09 AUG 2014 by ideonexus
The Problem of Inferring Anything about the Star Trek Uni...
The second problem has more to do with using Starfleet as the lens through which we draw conclusions about Federation society. If I were to show some alien society a documentary about the United States, set primarily on a US aircraft carrier, with ~90% of the situations and characters taking place in a military context, my alien viewers would draw some very interesting inferences about the US (or, more broadly, all of human society). They'd think we were a rigidly hierarchical society. They'd... 1 
notes
notes13 MAR 2014 by ideonexus
Perceiving Infinite Suns in the Night Sky
Elpino. Why then do we not see the other bright bodies which are earths circling around the bright bodies which are suns? For beyond these we can detect no motion whatever; and why do all other mundane bodies (except those known as comets) appear always in the same order and at the same distance?
Philotheo. The reason is that we discern only the largest suns, immense bodies. But we do not discern the earths because, being much smaller, they are invisible to us. Similarly it is not impossible... 1 notes
notesBruno's observations and reasoning.
15 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Observations are Grounded in Language
What are observations? Some philosophers have taken them to be sensory events: the occurrence of smells, feels, noises, color patches. This way lies frustration. What we ordinarily notice and testify to are rather the objects and events out in the world. It is to these that our very language is geared, because language is a social institution, learned from other people who share the scene to which the words refer. Observation sentences, like theoretical sentences, are for the most part senten... 1 notes
notesNot senses.
31 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
How Intuition Messed Up the Laws of Motion
A most fundamental problem, for thousands of years
wholly obscured by its complications, is that of motion.
All those motions we observe in nature that of a
stone thrown into the air, a ship sailing the sea, a cart
pushed along the street are in reality very intricate.
To understand these phenomena it is wise to begin
with the simplest possible cases, and proceed gradually
to the more complicated ones. Consider a body at rest,
where there is no motion at all. To change the position
o... 1 notes
notesAnd it took a Newton to determine what was really going on.
25 AUG 2012 by ideonexus
Prayer is Silent Observation
Learning to pray, then as I understand it, is learning to listen with the mind and the heart – making oneself attentive to each exquisite detail of the world. It is a fearsome exhilarating task, best suited to solitude and silence. Such prayers are answered not with miracles tagged with our names, or those of our loved ones, but with beauty and terror. For the prayerful listener, the world becomes the sublime scripture, full of stories of structure and chaos, law and chance, complexificatio...Folksonomies: observation prayer
Folksonomies: observation prayer
1 notes
notesSimply looking at the world for what it is and what it has to tell us.
23 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Observation of Hypothesizing
A biologist, if he wishes to know how many toes a cat has, does not "frame the hypothesis that the number of feline digital extremities is 4, or 5, or 6," he simply looks at a cat and counts. A social scientist prefers the more long-winded expression every time, because it gives an entirely spurious impression of scientificness to what he is doing. Folksonomies: observation hypthesis
Folksonomies: observation hypthesis
1 notes
notesSociologists hypothesize too much, when they should focus on observation.
22 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
What Might Be VS What Is
It has hitherto been a serious impediment to the progress of knowledge, that is in investigating the origin or causes of natural productions, recourse has generally been had to the examination, both by experiment and reasoning, of what might be rather than what is. The laws or processes of nature we have every reason to believe invariable. Their results from time to time vary, according to the combinations of influential circumstances; but the process remains the same. Like the poet or the pa...Folksonomies: observation
Folksonomies: observation
1 notes
notesLooking for one is less productive than observing the other.
22 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Observing a Slot Machine
[The] weakness of biological balance studies has aptly been illustrated by comparison with the working of a slot machine. A penny brings forth one package of chewing gum; two pennies bring forth two. Interpreted according to the reasoning of balance physiology, the first observation is an indication of the conversion of copper into gum; the second constitutes proof.Folksonomies: observation experimentation
Folksonomies: observation experimentation
1 notes
notesWe would think it converts coins into candy.
12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Observation VS Experiment
Observation is simple, indefatigable, industrious, upright, without any preconceived opinion. Experiment is artificial, impatient, busy, digressive; passionate, unreliable. We see every day one experiment after another, the second outweighing the impression gained from the first, both, often enough, carried out by men who are neither much distinguished for their spirit, nor for carrying with them the truth of personality and self denial. Nothing is easier than to make a series of so-called in...Folksonomies: observation experimentation
Folksonomies: observation experimentation
1 notes
notesObservation sounds peaceful, experimentation sounds distressing.
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Tiny Legs
But many of our imaginations and investigations of nature are futile, especially when we see little living animals and see their legs and must judge the same to be ten thousand times thinner than a hair of my beard, and when I see animals living that are more than a hundred times smaller and am unable to observe any legs at all, I still conclude from their structure and the movements of their bodies that they do have legs... and therefore legs in proportion to their bodies, just as is the cas... 1 notes
notesLeeuwenhoek observes that there are animals that move, but are too small to see their legs, but he knows they have legs and that those legs must somehow carry nutrients within them.
