25 FEB 2016 by ideonexus
Understanding Creativity Enabled Through Information Tech...
Here’s the question I’ve been asking myself: When technology enables a person to make something that looks professional without having to master any degree of craft, does that increase or decrease the likelihood of creativity? And can educators be lulled into a false impression that they have been developing creativity in students when using technologies that produce brilliantlooking results? Does my Wordle cloud give only the illusion of creativity?
A number of software applications are...Folksonomies: education creativity
Folksonomies: education creativity
1 25 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Paul Saffo: The Illusion of Scientific Progress
The breathtaking advance of scientific discovery has the unknown on the run. Not so long ago, the Creation was 8,000 years old and Heaven hovered a few thousand miles above our heads. Now Earth is 4.5 billion years old and the observable Universe spans 92 billion light years. Pick any scientific field and the story is the same, with new discoveries—and new life-touching wonders—arriving almost daily. Like Pope, we marvel at how hidden Nature is revealed in scientific light.
Our growing c...Folksonomies: scientific progress progress
Folksonomies: scientific progress progress
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notes
notes19 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
The Mind Needs Stimulation
A human totally deprived of bodily senses does not do well. After 12 hours in a sensory deprivation tank (where one floats in a body-temperature saline solution that produces almost no skin sensation, in total darkness and silence, with taste and smell and the sensations of breathing minimized) a subject will begin to hallucinate, as the mind, somewhat like a television tuned to a nonexistent channel, turns up the amplification, desperately looking for a signal, becoming ever less discriminat...Folksonomies: cognition perception
Folksonomies: cognition perception
1 notes
notesFrom Hans Moravec's "Pigs in Cyberspace"
21 JUN 2014 by ideonexus
Commit Metaphysics to the Fire
If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, 'Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?' No. 'Does it contain any experimental reasoning Duceming matter of fact and existence?' No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.Folksonomies: pseudoscience
Folksonomies: pseudoscience
1 notes
notes14 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Everything Won't Become Free at Once
Maybe the coolest technology could get very good and cheap, while at the same time crucial fundamentals for survival could become expensive. The calculi of digital utopias and man-made disasters don’t contradict each other. They can coexist. This is the heading of the darkest and funniest science fiction, such as the work of Philip K. Dick.
Basics like water and food could soar in cost even as intensely sophisticated gadgets, like automated nanorobotic heart surgeons, float about as dust i... 1 notes
notesThe irony of society is that digital content is growing cheaper as is technology, but food and electricity are growing more expensive.
12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Individuals VS Species
The assumptions of population thinking are diametrically opposed to those of the typologist. The populationist stresses the uniqueness of everything in the organic world. What is true for the human species,–that no two individuals are alike, is equally true for all other species of animals and plants ... All organisms and organic phenomena are composed of unique features and can be described collectively only in statistical terms. Individuals, or any kind of organic entities, form populatio...Folksonomies: taxonomy perspective
Folksonomies: taxonomy perspective
1 notes
notesSpecies are classified according to a mean, the perspective is to ignore the variation within the species.
16 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Atoms Form Compounds With Properties Very Different Than ...
Compounds formed by chemical attraction, possess new properties different from those of their component parts... chemists have long believed that the contrary took place in their combination. They thought, in fact, that the compounds possessed properties intermediate between those of their component parts; so that two bodies, very coloured, very sapid, or insapid, soluble or insoluble, fusible or infusible, fixed or volatile, assumed in chemical combination, a shade or colour, or taste, solub... 1 notes
notesIt was long thought in Chemistry that compounds exhibited traits partway between their component parts.
24 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Mathematics Feels Real, but is Paradoxical
On foundations we believe in the reality of mathematics, but of course, when philosophers attack us with their paradoxes, we rush to hide behind formalism and say 'mathematics is just a combination of meaningless symbols,'... Finally we are left in peace to go back to our mathematics and do it as we have always done, with the feeling each mathematician has that he is working with something real. The sensation is probably an illusion, but it is very convenient. Folksonomies: mathematics philosophy
Folksonomies: mathematics philosophy
1 notes
notesReal to the mathematician, paradoxical to the philosopher.
30 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Illusion of Taste
When carbon (C), Oxygen (o) and hydrogen (H) atoms bond in a certain way to form sugar, the resulting compound has a sweet taste. The sweetness resides neither in the C, nor in the O, nor in the H; it resides in the pattern that emerges from their interaction. It is an emergent property. Moreover, strictly speaking, is not a property of the chemical bonds. It is a sensory experience that arises when the sugar molecules interact with the chemistry of our taste buds, which in turns causes a set... 1 notes
notesWhen we taste sweetness, our tongues are not responding to the C, O, or H, but to the molecule.
30 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Reevaluating our Libraries
When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.Folksonomies: empiricism
Folksonomies: empiricism
1 notes
notesHume argues that any work that does not contain abstract mathematical reasoning or experimental research is nothing but "sophistry and illusion."
