27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Rules are the Persistent Identity of a Game Across Cultur...
There are at least two senses in which the RULES schemas offer a "formal" way of looking at games. First, the term formal is used in the sense of "form": rules constitute the inner form or organization of games. In other words, rules are the inner, essential structures that constitute the real-world objects known as games. For example, consider two games of Go that differ in a variety of ways. They might differ in terms of:
Material: one version is played with stones on a wooden board; the o... 1 
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notes24 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Stones are Chaos
The difference between a piece of stone and an atom is that an atom is highly organised, whereas the stone is not. The atom is a pattern, and the molecule is a pattern, and the crystal is a pattem; but the stone, although it is made up of these pattems, is just a mere confusion. It's only when life appears that you begin to get organisation on a larger scale. Life takes the atoms and molecules and crystals; but, instead of making a mess of them like the stone, it combines them into new and mo...
1 Despite being made up of atoms, molecules, and crystals, which are organization.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
St. Augustine on Christian Explanations for Origins
It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, t... 1 notes
notesRemarkably insightful statement from 426 AD about how Christians look foolish when they try to apply the literal interpretation of Genesis to the natural world.
31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Stones Speak Through Geology
For a billion years the patient earth amassed documents and inscribed them with signs and pictures which lay unnoticed and unused. Today, at last, they are waking up, because man has come to rouse them. Stones have begun to speak, because an ear is there to hear them. Layers become history and, released from the enchanted sleep of eternity, life's motley, never-ending dance rises out of the black depths of the past into the light of the present.Folksonomies: geology
Folksonomies: geology
1 notes
notesThe Earth has been writing into the strata, and now humans have arisen to read it.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Herschel Sees Spirituality in Science
To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling … A mind that has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakespeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man finding
Tongues in trees — books in the running brooks
Sermons in stones — and good in everything
Where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beau...Folksonomies: philosophy naturalism
Folksonomies: philosophy naturalism
Everything in nature is interesting and significant.
09 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
Newt Gingrich is Like King David
A number of years ago, I gave a series of messages on the life of King David of old. I entitled the series, "A Portrait of a Champion." One of the messages in that series was called, "Champions Know How to Repent." Even a great champion for God such as King David messed up "royally" and had to repent ... This brings me to Newt Gingrich. While many people have, and will continue to throw stones at the former Speaker's past marriage failures, I am glad that Newt is a man who knows how to repent...
2 Twisted Logic of Scripture: His past indiscretions should be forgiven because King David was a great ruler despite sleeping with his servant's wife and having the servant murdered so he could marry her.
13 APR 2011 by ideonexus
A World made by Atomes.
SMall Atomes of themselves a World may make,As being subtle, and of every shape:And as they dance about, fit places finde,Such Formes as best agree, make every kinde.For when we build a house of Bricke, and Stone, [5]We lay them even, every one by one:And when we finde a gap that's big, or small,We seeke out Stones, to fit that place withall.For when not fit, too big, or little be,They fall away, and cannot stay we see. [10]So Atomes, as they dance, finde places fit,They there remaine,... 1 notes
notesMargaret Cavendish's 1653 poem on the nature of atoms,
