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[foreststrider]

[foreststrider]

I have often thought that the nature of science would be better understood if we called theories “misconceptions” from the outset, instead of only after we have discovered their successors. Thus we could say that Einstein’s Misconception of Gravity was an improvement on Newton’s Misconception, which was an improvement on Kepler’s. The neo-Darwinian Misconception of Evolution is an improvement on Darwin’s Misconception, and his on Lamarck’s… Science claims neither infallibility nor finality.

David Deutsch, quantum physicist and philosopher, in The Beginning of Infinity. Deutsch is obliged, in the course of arguing his theses about the nature of knowledge, progress, and human purpose, to rebut reductive notions like instrumentalism and our parochial cultural pessimisms. To do so he often leans on Karl Popper, who described scientific knowledge as being conjectural, ever-improving in its isomorphic fidelity to reality yet always tentative in a strict sense.

It is striking what an effect this clever little substitution has: we know, of course, that all scientific theories are later to be subsumed by better, deeper theories with more explanatory and predictive power; we know earlier theories are now in fact considered erroneous or incomplete for this very reason; but referring to “Einstein’s Misconception” reminds us of just how provisional our knowledge is, how far from any conceivable bedrock we remain. As a matter of philosophical principle, our knowledge is asymptotic: it may increase infinitely, draw nearer and nearer to the foundation, but it will never touch it.

(Perhaps this is so due to something elementally important that Deutsch observes in an unrelated discussion: “All scientific measurements use chains of proxies.” So long as language itself, perception —or more precisely, the inventive synthesis of perceptual data and mental interpretation that creates the world we know—, and measurement tools abstract us from the subject of our study, we can draw infinitely closer to it, but we cannot reach it, so to speak).

Our two deepest theories about the universe, Deutsch notes elsewhere, are in conflict with one another: quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity do not accord with one another and are, therefore, misconceptions, incomplete or incorrect. In this, we are precisely like ancient humankind, and like our forebears we struggle to conceive of our own ignorance; we tend to believe that we know quite a lot, and with impressive accuracy.

So we do. Deutsch demonstrates that although we will, barring extinction, continue to refine and improve our knowledge infinitely, we will also never stop being able to improve it. Thus we will always live with fallible scientific understanding (and fallible moral theories, fallible aesthetic ideas, fallible philosophical notions, etc.); it is the nature of the relationship between knowledge, mind, and universe.

But it remains odd to say: everything I know is a misconception.

(via mills)

[foreststrider]

On November 3, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed H.R. 2930, a crowdfunding bill that will allow startups to offer and sell securities online. The Senate will likely vote on the bill in early 2012. After eight decades of arguably the most restrictive rules for raising capital in the world, we are standing on the precipice of a new era for funding: crowdfunding. Here are 23 unusual ways in which the crowdfunding revolution could redefine the business to investor relationship.

23 Unusual Ways to Apply Crowdfunding | World Future Society (via mediafuturist)

[foreststrider]

We live in the age of narcissism. I don’t believe for one second that this generation is substantially worse than the one before, or the five hundred before that. The young were immoral and lazy and unwise when Socrates walked the streets of Athens, and they are no different now. As were the old....

[foreststrider]

Understanding Social: An Infographic of a New Business Idea

Social business is a loaded term, and an increasingly popular one. Do you really know what it means? Do you know where the core value of a social business lies? The infographic below will help.

Full Story: Forbes

[foreststrider]

Act I

Conservatives: Tits? Immorality! GTFO!

Act II

Progressives: Tits? The conservatives will be like, “Tits? GTFO!” and look at us with disapproving eyes. Since we disapprove of that, we kindly suggest you GTFO.

Note to self: this is what radical activism looks like. Doing something...

[foreststrider]

ohryankelley:

Infographic: Social Consumers and the Science of Sharing

What kind of consumer are you? a href=”http://mashable.com/2011/10/25/social-consumer-sharing-infographic/”>Click through for the full-size infographic.

(via: mashable)

[foreststrider]

Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.

