02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
The Anthropic Principle
As an example of the power of the Anthropic Principle, consider the number of directions in space. It is a matter of common experience that we live in three-dimensional space. That is to say, we can represent the position of a point in space by three numbers. For example, latitude. longitude and height above sea level. But why is space three-dimensional? Why isn't it two, or four, or some other number of dimensions, hke in science fiction? In fact, in M-theory space has ten dimensions (as wel...Folksonomies: anthropic principle
Folksonomies: anthropic principle
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notes12 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
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notes09 NOV 2015 by ideonexus
Exercises for Emotional Maturity in Children
Let's focus on the skill of expanding sensitivity. Increased attention to music, nature, and animals can increase sensitivity. Once you identify these outlets, set up a series of exercises that use these focal points to draw out sensitivity. For example:
Listening: Listen to a piece of beautiful music for 10 minutes. Close your eyes and let the notes guide your mind.
Focusing: Choose an animal (even an ant) and follow it for 10 minutes; watch it with full attention.
Relaxing: Sit quietly for...
1 13 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
Humans are Terrifying
More seriously, humans do have a number of advantages even among Terrestrial life. Our endurance, shock resistance, and ability to recover from injury is absurdly high compared to almost any other animal. We often use the phrase “healthy as a horse” to connote heartiness - but compared to a human, a horse is as fragile as spun glass. There’s mounting evidence that our primitive ancestors would hunt large prey simply by following it at a walking pace, without sleep or rest, until it died...From a forum, why humans make a great monster race for other aliens to fear. Yet to find original reference yet.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Becoming More by Dying
I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I became man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? An interesting poem.
21 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Looking to the Present to Understand the Past
In using the present in order to reveal the past, we assume that the forces in the world are essentially the same through all time; for these forces are based on the very nature of matter, and could not have changed. The ocean has always had its waves, and those waves have always acted in the same manner. Running water on the land has ever had the same power of wear and transportation and mathematical value to its force. The laws of chemistry, heat, electricity, and mechanics have been the sa...Folksonomies: induction
Folksonomies: induction
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notesOceans have always had waves, streams have always worn down rocks, and other natural laws have always been the same throughout time.
14 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Devil's Definition of "Embalm"
EMBALM, v. t. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and incapable of supporting more than a meagre crew. The modern metallic burial casket is a step in the same direction, and many a dead man who ought now to be ornamenting his neighbor's lawn as a tree, or enriching his table as a bunch of radishes, i... 1 notes
notesThe act of preventing nature from recycling your parts as it should.
13 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Animals are "Other Nations"
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world old... 1 notes
notesThey are not below us or above or even our bretheren, they see and feel completely alien to us.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Arctic Tern's Migration
The difference between night and day is dramatic - so dramatic that most species of animal can thrive either in the day or in the night but not both. They usually sleep during their 'off' period. Humans and most birds sleep by night and work at the business of living during the day. Hedgehogs and jaguars and many other mammals work by night and sleep by day.
In the same way, animals have different ways f coping with the change between winter anc summer. Lots of mammals grow a thick, shaggy ... 1 notes
notesThe bird migrates back and forth from North and South poles so that it always enjoys the arctic and antarctic summers.
20 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Taxonomies are Not Arbitrary, but Factual
Mayr lived exactly 100 years, producing a stream of books and papers
up to the day of his death. Among these was his 1963 classic, Animal
Species and Evolution, the very book that made me want to study evolution.
In it Mayr recounted a striking fact. When he totaled up the names
that the natives of New Guinea’s Arfak Mountains applied to local birds,
he found that they recognized 136 different types. Western zoologists,
using traditional methods of taxonomy, recognized 137 species. In other... 1 notes
notesExample of the natives of an island having nearly the same number of classifications of birds as the taxonomists who studies the species.
