Insight is the Greatest Virtue
Knowledge is the most important moral.
Folksonomies: virtue ethics
Memes
09 JAN 2013
Humanism is About Exploration
As humanists who see life and human history as a great adventure, we seek new worlds to explore, new facts to uncover, new avenues for artistic expression, new solutions to old problems, and new feelings to experience. We sometimes feel driven in our quest. and it is participation in this quest that gives our lives meaning and makes beneficial discoveries possible. Our goals as a species are open ended. As a result, we will never be without purpose. 
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We are always seeking new experiences, new vistas, new ideas...
08 JAN 2013
George Washington Promotes Science and Literature
Nor am I less persuaded, that you will agree with me in opinion, that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of Science and Literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. In one in which the measures of Government receive their impression so immediately from the sense of the Community as in ours it is proportionably essential. To the security of a free Constitution it contributes in various ways: By convincing those who are...As the keys to happiness and to preserve liberty.
27 AUG 2012
How Knowledge Brought Egalitarianism
The art of printing had been applied to so many subjects, books had so rapidly increased, they were so admirably adapted to every taste, every degree of information, and every situation of life, they afforded so easy and frequently so delightful an instruction, they had opened so many doors to truth, which it was impossible ever to close again, that there was no longer a class or profession of mankind from whom the light of knowledge could absolutely be excluded. Accordingly, though there sti...The printing press resulted in the mass distribution of ideas, which freed humans from established heirarchies.
07 AUG 2012
The Great Learning (大學)
古之欲明明德於天下者，先治其國；欲治其國者，先齊其家；欲齊其家者，先修其身；欲修其身者，先正其心；欲正其心者，先誠其意；欲誠其意者，先致其知，致知在格物。物格而後知至，知至而後意誠，意誠而後心正，心正而後身修，身修而後家齊，家齊而後國治，國治而後天下平。自天子以至於庶人，壹是皆以修身為本。其本亂而末治者否矣，其所厚者薄，而其所薄...Folksonomies: philosophy sinology
Folksonomies: philosophy sinology
[Translation] The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy. From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well ordered. It never has been the case that what was of great importance has been slightly cared for, and, at the same time, that what was of slight importance has been greatly cared for.
21 JUN 2012
Scientific Knowledge is the Only Thing That Gets Better
No history of civilization can be tolerably complete which does not give considerable space to the explanation of scientific progress. If we had any doubts about this, it would suffice to ask ourselves what constitutes the essential difference between our and earlier civilizations. Throughout the course of history, in every period, and in almost every country, we find a small number of saints, of great artists, of men of science. The saints of to-day are not necessarily more saintly than thos...Art, religion, and scientists are all of the same caliber throughout history, the only difference is the wealth of knowledge they have access to grows larger all the time.
11 JUN 2012
Everything is Getting Simpler
It is often claimed that knowledge multiplies so rapidly that nobody can follow it. I believe this is incorrect. At least in science it is not true. The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler. This, of course, goes contrary to what everyone accepts. Folksonomies: complexity knowledge
Folksonomies: complexity knowledge
Going against the common belief that science is making life more complex as knowledge grows.
11 JUN 2012
Ignorance as Friction
Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance, what Buddha called 'the greatest evil in the world.' The friction which results from ignorance ... can be reduced only by the spread of knowledge and the unification of the heterogeneous elements of humanity. No effort could be better spent. Retarding human progress.
09 JUN 2012
Consume Fragments of Truth
At the outset do not be worried about this big question—Truth. It is a very simple matter if each one of you starts with the desire to get as much as possible. No human being is constituted to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and even the best of men must be content with fragments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition. In this unsatisfied quest the attitude of mind, the desire, the thirst—a thirst that from the soul must arise!—the fervent longing, a...Maintain a thirst for knowledge and don't be concerned with ultimate truth.
09 JUN 2012
Scientists Work on the Faith that Knowledge is a Good Thing
But when you come right down to it, the reason that we did this job is because it was an organic necessity. If you are a scientist you cannot stop such a thing. If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and values.Quoting J. Robert Oppenheimer on the development of the atomic bomb.
08 JUN 2012
We Cannot Extend Our Lives Forward, but We Can Backwards
The alchemists of past centuries tried hard to make the elixir of life: ... Those efforts were in vain; it is not in our power to obtain the experiences and the views of the future by prolonging our lives forward in this direction. However, it is well possible in a certain sense to prolong our lives backwards by acquiring the experiences of those who existed before us and by learning to know their views as well as if we were their contemporaries. The means for doing this is also an elixir of ...By reading the works of previous generations, absorbing their knowledge, we can age ourselves mentally.
