22 NOV 2017 by ideonexus
Removing Prepositions in Defining Thought
Having turned my back on propositions, I thought, what am I going to do about this? The area where it really comes up is when you start looking at the contents of consciousness, which is my number one topic. I like to quote Maynard Keynes on this. He was once asked, “Do you think in words or pictures?” to which he responded, “I think in thoughts.” It was a wonderful answer, but also wonderfully uninformative. What the hell’s a thought then? How does it carry information? Is it like ... 1 
notes
notes27 JUN 2017 by ideonexus
Socrates on How Written Word Will Destroy Memory
or this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; th...Folksonomies: luddism technophobia
Folksonomies: luddism technophobia
1 notes
notes18 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Averages are Boring
The Charms of Statistics.—It is difficult to understand why statisticians commonly limit their inquiries to Averages, and do not revel in more comprehensive views. Their souls seem as dull to the charm of variety as that of the native of one of our flat English counties, whose retrospect of Switzerland was that, if its mountains could be thrown into its lakes, two nuisances would be got rid of at once. An Average is but a solitary fact, whereas if a single other fact be added to it, an enti...Folksonomies: statistics
Folksonomies: statistics
1 notes
notesStatisticians should be interested in more complex and beautiful things.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Age of New Inventions
This is the patent-age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions;
Sir Humphrey Davy's lantern, by which coals
Are safely mined for in the mode he mentions,
Tombuctoo travels, voyages to the Poles,
Are ways to benefit mankind, as true,
Perhaps, as shooting them at Waterloo.
1 Lord Byron marvels at the scientific wonders of his age.
02 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Davy Sees Freedom in Human Fallability
The experience of ‘paralytic strokes’ (like his father’s), which destroyed ‘perception and Memory’ as well as physical motion, proved that the physical brain was the single centre of ‘all the Mental faculties’. Children were not magically endowed with intelligence and souls at birth. On the contrary: ‘A Child is not superior in Intellectual power to a common earthworm. It can scarcely move at will. It has not even that active instinctive capacity for Self-Preservation.’ Such... 1 notes
notesChildren are no more advanced than earthworms and strokes demonstrate how we are a product of our brains, and this shows Davy that we are capable of infinite happiness and science is indefinitely perfectible.
10 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
How the Church Cuts
“But they were cutting-” Lyra couldn’t bring herself to say it; the words choked in her mouth. “You know what they were doing! Why did the Church let them do anything like that?”
“There was a precedent. Something like it had happened before. Do you know what the word castration means? It means removing the sexual organs of a boy so that he never develops the characteristics of a man. A castrate keeps his high treble voice all his life, which is why the Church allowed it: so usefu... 1 notes
notesIn the fictional universe, the Church cuts children from their souls, but in our own history they have castrated boys to preserve their ability to sing in the choir.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
Who Profits from "Free"?
So everyone agrees these days: Hooray for pirates! Art and culture (or, more discouragingly, "content") should be free. Techno-utopians of the left and right envision a future in which everything ever made is accessible, at no cost, with a click of a button. Those who think "free" as in speech envision a new digital order offering an inclusive cultural commons and mass enlightenment through access to information; those who think "free" as in beer merely see a cheaper way to get rich. "Just be...Folksonomies: creative commons
Folksonomies: creative commons
1 notes
notesCapitalists love all this free stuff online, they get to make so much money off of it. I do appreciate the irony of me attempting to do the same with MemexPlex.
