A Fanciful Guide to Naturalism

By Gary Williams

Consider a reality stripped bare of all supernatural phenomena.
A Universe of physical completeness, in which universality is in all things and boundaries are seen as illusory. In which being is open-ended, and shared with non-being.
Where all life-forms are those parts of the Universe perceiving itself.
From forty perspectives explore aspects of Naturalism, a world-view which offers a a secular basis for finding meaning in the nature of things.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Williams
• Release date: May 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310159176

Gary Williams

“Michael Bublé isn’t the only person keeping the Sinatra Flame alive,” so said the London Times of Gary Williams, star of the West End’s “Rat Pack” and soloist with leading big bands and concert orchestras including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Melbourne Symphony, the BBC Big Band, Ireland’s RTE and the Lahti Sinfonia Finland. Other work includes performing for The Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace, ‘That’s Entertainment’ a tribute to the MGM musicals with the John Wilson Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, performing at Sinatra’s Palm Springs home for the LA Jazz Institute, Radio 2 with the BBC Concert Orchestra, ‘Winter Wonderland’ at the Royal Albert Hall, ‘A Swingin’ Session’ with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra in Los Angeles, ‘Big Band Wonderland’ and 'Sinatra Jukebox' at Ronnie Scott’s, ‘The Legend of Sinatra’ (UK tour), a tribute to the music of Fred Astaire presented by his daughter Ava, BBC Pebble Mill, Gloria Hunniford’s ‘Open House’ (with Donny Osmond and Burt Bacharach), the soundtrack for the Warner Bros’ motion picture ‘Mrs Ratcliffe’s Revolution’ and BBC1’s ‘Doctor Who Christmas Special’. As a headline act on the world’s luxury cruise liners he has visited over 60 countries. His three acclaimed Abbey Road studio albums prompted Oscar winning lyricist Don Black to say “In a world of Pop Idol mediocrity Gary Williams shines like a dazzling beacon.” He is the author of Cabaret Secrets: 'How to create your own show, travel the world and get paid to do what you love', described by David Ackert as, “a career GPS for cabaret performers.”

Book preview

A Fanciful Guide to Naturalism

by Gary Williams

Published by Ripple Press, Sydney at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Gary Williams

For permission to reprint material from this book please email to: [e-mail]

To Richard Dawkins

for applying his erudition to the betterment of society

Table of Contents

The Universe’s Mind

Being Here

Fundamentals

The Decorative Mantle Clock

Small Planets

Darwin’s Tail

After Thought

The Clear Clock Face

The Reassuring Illusion

The Lizard’s Scales

Cloudpoint

They Say

Soak It Up

Starchild

The Theory of Relativity

I Sit

From This Perspective

And the Other One Said

A Trip to the Cemetery

Journeying on the Plain

The Swallow

The Reef

I’ll Be Around

Hello!

Tell Me

Time’s Keeper

Honouring the Unborn

Skyward

Limits of the Known

The Dead Birds

Quiet Please! Master at Work

My Swimming Life

Absence of Light

Summer Day at Noon

Just a Note to Say

Encountering the Void

Flux

Slanted Sunlight

My Universe Jeoffry

Consequentially Speaking

Prologue

Herein the Universe is perceived as entirely physical and the poems portray reality in this way, sometimes playfully or in a mildly humorous way. Some of the representations of the nature of the Universe may indeed be fanciful, but that is how I feel it can best be rendered in poetic terms - certainly it is poetry rather than physics. It is likely that the real nature of the Universe, to be revealed when the human brain unlocks it (and rapid progress is being made) will prove to be more bizarre than any invented account. Bear in mind that some eminent astro-physicists postulate that the entire Universe is a hologram projected from outside - including you, so where does that leave free will? That conception, seriously put, is stranger than anything