10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
Stapleton's Use of Religious Terms
At the risk of raising thunder both on the Left and on the Right, I have occasionally used certain ideas and words derived from religion, and I have tried to interpret them in relation to modern needs. The valuable, though much damaged words "spiritual" and "worship," which have become almost as obscene to the Left as the good old sexual words are to the Right, are here intended to suggest an experience which the Right is apt to pervert and the Left to misconceive. This experience, I should s...Folksonomies: language religiosity
Folksonomies: language religiosity
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notes05 JAN 2017 by ideonexus
Don't Neglect Your Future You
There is one person whose wants and needs you routinely ignore, opting instead to tend to your own immediate desires, and that person is future you. When it comes to making decisions that will have some effect on your long-term health or happiness — for example, whether or not to go to the gym today, in keeping with your New Year’s resolution — current you is always finding a new way to steal from future you. It’s time the two yous got better acquainted.
This concept in itself may n... 1 notes
notes13 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Changing Spelling has Happened in the Past
Objection to simplified spelling has been made on the
supposition that it "wil cut us off from the literature
of the past," meaning that those taught in the new way
wil be unable to read the books red today. This can
not be so, because the present spelling wil be no more
difficult to read by one who has learnd to spel the new
way, than is the new spelling by one who has learnd
the old way. Children who hav learnd to spel in the
simplified way wil, in fact, read the books printed
toda...
1 Technology, translation services, will make migration even easier.
19 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
The Selfish Gene as a New Perspective on an Old Hypothesis
The selfish gene theory is Darwin's theory, expressed in a way that
Darwin did not choose but whose aptness, I should like to think, he
would instantly have recognized and delighted in. It is in fact a logical
outgrowth of orthodox neo-Darwinism, but expressed as a novel image.
Rather than focus on the individual organism, it takes a gene's-eye view
of nature. It is a different way of seeing, not a different theory. In the
opening pages of The Extended Phenotype, I explained this using the
me...It is Darwin's theory, but a story told from the gene's point of view.
26 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Examples of How Language Affects Cognition
Most questions of whether and how language shapes thought start with the simple observation that languages differ from one another. And a lot! Let's take a (very) hypothetical example. Suppose you want to say, "Bush read Chomsky's latest book." Let's focus on just the verb, "read." To say this sentence in English, we have to mark the verb for tense; in this case, we have to pronounce it like "red" and not like "reed." In Indonesian you need not (in fact, you can't) alter the verb to mark tens... 1 notes
notesExamples of how languages differ between cultures in their constructs, how those constructs affect the way the speaker thinks about things, and how teaching a person a new language can alter the way they think.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Davy Poem Using Laws of Conservation and Thermodynamics
In a thoughtful mood Davy wrote a new kind of metaphysical poem, ‘The Massy Pillars of the Earth. It reflects on the human condition, and suggests that since nothing is ever destroyed in the physical universe, only transformed (the First Law of Thermodynamics), then man himself must be immortal in some spiritual sense. It also returns in a new way to Davy’s early Cornish beliefs about starlight as the source of all energy in the universe:
Nothing is lost; the ethereal fire,
Which from th...A poem found in Humphry Davy Works.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Dr. Victor Frankenstein Inspired by Science
‘The ancient teachers of this science,’ said he, ‘promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted, and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers, whose hands seem only to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of Nature, and show how she works in her hiding-places. They ascend into the heav... 1 notes
notesScience promises the secrets of the Universe, Shelley makes it sound like a dark art.
28 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
Looking to Phyllotaxis for Insights for Solar Cell Arrang...
My investigation asked the question of whether there is a secret formula in tree design and whether the purpose of the spiral pattern is to collect sunlight better. After doing research, I put together test tools, experiments and design models to investigate how trees collect sunlight. At the end of my research project, I put the pieces of this natural puzzle together, and I discovered the answer. But the best part was that I discovered a new way to increase the efficiency of solar panels at ... 1 notes
notesDescription of an investigation into the arrangement of leaves on trees as they relate to the Fibonacci sequence. Includes a great, brief explanation of Phi and phyllotaxis.
08 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Teaching Babies Science
But we also have some more direct evidence for the idea that children learn like scientists. Alison and Virginia Slaughter, one of her students, looked at three-year-old children who didn't yet fully understand belief—children who still said they had always thought that there were pencils in the candy box. Then, over the course of a few weeks, Virginia gave the children systematic evidence that their predictions were false. She told them firmly that they hadn't said pencils at all, they had... 1 notes
notesHaving children predict something and then systematically demonstrating how their prediction is false makes them more capable of understanding how beliefs work.
