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
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.
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.
13 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Science Enriches a Person's Life
We need science education to produce scientists, but we need it equally to create literacy in the public. Man has a fundamental urge to comprehend the world about him, and science gives today the only world picture which we can consider as valid. It gives an understanding of the inside of the atom and of the whole universe, or the peculiar properties of the chemical substances and of the manner in which genes duplicate in biology. An educated layman can, of course, not contribute to science, ... 1 notes
notesThis is why everyone should study it, because it's the only thing that explains the world around us. Quote from Hans Albrecht Bethe in the 1961 September issue, but reference is from the December issue.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
The laryngeal nerve's haphazard course through the body
A favourite example, ever since it was pointed out to me by Professor J. D. Currey when he
tutored me as an undergraduate, is the recurrent laryngeal nerve.* It is a branch of one of the cranial
nerves, those nerves that lead directly from the brain rather than from the spinal cord. One of the
cranial nerves, the vagus (the name means 'wandering' and it is apt), has various branches, two of
which go to the heart, and two on each side to the larynx (voice box in mammals). On each side of
the n...Folksonomies: evolution intelligent design
Folksonomies: evolution intelligent design
Another example of poor biological design.
