Philosophical notes…
Lev Grossman's "From Scroll to Codex"
“And until I hear God personally say to me, ‘Boot up and read,’ I won’t be giving it up.” - Lev Grossmann, “The Mechanical Muse: From Scroll to Codex,” - http://nyti.ms/nX1254
Please Read
A note to students: “If you don’t find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.” - Unknown, Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Consumer’s Guide, 1897
Dirty Secrets of Search
Dirty Secrets of Search: http://nyti.ms/evSWrV ”…just because we don’t talk about it,” he said, “doesn’t mean we won’t take strong action.” - “Matt Cutts, the head of the Webspam team at Google, and a man whose every speech, blog post and Twitter update is parsed like papal encyclicals by players in the search engine world.”
Google and the face of God
“I’m in San Jose and I’m going to visit Google. If you look up ‘Google’ on Google from Google, you see the face of God.” Conan O’Brien
Schwartz on Aristotle
Interesting TED talk by Barry Schwartz on the public political need for Aristotle's practical virtue: http://bit.ly/dXPs9a
Psychology of Time and Being
Psychology of Time and Being at: http://nyti.ms/e66Y2Y
In short, some psychologists say, the findings support the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s observation that time “persists merely as a consequence of the events taking place in it.” Now researchers are finding that the reverse may also be true: if very few events come to mind, then the perception of time does not persist; the brain telescopes the interval that has passed.
A Shadow Scholar Speaks
The man who writes your students' papers tells his story on the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://bit.ly/ewKkfV.
"I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow. I have been commissioned to write many a passionate condemnation of America's moral decay as exemplified by abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution. All in all, we may presume that clerical authorities see these as a greater threat than the plagiarism committed by the future frocked."
Wrongly held beliefs about wrongly held beliefs
An interesting question was posed over at the edge: http://bit.ly/fh8wij
The flat earth and geocentric world are examples of wrong scientific beliefs that were held for long periods. Can you name your favorite example and for extra credit why it was believed to be true?
A number of interesting responses popped up, but, thankfully, someone did in fact point out the wrongly held belief in the question itself:
I am of course aware of the currently popular belief that "flat earth" was somehow a widely held "scientific" idea, but I do not know what evidence supports this belief. It was certainly not part of the Antique inheritance (who had pretty good estimates for the diameter of the earth and excellent estimates for the ratio of Earth's and Moon's diameters); It was not part of Aristotle, or Aquinus, or any of the authorities that the Church relied on. No doubt, there were some creation myths or fanciful publications that might have illustrated the world as being flat but it is a stretch to call these "scientific" even by standards of the age, when learned men would have been able to refute such a thesis easily — and probably did as part of their exams.
- CHARLES SIMONYI
Computer Scientist, International Software; Former Chief Architect, and Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft Corporation