Category: Other Stuff
“We have everything here—graves. Graves everywhere. The dump trucks are working, and the bulldozers. The houses are falling. The grave diggers are toiling away. They buried the school, the headquarters, the baths. It’s the same world, but the people are different. One thing I don’t know is, do people have souls? What kind? And how do they all fit in the next world? My grandpa died for two days. I was hiding behind the stove and waiting: How’s it going to fly out of his body? I went to milk the cow—I came back in, called him, he was lying there with his eyes open. His soul fled already. Or did nothing happen? And then how will we meet?” – “Settlers’ Chorus: Those Who Returned” (from Voices from Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexievich, trans. Keith Gessen)
“Distributive justice can be reduced to the ideas of equality or equity. From the point of view of epistemology such notions cannot but be regarded as a priori, if by a priori we mean, not of course an innate idea, but a norm, towards which reason cannot help but tend as it is gradually refined and purified. For reciprocity imposes itself on practical reason as logical principles impose themselves morally on theoretical reason. But from the psychological point of view, which is that of what is, not of what should be, an a priori norm has no existence except as a form of equilibrium. It constitutes the ideal equilibrium towards which the phenomena tend, and the whole question is still to know why, the facts being what they are, their form of equilibrium is such and no other. This last problem, which is of a causal order, must not be confused with the first, which can be solved only by abstract reflection. The two will coincide only when mind and reality become coextensive.” – Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child (trans. Marjorie Gabain)
“Cheating is a defensive reaction which our educational systems seem to have wantonly called forth in the pupil. Instead of taking into account the child’s deeper psychological tendencies which urge him to work with others—emulation being in no way opposed to cooperation—our schools condemn the pupil to work in isolation and only make use of emulation to set one individual against another. This purely individualistic system of work, excellent no doubt if the aim of education be to give good marks and prepare the young for examinations, is nothing but a handicap to the formation of reasonable beings and good citizens.” – Jean Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child (trans. Marjorie Gabain)
“Before flaws look like style, they look like flaws.” – Maria Adelmann, “Basket Weaving 101”
“Most problems aren’t rocket science, but when they are rocket science, you should ask a rocket scientist about them.” Captain Scott Kelly, “What I Learned in Space” (emphasis in original)
“A person’s nose is one eye wide, as is the distance between their eyes. A mouth is two eyes wide. A face is three noses long. A nose is as long as your ear.” – Molly Fitzpatrick, “Faces of Death (And Larry David)”
“I think that if people began thinking about death sooner they’d make fewer foolish mistakes.” – Dmitri Shostakovich (quoted by David Dubal in The Essential Canon of Classical Music)
“All I know about method is that when I am not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I am working, it is quite clear that I know nothing.” – John Cage, “Lecture on Nothing”
“Everybody has a song which is no song at all: it is a process of singing, and when you sing, you are where you are.” – John Cage, “Lecture on Nothing”
“Forget about the level of training, the implementation of draconian punitive measures or the socialization of troops – during any engagement both sides are naturally leaning towards retreat. The side whose soldiers are able to suppress that instinctive response longer is usually victorious.” – Łukasz Różycki, “Fear – Elements of Slavic ‘Psychological Warfare’ in the Context of Selected Late Roman Sources”
“It is a well known fact that, in spite of the attenuation of electromagnetic radiation produced by sea water, photosynthetic organisms thrive in the underwater ecosystem. But it is rather surprising that bacterial photosynthesis has been observed to take place deep within the Pacific Ocean, at depths in excess of 2,000 meters. This biological process is carried out by green-sulfur bacteria that are obligated photosynthetic organisms. That is, these organisms are required to conduct photosynthesis in order to survive. Even though at this depth the ocean is in total darkness to the human eye, the bacteria is able to efficiently absorb and process the dim light that comes from the sun or nearby hydrothermal vents. In a sense, the problem of highly efficient underwater photosensors has already been solved by nature through the evolution over millions of years of these underwater photosynthetic
organisms.
“Let us recall that photosynthetic organisms posses molecular antenna systems that capture solar light and transport the energy to a metabolically expensive reaction center where the biochemical processes of photosynthesis begins. For many years it was conjectured that the transport of energy to the reaction center was due to classical energy transport mechanisms.
