jan

jan, 1 month ago to science

”To the extent that nature is imagined as a mere machine, and mind is imagined as this external observer upon that machine, … we're going to have a merely external view of something that also has an inside. And if we can't include the contributions at the causal level of that interiority, then we're only goding to be understanding nature in terms of finished form, and we're going to lack an understanding of nature as a process of formation. And we can understand the mineral world, the inorganic physical world, decently well just as a bunch of finished forms. It's why math works so well in physics, but to try to understand the living world—whether single cells or plants or animals or human beings—just as a collection of finished forms, obeying fixed laws, doesn't work. So until we can cultivate this other way of knowing, and see how we can participate in the the formative process, I think we're going to be locked into a very limited form of science, that's not only limited in the sense of not letting us fully understand how nature works, but it's limited in the sense that through its technological applications we're actually destroying the world.”
—Matthew Segall
https://youtu.be/UoHTxPPWcCY?feature=shared&t=4329
#matthewsegall #science #mathematics #physics #nature #life

jan, 2 months ago to science

Concrete experience always overflows abstract and idealized scientific representations of phenomena. There is always more to experience than scientific descriptions can corral. … The failure to see direct experience as the irreducible wellspring of knowledge is precisely the Blind Spot.
The tragedy the Blind Spot forces on us is the loss of what’s essential to human knowledge—our lived experience. The universe and the scientist who seeks to know it become lifeless abstractions.
—A. Frank, M. Gleiser, E. Thompson, The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience
#experience #abstraction #science #blindspot

jan, 3 months ago to mathematics

There is no successful mathematical theory which would treat the integrated activities of the organism as a whole. It is important to know how pressure waves are reflected in blood vessels. It is important to know tha diffusion drag may produce cell division. It is important to have a mathematical theory of complicated neural networks, But nothing so far in those theories indicated that the proper functioning of arteries and veins is essential for the normal course of intercellular peocesses. . . And yet this integrated activity of the organism is probably the most essential manifestation of life. ... The fundamental manifestation of life mentioned above drop out from all our theories. . ..
--Nicolas Rachevsky, Mathematical Biophysics
#mathematics #biology #physics #organisms #life

jan, 4 months ago to random

Weather report

jan, 4 months ago to random

A student that I’ve worked with was said to have Attention Deficit Disorder. When I brought him into the field, I noticed he had the ears of a scout. He was able to monitor all four directions at the same time, and notice bird calls from every direction.
So, I watched him over time. When we worked indoors, in the classroom, in the group, he was a bit unable to sit still. But when we got out in the field, he was always the first one to see the hawk, always the first one to spot the hiding instructor, always the first one to hear the bird warnings.
And I started to ask myself, “Is that a disorder, or a gift?
—Jon Young, Seeing Through Native Eyes, audio
#disorder #gift

jan, 5 months ago to random

[The]…need to belong…can drive people to become members of groups. If the container is strong, all is well and good. But when the group lacks…authenticity, people may…refuse to acknowledge the differences between them. This cannot go on forever and so the group either becomes authoritarian and expels its doubters and heretics, or it fragments into cliques until the pressures become too great and the entire group breaks apart.
—F. David Peat, Return of the Sacred: Seven Encounters between Science, the Arts, and the Sacred #groups

jan, 5 months ago to languagelearning

While English is well adapted to naming things, breaking the world into objects and dealing mentally with components, concepts and categories, the Algonquin family of languages, that includes Blackfoot, deal more in process and transformation. Nouns and names exist in Blackfoot but are more provisional. The name of a person or object, for example, can change during its lifetime.
This language perfectly matches the Blackfoot vision of a cosmos in constant flux and transformation. Rather than building the world out of solid objects in interaction—as we build a toy village out of Lego—the Blackfoot understand objects as emerging out of the flux of nature. Objects persist for a little and flow back again. They are more like vortices in a flowing river than solid, independent and well-defined entities.
—F. David Peat, Return of the Sacred: Seven Encounters between Science, the Arts, and the Sacred
#english #blackfoot #languages

jan, 6 months ago to random

[David] Bohm argued that since his body was created out of the same matter that inhabits the universe, he should be able to reach the laws of nature through both an inward path, as well as the more conventional one of laboratory experimentation. In this Bohm was echoing the working methods of the painter Paul Cézanne. Cézanne believed that the motif—the natural world he was painting—actually spoke through him to the point where he could express the consciousness of nature in his works. As he painted, therefore, Cézanne gave great attention to his ‘little sensations.’
—F. David Peat, Return of the Sacred: Seven Encounters between Science, the Arts, and the Sacred #bohm #cezanne

jan, 6 months ago to DavidBohm

[David] Bohm…discovered that quantum theory has a very curious potential. He called it the quantum potential. What is significant about it is that, unlike all the other potentials in physics, it doesn’t involve a mechanical push or pull. …the way an electron is affected by the quantum potential does not depend upon the strength of the potential but on its overall form. …and that form is an expression of an entire situation. … It indicates that things cannot be broken apart and analyzed. Try to analyze the quantum potential or break it into parts and the whole form is totally disrupted.
—F. David Peat #davidbohm #quantumpotential #wholeness

jan, 8 months ago to random

Newtonian physics is useful, even if it is not true, as an approximation…
—Lee Smolin, The Life of the Cosmos

jan, 8 months ago to physics

Those physicists who communicate with the public…have a responsibility to tell the story straight. We must be careful to present the failures along with the successes. Indeed, being honest about failures is likely to help rather than hurt our cause.
—Lee Smolin, The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next #physics #physicists

jan, 8 months ago to random

Anyone who tracks animals knows that tracking involves more than just footprints. It’s about paying attention… It requires searching for sign… It’s about piecing together subtle clues… And it’s also about reaching for the highest level of perceptual training.
—Jon Young & Tiffany Morgan, Animal Tracking Basics

jan, 9 months ago to mathematics

“Every formula we discover is a formula of love.” Mathematics is the source of timeless profound knowledge, which goes to the heart of all matter and unites us across cultures, continents, and centuries. My dream is that all of us will be able to see, appreciate, and marvel at the magic beauty and exquisite harmony of these ideas, formulas, and equations, for this will give so much more meaning to our love for this world and for each other.
—Edward Frenkel, Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality #mathematics

jan, 9 months ago to random

I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, eco-systems collapse, and climate change. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy . . . —Gus Speth

jan, 9 months ago to random

#IKEA https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/piotr-markielau-anarchisticka-federace-ikea-uses-slave-labour-of-prisoners

jan, 11 months ago to random

”…new surges of COVID-19 continue to occur… Persisting symptoms are also associated with 3–20% of affected people suffering from Long Covid. … We thus question the current high level of political and societal complacency towards COVID-19…” https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)01012-7/fulltext #covid19 #longcovid

jan, 1 year ago to random

“…describing things by certain characteristics rather than others merely because those characteristics are countable is a profoundly subjective decision.” https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-myth-of-objective-data/ #data

jan, 1 year ago to random

We scientist…tend to not talk or even hide the processes that lead us to our insights and scientific works. …while it is indeed true that in the end it is not how one reached an insight but whether that insight stands the test of time that is important, we cannot also divorce our own world outlook from the way we practice our work.
—Menas C. Kafatos, in Is Consciousness Primary?