History The Blue Book is in PDF 10 Sep 2009 Systematists know the tome by Gareth Nelson and Norman Platnick, Systematics and Biogeography (1981), as the Blue Book (shades of Wittgenstein!). It was published once and is now so hard to get that I have been unable to find a copy in ten years of looking. Now, Malte Ebach tells… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity The origins of “speciation” 29 Mar 20145 Apr 2014 As I do some research on the history of speciation theories, I came across this, which is perhaps the original coining of the term: Evolution is a process of organic change and development, universal and continuous, and due to causes resident in species. Speciation, to give the other process a… Read More
Epistemology Laws and explanation in history 14 Jun 2009 One of the critical pieces on the philosophy of history was published as Laws and Explanation in History in 1957. Now the hist-analytic site, run by Stephen Bayne, has added the entirety of the book online to its growing list of significant philosophical contributions to the philosophy of history. Links… Read More
Not a party pooper at all. Science defines the territory for the party. You can’t just have a party anywhere. Well, not outside of Las Vegas.
Not a party pooper at all. Science defines the territory for the party. You can’t just have a party anywhere. Well, not outside of Las Vegas.
Not a party pooper at all. Science defines the territory for the party. You can’t just have a party anywhere. Well, not outside of Las Vegas.
The cartoon’s right, science does take the mysticism and magic out of the world, but it replaces it with knowledge. I’m no less in awe of the world because it’s origin had nothing to do with the supernatural or hocus-pocus.
Since I’ve been offline (failure of my ISP for a day), I haven’t had a chance to reply til now, but thanks, Jeb. I often hear people say that science takes the mystery out of life. Almost always these are people who don’t know the science but regret the passing of their own personal mystique.
Since I’ve been offline (failure of my ISP for a day), I haven’t had a chance to reply til now, but thanks, Jeb. I often hear people say that science takes the mystery out of life. Almost always these are people who don’t know the science but regret the passing of their own personal mystique.
Since I’ve been offline (failure of my ISP for a day), I haven’t had a chance to reply til now, but thanks, Jeb. I often hear people say that science takes the mystery out of life. Almost always these are people who don’t know the science but regret the passing of their own personal mystique.
The cartoon’s right, science does take the mysticism and magic out of the world, but it replaces it with knowledge. I’m no less in awe of the world because it’s origin had nothing to do with the supernatural or hocus-pocus. Since “mysticism and magic” seems to mean “stuff you can’t possibly understand, ever” — an epistemological brick wall that stops all investigation before it even starts — then I say good riddance. Delving into something, understanding how it works — what Feynman called “the pleasure of finding things out — is the real source of awe and wonder. The other is a counterfeit promise that never delivers.
The cartoon’s right, science does take the mysticism and magic out of the world, but it replaces it with knowledge. I’m no less in awe of the world because it’s origin had nothing to do with the supernatural or hocus-pocus. Since “mysticism and magic” seems to mean “stuff you can’t possibly understand, ever” — an epistemological brick wall that stops all investigation before it even starts — then I say good riddance. Delving into something, understanding how it works — what Feynman called “the pleasure of finding things out — is the real source of awe and wonder. The other is a counterfeit promise that never delivers.
The cartoon’s right, science does take the mysticism and magic out of the world, but it replaces it with knowledge. I’m no less in awe of the world because it’s origin had nothing to do with the supernatural or hocus-pocus. Since “mysticism and magic” seems to mean “stuff you can’t possibly understand, ever” — an epistemological brick wall that stops all investigation before it even starts — then I say good riddance. Delving into something, understanding how it works — what Feynman called “the pleasure of finding things out — is the real source of awe and wonder. The other is a counterfeit promise that never delivers.
Well, youre blog has helped to improve my understanding of some aspects of science which impact on my own research in the arts; most notably youre views on species. So perhaps there is something to the subject after all! So it’s help me move forward in a sober fashion. Thanks
Well as a complete qualia-denier I haev no trouble with that solution, but that is not a scientific debate as such. However, this raises some interesting questions about what aspects of metaphysics science actually has managed to resolve. I think it has undercut the need for hylomorphic metaphysics, for example (although if one wishes to retain it, one can always redefine it, as the idealists and neo-Thomists did).
The cartoon sounds (ha!) great out of context, but in context it irritated me. Science does *not* answer the question of “when a tree falls in the wilderness and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” because it’s not science that determines what “sound” is. The strip suggested that “sound” consists of the vibrations in the air, but “sound” could also (more plausibly, I would think) refer the *experience* that humans and many organisms have when exposed to those vibrations, given the structure of our ears, etc. And on the latter understanding of sound, the tree does not make a sound if there is no one (organism with the appropriate apparatus) there to hear it. Feh.
The strip suggested that “sound” consists of the vibrations in the air, but “sound” could also (more plausibly, I would think) refer the *experience* that humans and many organisms have when exposed to those vibrations, given the structure of our ears, etc. And on the latter understanding of sound, the tree does not make a sound if there is no one (organism with the appropriate apparatus) there to hear it. If I measure the volume level of a given ‘sound’ using a decibel meter whilst at the same time wearing noise-cancelling headphones to protect my hearing as the sound could be injurious to my health, what am I measuring? According to your definition it can’t be sound because I am, thanks to the headphones, not perceiving it with my ears. So what is it?
The strip suggested that “sound” consists of the vibrations in the air, but “sound” could also (more plausibly, I would think) refer the *experience* that humans and many organisms have when exposed to those vibrations, given the structure of our ears, etc. And on the latter understanding of sound, the tree does not make a sound if there is no one (organism with the appropriate apparatus) there to hear it. If I measure the volume level of a given ‘sound’ using a decibel meter whilst at the same time wearing noise-cancelling headphones to protect my hearing as the sound could be injurious to my health, what am I measuring? According to your definition it can’t be sound because I am, thanks to the headphones, not perceiving it with my ears. So what is it?
The strip suggested that “sound” consists of the vibrations in the air, but “sound” could also (more plausibly, I would think) refer the *experience* that humans and many organisms have when exposed to those vibrations, given the structure of our ears, etc. And on the latter understanding of sound, the tree does not make a sound if there is no one (organism with the appropriate apparatus) there to hear it. If I measure the volume level of a given ‘sound’ using a decibel meter whilst at the same time wearing noise-cancelling headphones to protect my hearing as the sound could be injurious to my health, what am I measuring? According to your definition it can’t be sound because I am, thanks to the headphones, not perceiving it with my ears. So what is it?