22 FEB 2015 by ideonexus

 What is Transhumanism

Transhumanism is a term used synonymously to mean “human enhancement.” It is an international cultural and intellectual movement that endorses the use of science and technology to enhance the human condition, both mentally and physically. In support of this, transhumanism also embraces using emerging technologies to eliminate the undesirable elements of the human condition such as aging, disabilities, diseases, and involuntary death. Many transhumanists believe these technologies will be ...
Folksonomies: transhumanism
Folksonomies: transhumanism
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04 FEB 2015 by ideonexus

 Infinity Times Zero is Not Zero

The problem is that the laws of addition and multiplication you are using hold for natural numbers, but infinity is not a natural number, so these laws do not apply. If they did, you could use a similar argument that multiplying anything by infinity, no matter how small, gives infinity, thus ∞×0=∞. More sophisticated arguments can also be made, like ∞×0=limx→∞(x×1/x)=1. Clearly all these different values for ∞×0 mean that ∞ cannot be treated like other numbers. In order to ...
Folksonomies: mathematics
Folksonomies: mathematics
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05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 There is No Supernatural

There is no supernatural, there is only nature. Nature alone exists and contains all. All is. There is the part of nature that we perceive, and the part of nature that we do not perceive. ... If you abandon these facts, beware; charlatans will light upon them, also the imbecile. There is no mean: science, or ignorance. If science does not want these facts, ignorance will take them up. You have refused to enlarge human intelligence, you augment human stupidity. When Laplace withdraws Cagliostr...
Folksonomies: nature
Folksonomies: nature
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All is nature.

16 MAY 2012 by ideonexus

 Physics Reduced to Probability

Philosophers have said that if the same circumstances don't always produce the same results, predictions are impossible and science will collapse. Here is a circumstance—identical photons are always coming down in the same direction to the piece of glass—that produces different results. We cannot predict whether a given photon will arrive at A or B. All we can predict is that out of 100 photons that come down, an average of 4 will be reflected by the front surface. Does this mean that phy...
Folksonomies: complexity probability
Folksonomies: complexity probability
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Feynman explains that probabilities are the best we can hope for in complex systems.

25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus

 Science Must Continually Renew Itself

It is idle to expect any great advancement in science from the superinducing and engrafting of new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve forever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress.
Folksonomies: science classics tradition
Folksonomies: science classics tradition
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Great advancement does not come from perpetually building on old ideas, but by rebuilding the old in a new light of understanding.

17 MAY 2011 by ideonexus

 Ronald Reagan's Memory Problems

President Ronald Reagan, who spent World War Two in Hollywood, vividly described his own role in liberating Nazi concentration camp victims. Living in the film world, he apparently confused a movie he had seen with a reality he had not. On many occasions in his Presidential campaigns, Mr Reagan told an epic story of World War Two courage and sacrifice, an inspiration for all of us. Only it never happened; it was the plot of the movie A Wing and a Prayer - that made quite an impression on me, ...
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Reagan recalled things as real that happened only in his movies, what does this mean for humans and major policy decisions?