08 JAN 2018 by ideonexus
Our Life is What We Pay Attention To
When our attention is lured, herded, and commandeered in such a way, our full human potential is profoundly subverted. “Our life experience,” William James once said, “will equal what we have paid attention to, whether by choice or default.” We become what we attend to — nothing more, nothing less. A steady and exclusive stream of reality TV, entertainment gossip, social media chatter, and “breaking news” about the latest celebrity scandal or Trump’s most recent tweets — all...06 APR 2015 by ideonexus
Scent on an Airless Planet
Scent seems to have all the disadvantages and none of the advantages, as a long-range sense. However, under special circumstances even a modified nose may fill the need. In a story of my own some years ago ("Uncommon Sense," Astounding Science Fiction, September 1945), I assumed an airless planet, so that molecules could diffuse in nearly straight lines. The local sense organs were basically pinhole cameras, with the retinal mosaic formed of olfactory cells. Since the beings in question were ...An species of space whale could smell over long distances, but scent would get swirled and pooled by gravity wells along the way.
02 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Embrace the Cosmic Perspective
At least once a week, if not once a day, we might each ponder what cosmic truths lie undiscovered before us, perhaps awaiting the arrival of a clever thinker, an ingenious experiment, or an innovative space mission to reveal them. We might further ponder how those discoveries may one day transform life on Earth.
Absent such curiosity, we are no different from the provincial farmer who expresses no need to venture beyond the county line, because his forty acres meet all his needs. Yet if all ...Folksonomies: purpose perspective
Folksonomies: purpose perspective
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notes15 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Kantianism is a School and Not a Culture
Critical philosophy – Kantianism and neo-Kantianism – is also a school and not a solution. The Critique of Pure Reason can be said to deal with science or philosophy only within the narrow limits of an artificial, particularised experience (confined to laboratory or academic study). Similarly, the Critique of Practical Reason can be said to deal with life only within the narrow limits of personal affairs and within the kind of disunity that is not regarded as vice; it is a moral code fo...Folksonomies: cosmism
Folksonomies: cosmism
1 notes
notesIt ignores the need for a scientific culture of all people doing collective science always.
09 SEP 2014 by ideonexus
Asimov: Rationalism VS Atheism
I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.Folksonomies: atheism rationalism
Folksonomies: atheism rationalism
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notesNeed to find the source of this.
13 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
Phased Retirement
We should establish a new concept of retirement: phased retirement or part-time
retirement. This would permit those persons who want to work and are able to do so
to phase into total retirement over a period of years. Working part time or part year
and “retired” part of the time, they could engage in new learning ventures in an
educational environment, or in travel and group discussions. Educational institutions
should take the leadership in fashioning different kinds of programs for...Folksonomies: retirement planning
Folksonomies: retirement planning
1 notes
notesImportant concept.
15 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Leo Szilard's Ten Commandments
1. Recognize the connections of things and the laws of conduct of men so that you may know what you are doing.
2. Let your acts be directed toward a worthy goal but do not ask if they will reach it; they are to be models and examples, not a means to an end.
3. Speak to all men as you do to yourself, with no concern for the effect you make, so that you do not shut them out from your world, lest in isolation the meaning of life slips out if sight and you lose the belief in the perfection of t...Deep and poetic.
21 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
1945 Warning of Bacterial Antibiotic Resistance
But I would like to sound one note of warning. Penicillin is to all intents
and purposes non-poisonous so there is no need to worry about giving an overdose and poisoning the patient. There may be a danger, though, in
underdosage. It is not difficult to make microbes resistant to penicillin in the
laboratory by exposing them to concentrations not sufficient to kill them,
and the same thing has occasionally happened in the body.
The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the... 1 notes
notesAt his Nobel lecture for discovering penicillin, Alexander Fleming warns that if you use, use enough to kill. Maiming the bacteria will make it resistant.
14 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Evangelism is Hard of Introverts
“The evangelical culture ties together faithfulness with extroversion,” McHugh explained. “The emphasis is on community, on participating in more and more programs and events, on meeting more and more people. It’s a constant tension for many introverts that they’re not living that out. And in a religious world, there’s more at stake when you feel that tension. It doesn’t feel like ‘I’m not doing as well as I’d like.’ It feels like ‘God isn’t pleased with me.’ ”
...Folksonomies: evangelism introversion
Folksonomies: evangelism introversion
1 notes
notesBecause there is so much at stake in the need for religious members to evangelize (the salvation of others), introverts feel they are failing their religious duties.
14 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Inferiority Complex Fad
But nowhere was the need to appear self-assured more apparent than in a new concept in psychology called the inferiority complex. The IC, as it became known in the popular press, was developed in the 1920s by a Viennese psychologist named Alfred Adler to describe feelings of inadequacy and their consequences. “Do you feel insecure?” inquired the cover of Adler’s best-selling book, Understanding Human Nature. “Are you fainthearted? Are you submissive?” Adler explained that all infant... 1 notes
notesAnother fashionable mental disorder from the past.
