyway? Bergson suggests that the whole point of perception is action. For example, when some single-cell organism touches an obstacle, it moves away. That is the whole point of perception: to move in the right direction, to find food, to not be food—to survive. Perception...| Ralph Ammer
To “animate” means to breathe life into things. In these 5 exercises we make stones come alive. Preparation To get started I suggest this simple setup for you to try at home: Ready? Let’s go! Thinking in time Stop-motion is simple: Take a picture, move the object, take the next picture, move the object, etc. Once you are done, you can play back all those images as a little movie. Tip: You can do the following exercises exactly as shown here or play around with them. Just make sure to ...| Ralph Ammer
You are awake. You think and you feel. But what is it that is doing all this thinking and feeling? We call it “consciousness” and over 100 years ago the philosopher Edmund Husserl made a bold attempt to uncover its secrets. Subjective experience is private The thing is: Consciousness is not “out there”, it is “in here“. It is personal and subjective. When I say that I like squirrels or that my foot hurts, then you will have to take my word for it. You can’t know what it is like ...| Ralph Ammer
2400 years ago Aristotle found out how to be happy. His Nicomachean Ethics is an operating manual for a good life: What is good? First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. A good knife is a knife that is good at cutting. A good eye is an eye that is good at seeing. Now, what makes a good human? To know what a human should be good at, we need to look at what is unique about humans: We have a soul that thinks and feels. So for us to live a good li...| Ralph Ammer
Have fun with drawing! Create yourself a creative playground we need a goal and rules. Here is why and how:| Ralph Ammer
6 fun and easy drawing ideas for starters! Part 1 is about controlling your hand. Part 2 is about understanding what you see.| Ralph Ammer
Infographics connect our ideas with the world. They contain pictures, schemas, symbols, and signs. This is how they work:| Ralph Ammer
Beauty leads us to truth and goodness, said Immanuel Kant. And this is how it works.| Ralph Ammer
Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" is about what we can know—and what we can't. It explains how we look and think to understand the world.| Ralph Ammer
Follow these 4 steps to draw a beautiful moment: 1. Find your interest, 2. Make a plan, 3. Relax — but stay alert, 4. Accept.| Ralph Ammer
What pen and pencil is best for sketching? Learn how the personality of pencils, pens, and brushes can influence your art and your creative growth. This is what you need to get started with drawing today.| Ralph Ammer
This is a very quick (and fun) introduction to David Hume. It explains his famous "problem of induction" and why it is important for science.| Ralph Ammer
How to have more ideas. This is how you stop staring at a blank paper and unleash your creative potential.| Ralph Ammer
