30 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Anagnorises and Peripetia
OK, I'm still in "Poetics," in Aristotle, and I'm thinking -- out of nowhere, two terms come crashing into my head that I haven't heard since my classics professor in college drilled them there. And they are anagnorisis and peripeteia. Anagnorisis and peripeteia. Anagnorisis is the Greek word for discovery. Literally, the transition from ignorance to knowledge is anagnorisis. It's what our network does; it's what "Dirty Jobs" is. And I'm up to my neck in anagnorises every single day. Great. T...
1 Two flavors of the concept of discovery.
10 OCT 2013 by mxplx
Reflective equilibrium
No moral position is universal and that each society makes its own moral rules unfettered, so that even acts we would view as unequivocally immoral could be morally unobjectionable in some other culture.
kayan people in vietnam put rings around their neck
general conformity to values, especially if it is cited in mainstream media as opposed to those who thought independentlyReflective equilibrium is a state of balance or coherence among a set of beliefs arrived at by a process of deliberative mutual adjustment among general principles and particular judgments
21 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
You Are Not the Same Person You Were as a Child
Think of an experience from your childhood. Something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren’t you? How else would you remember it?
But here is the bombshell: you weren’t there.
Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place … Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
Whatever you are, therefore, you are not...
2 All your cells and atoms have been replaced since then -- this is not true, but it is partially true and food for thought.
12 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Prediction VS Forecast
The official position of the USGS is even more emphatic: earthquakes cannot be predicted. “Neither the USGS nor Caltech nor any other scientists have ever predicted a major earthquake,” the organization’s Web site asserts.24 “They do not know how, and they do not expect to know how any time in the foreseeable future.”
Earthquakes cannot be predicted? This is a book about prediction, not a book that makes predictions, but I’m willing to stick my neck out: I predict that there will... 1 
notes
notesOne is a definitive statement, the other a probabilistic one.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The laryngeal nerve's haphazard course through the body
A favourite example, ever since it was pointed out to me by Professor J. D. Currey when he
tutored me as an undergraduate, is the recurrent laryngeal nerve.* It is a branch of one of the cranial
nerves, those nerves that lead directly from the brain rather than from the spinal cord. One of the
cranial nerves, the vagus (the name means 'wandering' and it is apt), has various branches, two of
which go to the heart, and two on each side to the larynx (voice box in mammals). On each side of
the n...Folksonomies: evolution intelligent design
Folksonomies: evolution intelligent design
Another example of poor biological design.
17 FEB 2011 by ideonexus
10,000 Injuries to Infants a Year from Cribs, Playpens, a...
An estimated 181 654 (95% confidence interval: 148 548–214 761) children younger than 2 years of age were treated in emergency departments in the United States for injuries related to cribs, playpens, and bassinets during the 19-year study period. There was an average of 9561 cases per year or an average of 12.1 injuries per 10 000 children younger than 2 years old per year. Most of the injuries involved cribs (83.2%), followed by playpens (12.6%) and bassinets (4.2%). The most common mecha...Cribs accounted for of 10,000 injuries per year to infants.
