15 JUN 2016 by ideonexus

 Living Things Renew Themselves

Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued a...
Folksonomies: life entropy syntropy
Folksonomies: life entropy syntropy
 1  1  notes
 
24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus

 Pragmamorphism

Anthropomorphism means attributing the characteristics of human beings to inanimate things or animals. I have invented the word “pragmamorphism” as a shorthand abstraction for the attribution of the properties of inanimate things to human beings. One of the meanings of the Greek word pragma is “a material object.” Being pragmamorphic sounds equivalent to taking a scientific attitude toward the world, but it easily evolves into dull scientism. It’s pragmamorphic to equate material ...
Folksonomies: cognition modeling
Folksonomies: cognition modeling
  1  notes

Emanuel Derman on the habit of attributing properties of inanimate things to human beings, like PET scans to emotion, or IQ to intelligence. Like making a digital representation of an analog system.