12 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
Animism, Solipsism, Language
Animism—the belief in n an intiterior spiritual reality to all things—sounds, to late twentieth-century eaars, quite a bi bit like solipsism, which holds that t only the self exists, manifesting itself in the architecture of reality. The "reality" of cyberspace falls somewhere in betwween these two; everything has an interior nature, which generates meaning, but this interior nature is self-created; collective will creating consensual reality. Appropriaately, there is precedent for this c...Folksonomies: cyberspace language
Folksonomies: cyberspace language
1 
notes
notes10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
Adapting to Obsolescence
Jobs are lost to automation, innovation, obsolescence, the moving finger of fate. The carriage industry was devastated by the automobile, and the men who made surreys and broughams and hansoms had to learn something new; the Pullman porter union was hit hard by the advent of air travel, and the porters sent their sons to college; the newspaper business was hit hard by Craigslist. Too bad for us.
I know gifted men who were successful graphic designers until computers came along and younger pe...Folksonomies: automation
Folksonomies: automation
1 notes
notes30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
The Bible is One Long Celebration of Violence
Like the works of Homer, the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was set in the late 2nd millennium BCE but written more than five hundred years later.12 But unlike the works of Homer, the Bible is revered today by billions of people who call it the source of their moral values. The world’s bestselling publication, the Good Book has been translated into three thousand languages and has been placed in the nightstands of hotels all over the world. Orthodox Jews kiss it with their prayer shawls; witn... 1 notes
notesAlso mentions King Solomon and how his solution to carve a baby in half was horrific. The prostitutes must have known he was capable of doing it.
13 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Bayes and Richard Price on Predictions
Bayes’s much more famous work, “An Essay toward Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances,”24 was not published until after his death, when it was brought to the Royal Society’s attention in 1763 by a friend of his named Richard Price. It concerned how we formulate probabilistic beliefs about the world when we encounter new data.
Price, in framing Bayes’s essay, gives the example of a person who emerges into the world (perhaps he is Adam, or perhaps he came from Plato’s cave) ...Folksonomies: statistics predictions
Folksonomies: statistics predictions
1 notes
notesGiving the example of someone who watches the sun rise each day, increasing the probability that it will rise again the next day, but that probability never reaching 100 percent.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Anesthesia Thwarts the Will of God
It is a curious and painful fact that almost all the completely futile treatments that have been believed in during the long history of medical folly have been such as caused acute suffering to the patient. When anesthetics were discovered, pious people considered them an attempt to evade the will of God. It was pointed out, however, that when God extracted Adam's rib He put him into a deep sleep. This proved that anesthetics are all right for men; women, however, ought to suffer, because of ... 1 notes
notesBut Biblical precedent is found in the book of Genesis to allow it for men.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Mark Twain's Description of Evolution
Adam is fading out. It is on account of Darwin and that crowd. I can see that he is not going to last much longer. There's a plenty of signs. He is getting belittled to a germ—a little bit of a speck that you can't see without a microscope powerful enough to raise a gnat to the size of a church. They take that speck and breed from it: first a flea; then a fly, then a bug, then cross these and get a fish, then a raft of fishes, all kinds, then cross the whole lot and get a reptile, then work...Folksonomies: humor big history
Folksonomies: humor big history
1 notes
notesWitty.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Summary of the Scope's "Monkey Trial"
The trial itself was originally planned as a publicity stunt by the town fathers of Dayton, Termessee. Anxious to gamer attention and to provide a test case to challenge the re¬ cently passed Tennessee Butler Act, or "monkey laws" that banned the teaching of evolution, the civic leaders recruited a local high school teacher, John T Scopes, to be their guinea pig. Scopes volunteered to take time off from teaching gym to teach biology for one day so that he could test the law, although later h... 1 notes
notesAnd its significance in the Creationism VS Evolution debate.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Newton, Adam, and the Apple
When Newton saw an apple fall, he found
In that slight startle from his contemplation—
'Tis said (for I'll not answer above ground
For any sage's creed or calculation)—
A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round
In a most natural whirl, called 'gravitation';
And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,
Since Adam, with a fall, or with an apple. 
1 A poem by Lord Byron.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Better to be a Perfected Ape than Degraded Adam
As for me ... I would much rather be a perfected ape than a degraded Adam. Yes, if it is shown to me that my humble ancestors were quadrupedal animals, arboreal herbivores, brothers or cousins of those who were also the ancestors of monkeys and apes, far from blushing in shame for my species because of its genealogy and parentage, I will be proud of all that evolution has accomplished, of the continuous improvement which takes us up to the highest order, of the successive triumphs that have m... 1 notes
notesA quote from Paul Broca about being proud of our evolutionary advancement.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Byron's Don Juan and Controversy
However, on receiving an early copy of the first canto of Byron’s Don Juan in 1819, Banks was outraged. ‘I never read so Lascivious a performance. No woman here will Confess that she has read it. We hitherto considered his Lordship only as an Atheist without morals. We now must add to his respectable Qualifications that of being a Profligate.’16 Yet had Banks lived to read the tenth canto (1821), he might well have been amused by His Lordship’s nimble mockery of Newton and the story o... 1 notes
notesThe poem pokes fun at Adam in the Garden of Eden, and predicts a hopeful future through science.
