25 OCT 2017 by ideonexus
The Importance of Networks in the Enlightenment
Like the Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment were network-driven phenomena, yet they spread faster and farther. This reflected the importance of acquaintances in correspondence networks such as Voltaire’s and Benjamin Franklin’s, communities that might otherwise have remained subdivided into national clusters. It also reflected the way that new social organizations—notably, Freemasonry—increased the connectedness of like-minded men, despite established divisio...Folksonomies: enlightenment networks
Folksonomies: enlightenment networks
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notes
notes15 JUN 2016 by ideonexus
The Singularity of the Human Species
The singularity of the human species, 1 the study and defence of which form the plan of this work, stands out principally in the actual characteristics of what we shall call in these pages the Noosphere (or thinking envelope) of the earth. But just because, forming a true singularity (and not a simple irregularity) in evolutionary matter, humanity is born not by an accident but from the prolonged play of the forces of cosmogenesis, its roots must theoretically be recognisable (as in fact they... 1 notes
notes30 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
It is No Accident that We Inhabit a Veritable Paradise
Imagine a spaceship full of sleeping explorers, deep-frozen would-be
colonists of some distant world. Perhaps the ship is on a forlorn mission to save the species before an unstoppable comet, like the one that killed
the dinosaurs, hits the home planet. The voyagers go into the deep-freeze
soberly reckoning the odds against their spaceship's ever chancing upon
a planet friendly to life. If one in a million planets is suitable at best, and
it takes centuries to travel from each star to the nex... 1 notes
notes03 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Pavlov's Conditioning and Humans
The dog [in Pavlov's experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell. But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system. An experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of th...Folksonomies: psychology conditioning
Folksonomies: psychology conditioning
1 notes
notesHumans can be conditioned by a single experience, while the dog must have regular conditioning to continue salivating at the sound of a bell.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Be Mindful of Experience
There remains simple experience which, if taken as it comes, is called accident; if sought for, experiment. But this kind of experience is no better than a broom without its band, as the saying is — a mere groping, as of men in the dark, that feel all round them for the chance of finding their way, when they had much better wait for daylight, or light a candle, and then go. But the true method of experience, on the contrary, first lights the candle, and then by means of the candle shows the...Folksonomies: mindfulness scientific understanding
Folksonomies: mindfulness scientific understanding
1 Do not grope around in the dark, but light a candle of scientific understanding before venturing into experiences.
02 JUN 2011 by ideonexus
Where We are Born Determines Our Religion
...the accidents of birth and geography determine to a very large extent to what faith we belong. The chances are very great that if you were born in Pakistan you are a Muslim, or a Hindu if you happened to be born in India, or a Shintoist if it is Japan, and a Christian if you were born in Italy. I don't know what significant fact can be drawn from this -- perhaps that we should not succumb too easily to the temptation to exclusiveness and dogmatic claims to a monopoly of the truth of our pa...
1 Desmond Tutu makes a thoughtful point about how our parents determine our religion, which means we should not claim a monopoly on truth by our own faith, which was determined by accident.
29 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Spiritual Naturalist Definition of God
So this is my Credo. I am an atheist, if by God one means a transcendent Person who acts willfully within the creation. I am an agnostic in that I believe our knowledge of "what is" is partial and tentative-a tiny flickering flame in the overwhelming shadows of our ignorance. I am a pantheist in that I believe empirical knowledge of the sensate world is the surest revelation of whatever is worth being called divine. I am a Catholic by accident of birth.Not a personification, but a nebulous concept meant to be explored.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The Fact of Our Own Existence
The fact of our own existence is almost too surprising to bear. So is the fact that we are
surrounded by a rich ecosystem of animals that more or less closely resemble us, by plants that
resemble us a little less and on which we ultimately depend for our nourishment, and by bacteria
that resemble our remoter ancestors and to which we shall all return in decay when our time is past.
Darwin was way ahead of his time in understanding the magnitude of the problem of our existence,
as well as in t... 1 notes
notesAn eloquent rebuttal to the Anthropogenic principle.
21 APR 2011 by ideonexus
Guy Steele on Programming as Magic
I think it's not an accident that we often use the imagery of magic to describe programming. We speak of computing Wizards and we think of things happening by magic or automagically. And I think that's because being able to get a machine to do what you want is the closest thing we've got in technology to adolescent wish-fulfillment.
And if you look at the fairy tales, people want to be able to just think in their minds what they want, wave their hands, and it happens. And of course the fair...Folksonomies: computer science magic
Folksonomies: computer science magic
Programming computers provides the individual total control over a system, a kind of magic that appeals to young minds.
03 JAN 2011 by ideonexus
The Evolution of Culture
What science is, I think, may be something like this: There was on this planet an evolution of life to the stage that there were evolved animals, which are intelligent. I don't mean just human beings, but animals which play and which can learn something from experience (like cats). But at this stage each animal would have to learn from its own experience. They gradually develop, until some animal coudl learn from experience by watching, or one could show the other, or he saw what the other on...Although Feynman calls it "time-binding," this sounds very much like memetics.
