31 OCT 2018 by ideonexus
Adult is Not a Term of Approval
Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about bei...Folksonomies: maturity juvenillia
Folksonomies: maturity juvenillia
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notes
notes02 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Importance of Leisure in Science
Long before anyone knew that the universe had a beginning, before we knew that the nearest large galaxy lies two and a half million light-years from Earth, before we knew how stars work or whether atoms exist, James Ferguson's enthusiastic introduction to his favorite science rang true. Yet his words, apart from their eighteenth-century flourish, could have been written yesterday.
But who gets to think that way? Who gets to celebrate this cosmic view of life? Not the migrant farmworker. Not ... 1 notes
notes21 APR 2014 by ideonexus
History in "A Song of Ice and Fire"
In this, the obvious contrast is with the only work of fantasy to compare in terms of ambition and achievement to Martin's own: The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's Middle-earth, unlike Westeros, is the creation of a dauntingly learned scholar: his ambition was to fashion from the languages, literature and history of the early middle ages an invented mythology that would nevertheless retain the stamp of the period that had inspired it. Martin's approach is infinitely more slapdash. Just as the ch... 1 notes
notesASOIF contains many references to real history.
24 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Geometry Sets the Mind Right
Geometry enlightens the intellect and sets one's mind right. All its proofs are very clear and orderly. It is hardly possible for errors to enter into geometrical reasoning, because it is well arranged and orderly. Thus, the mind that constantly applies itself to geometry is not likely to fall into error. In this convenient way, the person who knows geometry acquires intelligence. It has been assumed that the followmg statement was written Upon Plato's door: 'No one who is not a geometrician ...Folksonomies: mathematics meditation
Folksonomies: mathematics meditation
1 Makes me think about mindfulness meditation, which is fine, but there are meditative practices that are proactive as well.
28 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
A Succinct Response to Overgeneralization
I think you may be mistaking what are actually contrasting and often contradictory statements of discrete individuals across several communities for a monolithic statement of belief by a single collective mind.Folksonomies: debate
Folksonomies: debate
Posted to a forum.
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, complexification ...Folksonomies: observation prayer
Folksonomies: observation prayer
1 notes
notesSimply looking at the world for what it is and what it has to tell us.
12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Lecturing is Easy, Teaching is Hard
Lecturing after a fashion is easy enough ; teaching is a very different affair. ... The transmission of ideas from one mind to another, in a simple unequivocal form, is not always easy ; but in teaching, the object is not merely to convey the idea, but to give a lively and lasting impression; something that should not merely cause the retention of the image, but in such connection as to excite another process, ' thought.' 1 notes
notesPlanting ideas in students' heads of different backgrounds and experiences is a difficult task.
29 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Definition of Culture
[Culture] denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms, by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life. Folksonomies: culture definitions
Folksonomies: culture definitions
1 notes
notesVery succinct.
07 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Losing the Human Perspective in the Vastness of the Cosmos
When I pause and reflect on our expanding universe, with its galaxies hurtling away from one another, embedded within the ever-stretching, four-dimensional fabric of space and time, sometimes I forget that uncounted people walk this Earth without food or shelter, and that children are disproportionately represented among them.
When I pore over the data that establish the mysterious presence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that every day—every twent... 1 notes
notesTyson talks about how easy it is to forget human dilemmas when we consider the immense size of our Universe.
23 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Metaphor for the Mathematician
The mathematician may be compared to a designer of garments, who is utterly oblivious of the creatures whom his garments may fit. To be sure, his art originated in the necessity for clothing such creatures, but this was long ago; to this day a shape will occasionally appear which will fit into the garment as if the garment had been made for it. Then there is no end of surprise and delight. As a designer of garments for unknown beings, who delights in learning their shape as they go.