“However, it has recently been observed that photosynthetic proteins appear to use quantum coherence to transport energy in an efficient manner (nearly perfect quantum efficiency of the photo collection capture and transport processes). Indeed, quantum effects in photosynthetic light harvesting systems have been experimentally observed at cryogenic and at room temperature. These experiments required of sophisticated setups requiring ultra fast optics and 2D spectrography to detect the characteristic quantum signatures. In addition, a variety of theoretical efforts have proposed viable physical mechanisms that explain how quantum phenomena can be relevant at room temperature.”
– Marco Lanzagorta, et al., “Quantum Sensing in the Maritime Environment”
“A state such as ∣ψ) is often referred as a qubit and corresponds to a unit of quantum information (in contrast to the bit, which is the unit of classical information). Clearly, bits and qubits are radically different. Bits can assume the value of 0 or 1, but once fixed, its value is unique, deterministic, and unambiguous. On the other hand, qubits can simultaneously take the value of 0 and 1 in a probabilistic mixture of complex amplitudes, and as a consequence, its value is not deterministic.” – Marco Lanzagorta, et al., “Quantum Sensing in the Maritime Environment”
“If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. MacGuiness)
“It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. MacGuiness; emphasis in original)
“If man is not to live by bread alone, what is better worth doing well than the planting of trees?” – Frederick Law Olmsted, “Trees in Streets and in Parks”
“It turns out that every local solution is also global.” – Christopher J. C. Burges, “A Tutorial on Support Vector Machines for Pattern Recognition”
“Let’s follow the time honoured tradition of understanding things by trying to break them.” – Christopher J. C. Burges, “A Tutorial on Support Vector Machines for Pattern Recognition”
“If the vacuum around the nucleus can be considered more of a ‘natural’ vacuum as opposed to an immutable ground state with absolutely no spatial variation, and if there are ephemeral fermion/antifermion pairs dominated by electron-positron pairs that create and annihilate with a density that increases significantly as one moves closer to the nucleus, what is so special about the orbiting electron that allows it to be a ‘real’ electron out of this vacuum soup? Perhaps it is not a case of uniqueness, but a case of non-uniqueness. Consider the following: A room full of paired square dancers progresses through the dance moves smoothly as called by the caller, and they occasionally change partners when instructed. What if there were an additional solitary dance partner of a given gender introduced to the ranks of this evenly matched group, and the rule is established that when a trade call is issued, the free dancer will couple to the nearest available dance partner of the opposite gender, and the previously paired dancer that misses out is now the free dancer until the next trade call is issued. As the evening progresses, nearly every dance partner of the gender that had the extra dancer has had a period where they were the ‘unique’ solitary dancer. In an analogous way, perhaps the ‘real’ electron is also ‘unique’. In one instance, the ‘real’ electron collides with a positron vacuum fluctuation elevating the now un-paired electron vacuum fluctuation to the ‘real’ state. This real electron continues in its real state for a brief period until it too collides with a positron vacuum fluctuation, elevating the next un-paired electron vacuum fluctuation to the ‘real’ state. This process continues ad infinitum, and the ‘real’ electron is not unique, rather it is non-unique in that the ‘real’ descriptor is associated with the state, not the individual electron.” – Harold White, et al., “Dynamics of the Vacuum and Casimir Analogs to the Hydrogen Atom”
“(1) How can a material thing (a mechanism?) be correctly said to reason, to have reasons, to act on reasons? (2) How can the unique four-dimensional non-branching world-worm that comprises all that has happened and will happen admit of a notion of possibilities that are not actualities? What does an opportunity look like when the world is viewed sub specie aeternitatis? (3) How can a person be the author of decisions and not merely the locus of causal summation for external influences? (4) How do we make sense of the intuition that an agent can only be responsible if he could have done otherwise? (5) How can we intelligibly describe the relevant mental history of the truly culpable agent—the villain or rational cheat with no excuses?” – Daniel Dennett, Brainstorms
“Two points about rationalism stand out: It becomes our privileged way of accessing the world and making sense of the things around us, to the exclusion of other ways of appreciating meaning: moods, our use of tools and other instruments, and our communal traditions captured in language. But the chief defect of this narrowed, receptive mode of rationalism is that it disguises from us our own essential practice of creating meaning in the world through our involvement and engagement with it. As a further result of this, our inclination to rationalism has led us throughout history to build the world, so to speak, in accordance with dimmed-down ‘reason.’ But since reason doesn’t agree with our most fundamental essence as finite, engaged beings, the world we’ve built—starting with the ancient Greeks—is particularly hostile and unwelcoming: hence the destructive phenomena of nihilism as well as our own inherent anxiety about reason. Reason alienates us from our own essence as human beings, and it teases us into thinking, falsely, that the world is separate from our own acting and being within it.” – Alexander S. Duff, “Heidegger’s Ghosts”