29 MAY 2012
Knowledge of Nature is Like an Account at the Bank
Knowledge of Nature is an account at bank, where each dividend is added to the principal and the interest is ever compounded; and hence it is that human progress, founded on natural knowledge, advances with ever increasing speed. Where the interest compounds and the growth is logarithmic(?).
28 JAN 2012
Knowledge for the Sake of Understanding is in Our Blood
Science has a simple faith, which transcends utility. Nearly all men of science, all men of learning for that matter, and men of simple ways too, have it in some form and in some degree. It is the faith that it is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can defin...It would be a tragedy to lose science under stress.
01 JAN 2012
Knowledge Changes Perspectives
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time…
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.Folksonomies: exploration
Folksonomies: exploration
The things we learn along the path of life makes us see familiar things as if they are new.
13 DEC 2011
Knowledge Produces More Rapid Rate of Progress
Remember that accumulated knowledge, like accumulated capital, increases at compound interest: but it differs from the accumulation of capital in this; that the increase of knowledge produces a more rapid rate of progress, whilst the accumulation of capital leads to a lower rate of interest. Capital thus checks its own accumulation: knowledge thus accelerates its own advance. Each generation, therefore, to deserve comparison with its predecessor, is bound to add much more largely to the commo......in comparison to Capital, which checks its rate of growth with interest.
20 SEP 2011
Research Conquers our Ignorance
Hard problems often yield before science, and though we still don’t
understand how every complex biochemical system evolved, we are
learning more every day. After all, biochemical evolution is a field in still
its infancy. If the history of science teaches us anything, it is that what
conquers our ignorance is research, not giving up and attributing our
ignorance to the miraculous work of a creator. When you hear someone
claim otherwise, just remember these words of Darwin: “Ignorance mor...Science yields answers in time, ignorance begets confidence in the present.
30 AUG 2011
The Need to Cross-Pollinate Knowledge
When chemists have brought their knowledge out of their special laboratories into the laboratory of the world, where chemical combinations are and have been through all time going on in such vast proportions,—when physicists study the laws of moisture, of clouds and storms, in past periods as well as in the present,—when, in short, geologists and zoologists are chemists and physicists, and vice versa,—then we shall learn more of the changes the world has undergone than is possible now t...Folksonomies: progress cross-pollination
Folksonomies: progress cross-pollination
Chemsits and physicists must come out and study nature, while geologists and zoologists must go into the lab, so that scientific progress may multiply.
01 JUN 2011
Bad Men Hoard Knowledge
It would be desirable for the government to authorize people to go into the factories and shops, to see the craftsmen at their work, to question them, to draw the tools, the machines, and even the premises.
There are special circumstances when craftsmen are so secretive about their techniques that the shortest way of learning about them would be to apprentice oneself to a master or to have some trustworthy person do this. There would be few secrets that one would fail to bring to light by t...
1 Instead of sharing it to the benefit of the rest of the world, and yet these same men complain of the wisdom of the ancients lost to the present.
29 MAY 2011
Knowledge Shows us What We Don't Know
Scientific learning is composed of two opposites which nonetheless meet each other. The first is the natural ignorance that is man's lot at birth. The second is represented by those great minds that have investigated all knowledge accumulated by man only to discover at the end that in fact they know nothing. Thus they return to the same fundamental ignorance they had thought to leave. Yet this ignorance they have now discovered is an intellectual achievement. It is those who have departed fro...The purpose of accumulating knowledge is to become aware of our ignorance.
01 JAN 2010
A Programmer's Basic Material is Knowledge
As Pragmatic Programmers, our base material isn't wood or iron, it's knowledge. We gather requirements as knowledge, and then express that knowledge in our designs, implementations, tests, and documents. And we believe that the best format for storing knowledge persistently is plain text. With plain text, we give ourselves the ability to manipulate knowledge, both manually and programmatically, using virtually every tool at our disposal.And we express that knowledge in our designs.
01 JAN 2010
Education Provides Hooks to Hang New Knowledge
Human memory, they say, is like a coat closet: the most enduring outcome of a formal education is that it creates rows of coat hooks so that later on, when you come upon a new piece of information, you have a hook to hang it on. Without a hook, the new information falls on the floor.This is a great metaphor for MemexPlex.
