12 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
Money Allows for Easy Conversions
Money is thus a universal medium of exchange that enables people to convert almost everything into almost anything else. Brawn gets converted to brain when a discharged soldier 1 
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notes14 MAR 2016 by ideonexus
The Scientific is Sacred Because Truth is Sacred
Why do we separate the scientific, which is just a way of searching for truth, from what we hold sacred, which are those truths that inspire love and awe? Science is nothing more than a never-ending search for truth. What could be more profoundly sacred than that? I'm sure most of what we all hold dearest and cherish most, believing at this very moment, will be revealed at some future time to be merely a product of our age and our history and our understanding of reality. So here’s this pro... 1 notes
notes29 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Encyclopedia Galactica
A. I do not say now that we can prevent the fall. But it is not yet too
late to shorten the interregnum which will follow. It is possible,
gentlemen, to reduce the duration of anarchy to a single millennium, if my
group is allowed to act now. We are at a delicate moment in history. The
huge, onrushing mass of events must be deflected just a little, – just a
little – It cannot be much, but it may be enough to remove twenty-nine
thousand years of misery from human h... 1 notes
notes19 DEC 2014 by ideonexus
John Cleese on Writing and Performing as Science
DAVIES: You know, and you say many times in the book that you're more a writer than a performer.
CLEESE: It's always hard for people to believe that because of course, anytime they've seen me it's because I've been performing. You know, they don't go to their televisions and switch them on and see me sitting at home writing, you know? So naturally, people's image is of a performer, but the reality is the writing for me has always been the most important thing and the most rewarding thing. An... 1 notes
notes24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
The Connections in the Brain
Two neurons can communicate with each other at a synapse, which is the computational unit in the brain. The typical cortical synapse is less than a micron in diameter (10-6 meter), near the resolution limit of the light microscope. If the economy of the world is a stretch for us to contemplate, thinking about all the synapses in your head is mind-boggling. If I had a dollar for every synapse in your brain, I could support the current economy of the world for ten years. Cortical neurons on ave...Folksonomies: neurology
Folksonomies: neurology
1 notes
notesTerrence Sejnowski on the incredible three-pound universe.
29 SEP 2013 by ideonexus
The World is a Function
Kakeru Seki: A fact is somehow related to another fact. Unless you understand these relationships, you won't be a real reporter.
Noriko Hikima: True journalism!
Kakeru Seki: Well, you majored in the humanities.
Noriko Hikima: Yes! That's true--I've studied literature since I was in high school.
Kakeru Seki: You havea lot of catching up to do, then. Let's begin with functions.
Noriko Hikima: Fu...functions? Math? What?
Kakeru Seki: When one thing changes, it influences another thing. A ... 1 notes
notesAs a programmer I know that algorithms can relate to the real world, and since these algorithms are constructed in computers that ultimately run on bits and boolean logic, then the real world may be imagined to deconstruct to pure mathematics.
18 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Imagination and Knowledge
The scientist, if he is to be more than a plodding gatherer of bits of information, needs to exercise an active imagination. The scientists of the past whom we now recognize as great are those who were gifted with transcendental imaginative powers, and the part played by the imaginative faculty of his daily life is as least as important for the scientist as it is for the worker in any other field—much more important than for most. A good scientist thinks logically and accurately when condit... 1 notes
notesThe scientist needs to have imagination, and a great deal of facts to play with.
12 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
State of Mind in a Marathon Coding Session
The peak hour itself was tremendously intense, but during the hours before, and even during the hours afterward, a hacker attained a state of pure concentration. When you programmed a computer, you had to be aware of where all the thousands of bits of information were going from one instruction to the next, and be able to predict—and exploit—the effect of all that movement. When you had all that information glued to your cerebral being, it was almost as if your own mind had merged into th...
1 There is a point where you have the whole program in your head at once, one with it, and you don't want to let it go, so you keep working in a marathon burst of energy.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Measuring Cultural Information
But there may be more significant ways to characterize civilizations than by the
energy they use for communications purposes. An important criterion of a
civilization is the total amount of information that it stores. This information can
be described in terms of bits, the number of yes-no statements concerning itself
and the universe that such a civilization knows.
An example of this concept is the popular game of "Twenty Questions," as
played on Earth. One player imagines an object or conc... 1 notes
notesThe number of bits communicated in our radio broadcasts is quite enormous, conveying a great deal of information about our culture.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
We Only Notice Certain Statistical Events
Sometimes we can literally count the number of ways you can reshuffle a series of bits - as with a pack of cards, for instance, where the 'bits' are the individual cards.
Suppose the dealer shuffles the pack and deals them out to four players, so that they each have 13 cards. I pick up my hand and gasp in astonishment. I have a complete hand of 13 spades! All the spades.
I am too startled to go on with the game, and I show my hand to the other three players, mowing they will be as amazed ... 1 notes
notesUsing the example of a remarkable card-dealing hand, Dawkins explains how every hand of cards is statistically improbable, but we only notice and awe at combinations that are significant to us in some way.
