04 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
Foundation and Empire
"Well," Bayta's eyes misted with thought as she curled her bare toes into the white softness of the rug and nestled her little chin in one plump hand, "it seems to me that the whole essence of Seldon's plan was to create a world better than the ancient one of the Galactic Empire. It was failing apart, that world, three centuries ago, when Seldon first established the Foundation – and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and maldistributi... 1 
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notes30 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
Chemistry as the Foundation of Science
Chemistry I deem to be the foundation of all other science, and in a manner pf speaking to comprise all other branches of science. As matter and motion comprise everything we can behold or conceive, and as Chemistry is an investigation of the properties of matter, with the causes and effects of its various combinations, it is evidently the most important part of science, or rather, the first and last part of it. The cultivation of the earth—the cookery of our food—its quantity and quality... 1 notes
notesAn early view, predates physics?
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Nature contains no one constant form.
With respect to those who may ask why Nature does not produce new beings? We may enquire of them in turn, upon what foundation they suppose this fact? What it is that authorizes them to believe this sterility in Nature? Know they if, in the various combinations which she is every instant forming, Nature be not occupied in producing new beings, without the cognizance of these observers? Who has informed them that this Nature is not actually assembling, in her immense elaboratory, the elements ... 1 notes
notesIt has the propensity to produce new forms, not just what we see today.
17 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Faith in this World Is Possible Without Faith in Another
Science, for me, gives a partial explanation of life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment. Your theories are those which you and many other people find easiest and pleasantest to believe, but, so far as I can see, they have no foundation other than they lead to a pleasant view of life ... I agree that faith is essential to success in life ... but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e. belief in life after death. In my view, all that is necessary for fa...
1 Quoting Rosalind Franklin.
09 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
No Need for Erroneous Assumptions in Science
The laws of nature, as we understand them, are the foundation of our knowledge in natural things. So much as we know of them has been developed by the successive energies of the highest intellects, exerted through many ages. After a most rigid and scrutinizing examination upon principle and trial, a definite expression has been given to them; they have become, as it were, our belief or trust. From day to day we still examine and test our expressions of them. We have no interest in their reten... 1 notes
notesAnd disproving an established law would be a great discovery for a scientist.
12 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Greatest Enemies of the Gospels are Their Believers
The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of ...Jefferson was very skeptical of the Gospels, which he felt were perverted with miracles that diluted the reformer's message.
12 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
The Foundation of Science, Not the Periphery, Is Where th...
A number of years ago, when I was a freshly-appointed instructor, I met, for the first time, a certain eminent historian of science. At the time I could only regard him with tolerant condescension.
I was sorry of the man who, it seemed to me, was forced to hover about the edges of science. He was compelled to shiver endlessly in the outskirts, getting only feeble warmth from the distant sun of science- in-progress; while I, just beginning my research, was bathed in the heady liquid heat up a... 1 notes
notesIsaac Asimov describing his young experience with a professor as he worked on new research.
31 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Aristotle's Attempt to Categorize Motion
11 Now everything that changes place is moved either by itself or by something else. In as many of these as are moved by themselves, it is obvious that the moved and mover are together, since the first mover is present in them, so that nothing is in-between. But as many as are moved by other things must come about in four ways, for there are four kinds of change of place by means of something else: pulling, pushing, carrying, and whirling. For all motions with respect to place lead back to th... 1 notes
notesHis efforts to build a taxonomy of motion demonstrates the difficulty of properly classifying things as a foundation to building hypotheses.
28 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Foundation is Based on Faith and Superstition
"I neither admire nor condemn. Superstition always directs action in the absence of knowledge. The Foundation believes in the Seldon Plan, though no one in our realm can understand it, interpret its details, or use it to predict. We follow blindly out of ignorance and faith, and isn't that superstition?"
[...]
"I'm not at all sure of that. The point is, though, that we don't know how psychohistory works at all."
"I don't know how that computer works, but I know it works."
"That's because ... 1 notes
notesThe contradictory nature of Foundation: a planet founded on scientific principles meant to rebuild the empire in an enlightened form, but also dependent on a science that no one knows anything about and a plan that cannot be independently verified.