“It is often said these days that America is a Christian country. If that’s true, then a great many Americans should be worried about their eternal salvation. According to Jesus, when He returns to settle accounts at the Last Judgment, He will separate the sheep from the goats, telling the goats: ‘Go, you damned souls, into the fire. For you saw Me hungry and ragged and homeless and unemployed and uninsured, and you ignored Me.’ And when the goats bleat in self-justification: ‘But, Lord, when did we see You hungry or ragged or homeless or unemployed or uninsured?’ He will answer furiously and unmercifully: ‘When you ignored the poorest of the poor, you ignored Me. Go, now, to Hell.’ It’s right there in Matthew, chapter 25, verses 41 to 46.” – George Scialabba, “The End of Poverty”
“In proportion as the body grows fat, so does the soul wither away.” – Abba Daniel of Skettis
“Educated people should know something about the 13-billion-year prehistory of our species and the basic laws governing the physical and living world, including our bodies and brains. They should grasp the timeline of human history from the dawn of agriculture to the present. They should be exposed to the diversity of human cultures, and the major systems of belief and value with which they have made sense of their lives. They should know about the formative events in human history, including the blunders we can hope not to repeat. They should understand the principles behind democratic governance and the rule of law. They should know how to appreciate works of fiction and art as sources of aesthetic pleasure and as impetuses to reflect on the human condition. On top of this knowledge, a liberal education should make certain habits of rationality second nature. Educated people should be able to express complex ideas in clear writing and speech. They should appreciate that objective knowledge is a precious commodity, and know how to distinguish vetted fact from superstition, rumor, and unexamined conventional wisdom. They should know how to reason logically and statistically, avoiding the fallacies and biases to which the untutored human mind is vulnerable. They should think causally rather than magically, and know what it takes to distinguish causation from correlation and coincidence. They should be acutely aware of human fallibility, most notably their own, and appreciate that people who disagree with them are not stupid or evil. Accordingly, they should appreciate the value of trying to change minds by persuasion rather than intimidation or demagoguery.” – Steven Pinker, “The Trouble with Harvard”
“Every era has its dangerous ideas. For millennia, the monotheistic religions have persecuted countless heresies, together with nuisances from science such as geocentrism, biblical archeology, and the theory of evolution. We can be thankful that the punishments have changed from torture and mutilation to the canceling of grants and the writing of vituperative reviews. But intellectual intimidation, whether by sword or by pen, inevitably shapes the ideas that are taken seriously in a given era, and the rear-view mirror of history presents us with a warning.” – Steven Pinker, “In Defense of Dangerous Ideas”
“While it is never a good idea to violate the National Fire Codes, code violations, in and of themselves, are frequently nothing more than code violations. It would be difficult to conduct a thorough inspection of any residence and not detect at least one violation of a fire code.” – John J. Lentini, Scientific Protocols for Fire Investigation, Second Edition
“Even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.” – Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes
“Nothing is more critical to people’s health than food. The consequences of poor nutrition are devastating.” – Lisa Marsh Riyerson, President, AARP Foundation
“Sexual ambiguity was an ethic of sorts—a knight’s move in the face of the fixed options of straight (and possibly also gay) identity.” – Brian Dillon, “Notes on Bowie”
6.1 Compare all the known data.
6.2 Determine whether the data support the hypothesis.
6.3 In the event that there are data that contradict the hypothesis, examine the data for credibility.
6.3.1 If the data that contradict the hypothesis appear credible, formulate a new hypothesis and begin the process again.
6.4 If all known credible data are supportive of the hypothesis, consider whether alternative hypotheses are also supported by these data.
6.4.1 If more than one hypothesis is supported by the data, it will be necessary to report all credible hypotheses.
– Sidebar 4.1, Section 6, “Hypothesis Testing”, John J. Lentini, Scientific Protocols for Fire Investigation, Second Edition
“Scientific progress is a cumulative process of uncertainty reduction that can only succeed if science itself remains the greatest skeptic of its explanatory claims.” – Open Science Collaboration, “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science”