17 OCT 2021 by ideonexus
Understanding Cause and Effect is Based on Experience
Were a man, such as Adam, created in the full vigor of understanding, without experience, he would never be able to infer motion in the second ball from the motion and impulse of the first. It is not anything that reason sees in the cause, which make us infer the effect. Such an inference, were it possible, would amount to a demonstration, as being founded merely on the comparison of ideas. But no inference from cause to effect amounts to a demonstration, as being founded merely on the compar...Folksonomies: philosophy empiricism
Folksonomies: philosophy empiricism
Adam would not know that one billiard ball hitting another would cause a chain reaction.
28 FEB 2021 by ideonexus
Humanity is Fortunate to Have a Variety of Energy Sources...
Humanity is fortunate in having such a variety of energy resources at its disposal. In the very long run we shall need energy that is unpolluting; we shall have sunlight. In the fairly long run we shall need energy that is inexhaustible and moderately clean; we shall have deuterium. In the short run we shall need energy that is readily usable and abundant; we shall have uranium. Right now we need energy that is cheap and convenient; we have coal and oil. Nature has been kinder to us than we h...18 FEB 2021 by ideonexus
Newton on Why There is a God
As to your first query, it seems to me that if the matter of our sun and planets
and all the matter of the universe were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens,
and every particle had an innate gravity toward all the rest, and the whole space
throughout which this matter was scattered was but finite, the matter on the outside
of this space would, by its gravity, tend toward all the matter on the inside and, by
consequence, fall down into the middle of the whole space and there compose on...Interesting for how it portrays his understanding of the cosmos and matter.
08 NOV 2019 by ideonexus
The World and Beliefs
The world with its quarks and chromosomes, its distant lands and spiral nebulae, is like a vast computer in a black box, forever sealed except for its input and output registers. These we directly observe, and in the light of them we speculate on the structure of the machine, the universe. Thus it is that we think up the quarks and chromosomes, the distant lands and the nebulae; they would account for the observable data. When an observation turns out unexpectedly, we may try modifying our th...Folksonomies: belief
Folksonomies: belief
02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
The Anthropic Principle
As an example of the power of the Anthropic Principle, consider the number of directions in space. It is a matter of common experience that we live in three-dimensional space. That is to say, we can represent the position of a point in space by three numbers. For example, latitude. longitude and height above sea level. But why is space three-dimensional? Why isn't it two, or four, or some other number of dimensions, hke in science fiction? In fact, in M-theory space has ten dimensions (as wel...Folksonomies: anthropic principle
Folksonomies: anthropic principle
02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Scientific Laws Mean That God has No Freedom
he one remaining area that reHgion can now lay claim to is the origin of the universe, but even here science is making progress and should soon provide a definitive answer to how the universe began. I published a book that asked if God created the universe, and that caused something of a stir. People got upset that a scientist should have anything to say on the matter of religion. I have no desire to tell anyone what to believe, but for me asking if God exists is a valid question for science...02 MAR 2019 by ideonexus
Science Poem
The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe ...Folksonomies: science poetry
Folksonomies: science poetry
27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Our Modern Worldview and Morality is Shaped by Science
To begin with, the findings of science imply that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures—their theories of the genesis of the world, life, humans, and societies—are factually mistaken. We know, but our ancestors did not, that humans belong to a single species of African primate that developed agriculture, government, and writing late in its history. We know that our species is a tiny twig of a genealogical tree that embraces all living things and that e...16 APR 2018 by ideonexus
A Student's Skill-Level Should be Private
A student's skill level should be a private matter, between him and the teacher, and students who are behind should be able to work comfortably, without embarrassment. "They know they should know more. They know they should not be working on tens and ones when their friends are doing division and fractions and all that, and there's no shame in working on it with the computer." Actually, the same principle applies to kids who are off-the-charts advanced: if they just want to relax and do high-...Folksonomies: education personalization
Folksonomies: education personalization
19 JAN 2018 by ideonexus