References
09 JAN 2013
Humanism as the Next Step
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Morain , Lloyd and Mary (2012-01-01), Humanism as the Next Step, Humanist Press, Retrieved on 2013-01-09Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: humanism
Folksonomies: humanism
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08 JAN 2013
First Annual Message to Congress
Proceedings of Meetings and Symposia>Speech: Washington, George (01/08/1970), First Annual Message to Congress, Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, Washington DC, Retrieved on 2013-01-08Source Material [millercenter.org]
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07 AUG 2012
The Confucian Analects, the Great Learning & the Doctrine...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Confucius , (2009-08-31), The Confucian Analects, the Great Learning & the Doctrine of the Mean, Cosimo Classics, Retrieved on 2012-08-07Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: philosophy
Folksonomies: philosophy
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06 AUG 2012
Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Hum...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Condorcet, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat (1795), Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind, Retrieved on 2012-08-06Source Material [oll.libertyfund.org]
Folksonomies: philosophy
Folksonomies: philosophy
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21 JUN 2012
Introduction to the History of Science
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Sarton , George Alfred Léon (1931), Introduction to the History of Science, Retrieved on 2012-06-21Source Material [books.google.com]
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11 JUN 2012
The Problem Of Increasing Human Energy
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Tesla , Nikola (2008-01-30), The Problem Of Increasing Human Energy, Cosimo, Inc., Retrieved on 2012-06-11Source Material [books.google.com]
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11 JUN 2012
Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Teller , Teller , Talley (2002), Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics, Retrieved on 2012-06-11Source Material [books.google.com]
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09 JUN 2012
Selected writings of Sir William Osler, 12 July 1849 to 2...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Osler , Sir William (1951), Selected writings of Sir William Osler, 12 July 1849 to 29 December 1919, Retrieved on 2012-06-09Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: biography autobiography
Folksonomies: biography autobiography
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09 JUN 2012
J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Cassidy , David C. (2009-07-30), J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr, Retrieved on 2012-06-09Source Material [books.google.com]
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08 JUN 2012
Die Entwicklung der Chemie in der neueren Zeit
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Kopp , Hermann (1966), Die Entwicklung der Chemie in der neueren Zeit, Retrieved on 2012-06-08Source Material [books.google.com]
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29 MAY 2012
Presidential address [The origin of hypotheses]
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Gilbert , Grove Karl (1896), Presidential address [The origin of hypotheses], Retrieved on 2012-05-29Source Material [books.google.com]
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28 JAN 2012
Science is not enough
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Bush, Vannevar (1969), Science is not enough, Retrieved on 2012-01-28Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: nature
Folksonomies: nature
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01 JAN 2012
Four quartets
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Eliot , T. S. (1970), Four quartets, Retrieved on 2012-01-01Source Material [books.google.com]
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13 DEC 2011
The Exposition of 1851
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Babbage , Charles (1851), The Exposition of 1851, Retrieved on 2011-12-13Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: great exhibition
Folksonomies: great exhibition
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15 SEP 2011
Why Evolution Is True
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Coyne , Jerry A. (January 22, 2009), Why Evolution Is True, Penguin (Non-Classics), Retrieved on 2011-09-15
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30 AUG 2011
Geological Sketches. [The preface signed: E. C. A., i.e. ...
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Agassiz , Louis and Agassiz , Elizabeth Cabot Cary (2011-03-27), Geological Sketches. [The preface signed: E. C. A., i.e. Elizabeth C. Agassiz. With a portrait.], British Library, Historical Print Editions, Retrieved on 2011-08-30
Folksonomies: geology natural history
Folksonomies: geology natural history
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30 MAY 2011
Encyclopédie
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book Chapter: Diderot, Denis (1755), Encyclopédie, Vol. 5 (1755), pp. 635–648A, Paris, Retrieved on 2011-05-30Source Material [quod.lib.umich.edu]
Folksonomies: knowledge encyclopedia
Folksonomies: knowledge encyclopedia
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29 MAY 2011
Pensées
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Pascal , Blaise (2011-04-16), Pensées, Benediction Classics, Retrieved on 2011-05-29
Folksonomies: religion philosophy
Folksonomies: religion philosophy
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06 APR 2011
The Sacred Depths of Nature
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Goodenough, Ursula (June 2000), The Sacred Depths of Nature, Oxford University Press, USA, Retrieved on 2010-11-30
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06 APR 2011
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Thomas, David and Hunt, Andrew (Oct 1999), The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, Addison-Wesley, Retrieved on 2007-11-30
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