10 FEB 2018 by ideonexus
The Volumetric Approach to History
You will be thinking that we are coming to the end of this book: we’ve dealt with eight centuries, so there are only two to go. You may be surprised to learn, therefore, that in historical terms we are not even halfway. The reason for this discrepancy is that history is not time, and time is not history. History is not the study of the past per se; it is about people in the past. Time, separated from humanity, is purely a matter for scientists and star-gazers. If a previously unknown uninhabi... 1 
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notes22 APR 2014 by ideonexus
The Six Facets of Understanding
Explanation: Sophisticated and apt theories and illustrations, which provide knowledgeable and justified accounts of events, actions, and ideas.
Why is that so? What explains such events? What accounts for such action? How can we prove it? To what action is this connected? How does this work?
Interpretation: The act of finding meaning, significance, sense, or value in human experience, data, and texts; to tell a good story, prove a powerful metaphor, or sharpen ideas through an editorial.
... 1 notes
notesAspects of understanding a concept rather than just knowing about it.
07 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Imagining the Primitive Mind
AND now let us indulge in a very interesting speculation; how did it feel to be a man in those early days of the human adventure? How did men think and what did they think in those remote days of hunting and wandering four hundred centuries ago before seed time and harvest began. Those were days long before the written record of any human impressions, and we are left almost entirely to inference and guesswork in our answers to these questions.
[...]
Primitive man probably thought very much ... 1 notes
notesAs evolution tends to build in lairs, the primitive mind must have been much like that of a child.
18 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
The Geoscope
Because the real planet Earth is revolving around its north-south polar axis, so, too, is mini-Earth. They are both thus revolving without effecting any change of the observed position of Polaris—the North Star—in respect to mini-Earth's north pole. Therefore, the observer at the center of the Geoscope feels spontaneously the celestial fixity not only of Polaris but also of all the other stars as seen outwardly through the Geoscope's triangular windows. Because outwardly of Geoscope's equator... 1 notes
notesAn enormous proposed model of the Earth that would teach children their orientation on our planet. With such an understanding, the term "sunset" would be replaced with "sunclipse."
08 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Parenting is Responsibility Without Power
Raising children is an intrinsically difficult and uncertain job in ways that science can't really address. For most of us parents there is literally nothing more important than the well-being of our children. There are not many things we could imagine giving our lives for, but we could give our lives for them. And, in a less melodramatic way, of course, we do give our lives for them. For fifteen or twenty years our everyday energy, our individual liberty, our income, our attention, our conce... 1 notes
notesThe parent's job is to be completely responsible for the child, but ultimately raise them to be completely autonomous, rendering the parent powerless over them.
23 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
1973 Humanist Manifesto II - Ethics
Ethics
THIRD: We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life,... 1 notes
notesSection on Ethics from the Humanist Manifesto.
