30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Reason Powers Empathy and Altruism
It is not the soft power of humanity, it is not that feeble spark of benevolence which Nature has lighted up in the human heart, that is thus capable of counteracting the strongest impulses of self-love. It is a stronger power, a more forcible motive, which exerts itself upon such occasions. It is reason, principle, conscience, the inhabitant of the breast, the man within, the great judge and arbiter of our conduct. It is he who, whenever we are about to act so as to affect the happiness of o... 1 
notes
notes25 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
RPG as a Game of Imagination
It's a game of your imagination, where you get to tell storeis by taking on the roles of the main chractes-characters you create. It's a game that offers a multitude of choices-more choices than even the most sophisticated computer game, because the only limit to what you can do is what you can imagine. The story unfolds like a movie, except all of the action takes place in your imagination.
There's no script to follow, other than a rough outline used by the Gamemaster (GM): you decide what ...Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
1 24 DEC 2013 by ideonexus
The Web of Causation
...complex systems, such as financial markets or the Earth’s biosphere, do not seem to obey causality. For every event that occurs, there are a multitude of possible causes, and the extent to which each contributes to the event is not clear, not even after the fact! One might say that there is a web of causation. For example, on a typical day, the stock market might go up or down by some fraction of a percentage point. The Wall Street Journal might blithely report that the stock market move...Nigel Goldenfeld explains why the simplistic explanations for market movements so popular in the news media are also so ridiculous.
08 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
The Mechanic's Wisdom
The Mechanic's Wisdom.
Probably the most characteristic attitude of the mechanic toward the forces and materials with which he deals is unquestioning acceptance of the fact that he cannot change or anywise modify the laws of nature or the qualities of materials.
The mechanic, like the rest of us, wants to accomplish a multitude of purposes. Having determined upon the object of his desires, be it a machine to do something, or a change in the location of physical things, he proceeds upon th... 1 notes
notesAn insightful and empirical perspective of our place in the Universe and our potential.
13 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Talent of Mechanics
Generally speaking, people have a very erroneous idea of the type of talent proper to the ideal mechanician. He is not a geometrician who, delving into the theory of movement and the categories of phenomena, formulates new mechanical principles or discovers unsuspected laws of nature.… In most other branches of science are to be found constant principles; a multitude of methods offer to the genius inexhaustible possibilities. If a scholar poses himself a new problem, he can attack it fortif... 1 notes
notesIt is highly intuitive and cannot be taught from a textbook. It sounds much like an art.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Verbosity is Like a Cuttlefish
A multitude of words doth rather obscure than illustrate, they being a burden to the memory, and the first apt to be forgotten, before we come to the last. So that he that uses many words for the explaining of any subject, doth, like the cuttle-fish, hide himself, for the most part, in his own ink. Folksonomies: verbosity
Folksonomies: verbosity
1 notes
notesHiding meaning in its own ink.
29 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Geologists VS Physicists on the Age of the Earth
Geologists have not been slow to admit that they were in error in assuming that they had an eternity of past time for the evolution of the earth's history. They have frankly acknowledged the validity of the physical arguments which go to place more or less definite limits to the antiquity of the earth. They were, on the whole, disposed to acquiesce in the allowance of 100 millions of years granted to them by Lord Kelvin, for the transaction of the whole of the long cycles of geological histor... 1 notes
notesGeologists argued for a much older Earth than the Physicists allowed for.
24 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Species Go Through the Same Stages as Individual Living B...
Just as in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, an individual comes into being, so to speak, grows, remains in being, declines and passes on, will it not be the same for entire species? If our faith did not teach us that animals left the Creator's hands just as they now appear and, if it were permitted to entertain the slightest doubt as to their beginning and their end, may not a philosopher, left to his own conjectures, suspect that, from time immemorial, animal life had its own constituent e...Folksonomies: religion philosophy
Folksonomies: religion philosophy
1 notes
notesThey grow, change, and die.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Science and Art, the Few and the Many
In science, address the few; in literature, the many. In science, the few must dictate opinion to the many; in literature, the many, sooner or later, force their judgement on the few. But the few and the many are not necessarily the few and the many of the passing time: for discoverers in science have not un-often, in their own day, had the few against them; and writers the most permanently popular not unfrequently found, in their own day, a frigid reception from the many. By the few, I mean ...Folksonomies: communication two cultures
Folksonomies: communication two cultures
Interesting way to frame a difference between the two as they relate to their audiences.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Man is Distinguished from Other Animals by his Imagination
Among the multitude of animals which scamper, fly, burrow and swim around us, man is the only one who is not locked into his environment. His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness, make it possible for him not to accept the environment, but to change it. And that series of inventions, by which man from age to age has remade his environment, is a different kind of evolution—not biological, but cultural evolution. I call that brilliant sequence of cultural peaks The As...Man evolves culturally.