Bob Marley (via pinaykikay)

[foreststrider]

Rocketboom Archive - Forwards Backwards

Just your regular backwards video, or maybe not...

[foreststrider]

Letter to a friend I

Although you walk with vivid pace,

You’ve yet to see your real face.

Your soul as old as Vulcan’s mace,

Your heart feels naught, but cold embrace.

I know you wander,

You often ponder,

If light is real,

If all you feel,

is yet to peal.

And if it were so, what is to stand?

My friend, your life is but an act,

But through your thoughts life can enact,

If your eyes open to the Stage,

Same eyes that closed with bitter rage,

If Soul you open to the Void,

Then true darkness you avoid.

Walk with Mercury these roads,

Walk and you shall see no foes,

As life is freed in million nodes,

None can see where your road goes,

But you are walker, and fear not.

As wisdom walks with solemn pace,

You walk with it, not in race.

[foreststrider]

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep- while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?

[foreststrider]

nevver:

The Creative Adult

[foreststrider]

Tolkien on Myhts

Myths, Lewis told Tolkien, were "lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver."

"No," Tolkien replied. "They are not lies." Far from being lies they were the best way — sometimes the only way — of conveying truths that would otherwise remain inexpressible. We have come from God, Tolkien argued, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily toward the true harbor, whereas materialistic "progress" leads only to the abyss and the power of evil.

"In expounding this belief in the inherent truth of mythology," wrote Tolkien's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, "Tolkien had laid bare the center of his philosophy as a writer, the creed that is at the heart of The Silmarillion." It is also the creed at the heart of all his other work. His short novel, Tree and Leaf, is essentially an allegory on the concept of true myth, and his poem, "Mythopoeia," is an exposition in verse of the same concept.

Building on this philosophy of myth, Tolkien explained to Lewis that the story of Christ was the true myth at the very heart of history and at the very root of reality. Whereas the pagan myths were manifestations of God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using the images of their "mythopoeia" to reveal fragments of His eternal truth, the true myth of Christ was a manifestation of God expressing Himself through Himself, with Himself, and in Himself. God, in the Incarnation, had revealed Himself as the ultimate poet who was creating reality, the true poem or true myth, in His own image. Thus, in a divinely inspired paradox, myth was revealed as the ultimate realism.

[foreststrider]

Fortuna

I am the traveler; I am unshakable, relentless in my journey

The road is all I’ve got and it is much to have

I’ve lost much on the way, yet never turned from my folly

I know not of stopping, the mere concept makes me laugh.

And as time runs, so do I,

It will not leave me behind,

No, in itself it will try to catch up,

Old friend, my fate is yours, so long as it unfolds.

And with a final act of nobility,

My last great work I am to show,

As Time stares scared and shaken,

I leap in my endeavor shaming all choice.

[foreststrider]

light-ignited:

The loose gravel road And a crashing waterfall Awakens flowers There - a wall of clocks Shadows fall on the chess board The Queen is slain Glory lives in ink But all things fade in time if No eyes are aware The number seven Like all things that are mirrored Will live its two lives My shoes are...

[foreststrider]

avakhado:

  I am an esoteric enigma

I long to be heard beyond mere words

Though to be comprehended is a chimera 

  I am empty enlightenment

I long for a thought, auspicious, not lost

but alas, it is forgotten

  I am a verbose vigilante

A myriad of the finest words for the mindless 

recycling visceral vocabulary

  So juxtaposing clarity and complexity

I concoct a vapid verse full of meaningless words

In hopes that someone will hear me

meaning.mindless

[foreststrider]

For the children

Sleep, little children, sleep with the night

As souls become warmed and banished is your fright,

Sleep now, calm your hearts, ride upon the Light.

Sleep, for the Evil will feel Noble might;

Go dance with the stars, go play in the night.

  Nothing holds your wings tight,

 nothing but your fright.

Fear not the shadows of the night,

For shadow is just picture to the Light’s delight.

Fly, as you are meant to, fly with your hearts and be free of the plight.

Fly into the night, my dears, fly, for it is your right.