08 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
The Cultural Problems with Academia
Like any good bubble, this belief– while rooted in truth– gets pushed to unhealthy levels. Thiel talks about consumption masquerading as investment during the housing bubble, as people would take out speculative interest-only loans to get a bigger house with a pool and tell themselves they were being frugal and saving for retirement. Similarly, the idea that attending Harvard is all about learning? Yeah. No one pays a quarter of a million dollars just to read Chaucer. The implicit promise...
1 21 APR 2014 by ideonexus
Five Strands of Mathematical Literacy
Recognizing that no term captures completely all aspects of expertise, competence,
knowledge, and facility in mathematics, we have chosen mathematical proficiency to capture what we think it means for anyone to learn mathematicssuccessfully. Mathematical proficiency, as we see it, has five strands:
• conceptual understanding—comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations
• procedural fluency—skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and a...Folksonomies: education mathematics
Folksonomies: education mathematics
1 
notes
notesCognitive tools.
22 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Concepts Represent the Complex of Our Experiences
The only justification for our concepts is that they serve to represent thc complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no legitimacy. I am convinced that the philosophers had a harmful effect upon the progress of scientific thinking in removing certain fundamental concepts from the domain of empiricism, where they are under control, to the intangible heights of the a priori—the universe of ideas is just as little independent of the nature of our experiences as clothes are of the form... 1 notes
notesJust as clothes represent the form of the human body.
16 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
Covering Your Tracks Online is Suspicious
The drawback to covering your tracks like this on
a daily basis is that it sometimes makes you look
like, well, like you’re covering your tracks. People
who engage all of their privacy functions sometimes
stand out in a transparent society. It may make
people suspicious, thinking that you’re up to something.
If you’re only encrypting your communications
with certain people, it sometimes makes it look
even worse, like you’re collaborating—and it also
pinpoints who you’re in cahoots...If you do not show up in searches, then it appears as though you have something to hide.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Science Overthrowing Religion
The claims of certain so-called scientific men as to 'science overthrowing religion' are as baseless as the fears of certain sincerely religious men on the same subject. The establishment of the doctrine of evolution in out time offers no more justification for upsetting religious beliefs than the discovery of the facts concerning the solar system a few centuries ago. Any faith sufficiently robust to stand the—surely very slight—strain of admitting that the world is not flat and does not ... 1 notes
notesTeddy Roosevelt makes important points about accepting the theory of evolution and how that does not impact religious faith.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
At Best Science Can Only Model
The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work—that is, correctly to describe phenomena from a reasonably wide area. And work on improving those models.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
God of the Gaps
The man in the street will, therefore, twist the statement that the scientist has come to the end of meaning into the statement that the scientist has penetrated as far as he can with the tools at his command, and that there is something beyond the ken of the scientist. This imagined beyond, which the scientist has proved he cannot penetrate, will become the playground of the imagination of every mystic and dreamer. The existence of such a domain will be made the basis of an orgy of rationali...The gaps in what science knows gets filled with gods and ghosts, but the atheist also fills it with the idea that chance rules the universe.
19 APR 2011 by ideonexus
The Train of Thought to Equality
Since then society has evolved a sequence of ci central con¬ cepts each of which was at one time thought to make it work of itself, and each of which has had to be corrected to the next. There was the early eighteenth-century concept of selfinterest, in Mandeville and others; then came enlightened self-interest; then the greatest happiness of the greatest num¬ bet; utility; the labor theory of valueie; and thence its expression either in the welfare state or in the clasassless society. Men ... 1 notes
notes...ending in the Declaration of Independence.
23 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
Glenn Gould Quote on the Romantic conception of art
The concert pianist Glenn Gould characterized the Romantic conception of art most vividly when he wrote, "The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline, but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."
1 notes
notesArt's intention is to create a lifelong sense of wonder.
