10 FEB 2018 by ideonexus
Imaginative Play Creates Ownership
Ultimately, the child as creator exercises a whole range of capacities that set the Stage for original thinking. We find the imprint of creative practice in the blending of experiences and ideas, the classifications of real and imagined things, the organization of systemic patterns and narrative sequences, the modeling of worlds, the generation of artifacts, and the synthesizing of all that is known and felt into one grand design.
The creating self "owns" the processes and products of make-... 1 
notes
notes23 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Invisible Pink Unicorn
It is common when discussing the Invisible Pink Unicorn to point out that because she is invisible, no one can prove that she does not exist (or indeed that she is not pink). This is a parody of similar theistic claims about God—that God, as creator of the universe, is not subject to its laws and thus not physically detecting him tells us nothing about his existence or lack thereof. The Invisible Pink Unicorn is an illustration which attempts to demonstrate the absurdity of citing attribute...Folksonomies: secularism
Folksonomies: secularism
1 25 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Science and Everyday Life Cannot be Separated
You frequently state, and in your letter you imply, that I have developed a completely one-sided outlook and look at everything in terms of science. Obviously my method of thought and reasoning is influenced by a scientific training – if that were not so my scientific training will have been a waste and a failure. But you look at science (or at least talk of it) as some sort of demoralizing invention of man, something apart from real life, and which must be cautiously guarded and kept separ... 1 notes
notesA good passage from Rosalind Franklin covering science and spirituality.
04 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Big Bang Does Not Preclude a Creator
Hubble's observations suggested that there was a time, called the big bang, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense. Under such conditions all the laws of science, and therefore all ability to predict the future, would break down. If there were events earlier than this time, then they could not affect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be ignored because it would have no observational consequences. One may say that time had a beginning at the big ba... 1 notes
notesBut sets limits on when it did the creating.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
The Bonds Revealed Through Taxonomy
From the most remote period in the history of the world organic beings have been found to resemble each other in descending degrees, so that they can be classed in groups under groups. This classification is not arbitrary like the grouping of the stars in constellations. The existence of groups would have been of simpler significance, if one group had been exclusively fitted to inhabit the land and another the water; one to feed on flesh, another on vegetable matter, and so on; but the case i...Darwin notes how the exercise of classification of species reveals connections to other living things.
26 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
We Have Finite Time to Spend in Life
At IndieCade in October 2011, Adam Saltsman, Canabalt's creator, discussed the notion of "time until death." All of us have a finite amount of time on earth, and any time we spend on a particular activity is time that we can't spend doing something else. This means that the time we spend gaming represents most of a game's cost of ownership, far more than any money that we spend. If that time is enjoyable (or rather, if its benefits outweigh its costs), then the game was worth our time.
Value... 1 notes
notesWhen we play games, we should play games that are fun, but also creative and challenging. Easy games are a complete waste of time, like watching TV. Hard games challenge us and make us grow.
12 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Jefferson Clearly Believes in God
This gives compleatly a gain de cause to the disciples of Ocellus, Timaeus, Spinosa, Diderot and D'Holbach. The argument which they rest on as triumphant and unanswerable is that, in every hypothesis of Cosmogony you must admit an eternal pre-existence of something; and according to the rule of sound philosophy, you are never to employ two principles to solve a difficulty when one will suffice. They say then that it is more simple to believe at once in the eternal pre-existence of the world, ...At least in this this passage, where he sees the Universe as needing a deity to keep things together. He even appeals to the idea that most people believe there is something, so there must be something. His logic is in error here, but he also lacked the scientific understanding we have today.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Dr. Frankenstein as Scientific Hubris
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the Thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful Engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handiwork, horror-st... 1 notes
notesFrom the author's introduction to her book.
20 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Research Conquers our Ignorance
Hard problems often yield before science, and though we still don’t
understand how every complex biochemical system evolved, we are
learning more every day. After all, biochemical evolution is a field in still
its infancy. If the history of science teaches us anything, it is that what
conquers our ignorance is research, not giving up and attributing our
ignorance to the miraculous work of a creator. When you hear someone
claim otherwise, just remember these words of Darwin: “Ignorance mor...Science yields answers in time, ignorance begets confidence in the present.
16 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Darwin Considers the Question of a Creator
How have all those exquisite adaptations of one part of the organization
to another part, and to the conditions of life, and of one
distinct organic being, been perfected? We see these beautiful coadaptations
most plainly in the woodpecker and missletoe; and only
a little less plainly in the humblest parasite which clings to the hairs of
a quadruped or feathers of a bird; in the structure of the beetle which
dives though the water; in the plumed seed which is wafted by the
gentlest breeze; in...
1 He sees adaptations as giving the appearance of a designer.
