What, Why & How do we Know ?
Struggled with the penultimate chapter of Foucault – He name drops every philosopher since 18C that I’ve heard of (except Wittgenstein), but I don’t get what this chapter is about – the concept of Man. Fortunately the final chapter on Human Sciences is much clearer – the balance between science and anthropology / behaviour / … Continue reading “Man and His Doubles”
From NYT via Adam Curry. The 10 most elegant experimental demonstrations as voted by physicists. Chronologically … Eratosthenes’ measurement of the Earth’s circumference. (7th) Galileo’s objects falling with constant gravitational acceleration. (2nd) Galileo’s balls rolling down inclined planes also under gravity. (8th) Newton’s decomposition of sunlight with a prism. (4th) Cavendish’s weighing the Earth / … Continue reading “10 Most Beautiful Experiments”
Bumped into Michael in the Pick – my first night there in weeks, probably his last in months, and when I mentioned I’d been to the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta the week before last, he revealed that his father had developed and exploited a radio / radar based probe for surveying tar sand deposits … Continue reading “A Little More Synchronicity”
Mentioned earlier that Foucault & Quine (and many others) consistently warn against the “simplification” implicit in scientific method when arriving at descriptions of the world. Part of my thesis that “received rationality” is unwise in complex systems, and I’ve already used the thought of “Avoiding cutting one’s own throat with Occam’s Razor” in my original … Continue reading “Careful with that Razor, Occam !”