12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Life is Rebellion Against Chaos
Life is order, death is disorder. A fundamental law of Nature states that spontaneous chemical changes in the universe tend toward chaos. But life has, during milliards of years of evolution, seemingly contradicted this law. With the aid of energy derived from the sun it has built up the most complicated systems to be found in the universe—living organisms. Living matter is characterized by a high degree of chemical organisation on all levels, from the organs of large organisms to the small...Folksonomies: complexity chaos
Folksonomies: complexity chaos
1 Death is chaos.
04 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Words are Money of Fools, but Nature Does Not Lie
For between true Science, and erroneous Doctrines, Ignorance is in the middle. Naturall sense and imagination, are not subject to absurdity. Nature it selfe cannot erre: and as men abound in copiousnesses of language; so they become more wise, or more mad than ordinary. Nor is it possible without Letters for any man to become either excellently wise, or (unless his memory be hurt by disease, or ill constitution of organs) excellently foolish. For words are wise men's counters, they do but rec... 1 
notes
notesFamous quote.
31 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
All Human Accomplishments are Works of Muscles
Muscles are in a most intimate and peculiar sense the organs of the will. They have built all the roads, cities and machines in the world, written all the books, spoken all the words, and, in fact done everything that man has accomplished with matter. Character might be a sense defined as a plexus of motor habits. Folksonomies: biology
Folksonomies: biology
Which carry out the will of their owners. All human character "might be a sense defined as a plexus of motor habits."
29 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
The Importance of Studying the Skeleton in Evolution
The occurrence of an internal skeleton, in definite relations to the other organ systems, and the articulation of the body into homologous segments, are points in the general organization of Vertebrates to which especial weight must be given. This metameric structure is more or less definitely expressed in most of the organs, and as it extends to the axial skeleton, the latter also gradually articulates into separate segments, the vertebrae. The latter, however, must be regarded only as the p...Folksonomies: evolution evolutionary biology
Folksonomies: evolution evolutionary biology
1 notes
notesQuoting Karl Gegenbaur.
09 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
The Charcoal Produced by Respiration
A man in twenty-four hours converts as much as seven ounces of carbon into carbonic acid; a milch cow will convert seventy ounces, and a horse seventy-nine ounces, solely by the act of respiration. That is, the horse in twenty-four hours burns seventy-nine ounces of charcoal, or carbon, in his organs of respiration to supply his natural warmth in that time ..., not in a free state, but in a state of combination. 1 notes
notesAccording to Faraday, a horse produces 79oz of charcoal in 24 hours just by breathing.
23 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Why a Machine Cannot Fully Imitate a Man
I specifically paused to show that, if there were such machines with the organs and shape of a monkey or of some other non-rational animal, we would have no way of discovering that they are not the same as these animals. But if there were machines that resembled our bodies and if they imitated our actions as much as is morally possible, we would always have two very certain means for recognizing that, none the less, they are not genuinely human. The first is that they would never be able to u...Folksonomies: artificial intelligence
Folksonomies: artificial intelligence
1 Descartes reasoning sounds like a precursor to the Turing Test.
13 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Constant and Free Life
Constant, or free, life is the third form of life; it belongs to the most highly organized animals. In it, life is not suspended in any circumstance, it unrolls along a constant course, apparently indifferent to the variations in the cosmic environment, or to the changes in the material conditions that surround the animal. Organs, apparatus, and tissues function in an apparently uniform manner, without their activity undergoing those considerable variations exhibited by animals with an oscill...Mammals and other animals that maintain a constant environment within themselves are free of the changes to the world outside them.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Humphery Davy: Poem About a Weeping Monument
My eye is wet with tears
For I see the white stones
That are covered with names
The stones of my forefathers’ graves.
No grass grows upon them
For deep in the earth
In darkness and silence the organs of life
To their primitive atoms return.
Through ages the air
Has been moist with their blood
The ages the seeds of the thistle has fed
On what was once motion and form...
Thoughts roll not beneath the dust
No feeling is in the cold grave
They have leaped to other worlds
They are far above t...There are various versions of this early poem in the HD Archive: see Paris, vol 1, p29; Treneer, pp4-5; or Fullmer, p13
16 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny
Now, we’re not absolutely sure why some species retain much of their
evolutionary history during development. The “adding new stuff onto
old” principle is just a hypothesis—an explanation for the facts of embryology.
It’s hard to prove that it was easier for a developmental program
to evolve one way rather than another. But the facts of embryology
remain, and make sense only in light of evolution. All vertebrates begin
development looking like embryonic fish because we all descended... 1 notes
notesEmbryos go through the stages of the evolution of their ancestors as they develop.
29 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
Requirements for a Science Bible
Creating a permanent record of our civilization may not be as difficult as we imagine. What we need is a primer on science, clearly written and unambiguous in its meaning—a primer for anyone interested in the state of the Earth and how to survive and live well on it. One that would serve also as a primary school science text. It would be the scientific equivalent of the Bible. It would contain practical information such as how to light a fire, and things to wonder about when it was lit. It ...What are some of the most basic and important things that would need to go into a completely introductory book on Science?
