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Algebraic Art explores the invention of a peculiarly Victorian account of the nature and value of aesthetic form, and it traces that account to a surprising source: mathematics. The nineteenth century was a moment of extraordinary mathematical innovation, witnessing the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the revaluation of symbolic algebra, and the importation of mathematical language into philosophy. All these innovations sprang from a reconception of mathematics as a formal rather than a referential practice—as a means for describing relationships rather than quantities. For Victorian mathematicians, the value of a claim lay not in its capacity to describe the world but its internal ...
A collection of personal essays in philosophy of science (physics, especially gravity), philosophy of information and communication technology, current social issues (emotional intelligence, COVID-19 pandemic, eugenics, intelligence), philosophy of art, and logic and philosophy of language. The distinction between falsification and refutation in the demarcation problem of Karl Popper Imre Lakatos - Heuristics and methodological tolerance Isaac Newton on the action at a distance in gravity: With or without God? Causal Loops in Time Travel The singularities as ontological limits of the general relativity Epistemology of Experimental Gravity - Scientific Rationality Philosophy of Blockchain Tec...
"The problem is not to find the answer, it's to face the answer." – Terence McKenna At school, you are taught "science". You are not taught the history of science, so you have no idea how science came to be the institution it now is. You are never taught the secret history of science whereby scientific idealism (based on the mind) could have become the orthodoxy, rather than scientific materialism (based on the body). In this book, we will show you how easily science could have taken an entirely different route from the one it did take. The heroes of this tale are Immanuel Kant (in his younger, Leibnizian years), and the Jesuit Roger Boscovich. Their system embraced mind in its own right, i.e. mind considered as something that does not owe its existence to matter. Read for yourself the astounding rival history of science. You will soon discover why it's so terrified of drawing any attention to the secret history of science ... the forbidden history.
In this thought-provoking exploration, Yuri Milner delves into humanity’s profound role in the cosmos and our potential to shape its future. Despite our remarkable advancements, human civilization still lacks a unifying mission, a shared purpose that could guide us towards thriving — or even surviving — in the long term. Without such a mission, the future of our species remains uncertain. Milner presents a compelling argument that to find this mission, we must look beyond the boundaries of Earth. Our story is not confined to this planet; it is part of a much larger, universal narrative. By recognizing our place in this grand cosmic tale, we can begin to write its next chapters and ensure a future for humanity that is not just possible but meaningful. "Eureka Manifesto" invites readers to ponder our collective destiny and the choices we must make to fulfill it. It’s a call to action for everyone who believes in a shared purpose that transcends the divisions of people, nations, and cultures — a mission that could unite us all.
Poststructuralism has long been acknowledged to offer a radical critique of the foundational subject as a precursor to affirming a constituted subject. Its detractors have however held that the resultant position cannot offer a coherent account of agency (strong version) or, alternatively, that while it may be able to account for non-subjective agency, it is unable to develop a coherent explanation for subjective agency (weak version). Somewhat strangely, this issue has been largely ignored by commentators predisposed to poststructuralist thought. In contrast, this volume focuses on the works of Judith Butler, Cornelius Castoriadis, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Luce Irig...
When They Hid the Fire examines the American social perceptions of electricity as an energy technology that were adopted between the mid-nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries. Arguing that both technical and cultural factors played a role, Daniel French shows how electricity became an invisible and abstract form of energy in American society. As technological advancements allowed for an increasing physical distance between power generation and power consumption, the commodity of electricity became consciously detached from the environmentally destructive fire and coal that produced it. This development, along with cultural forces, led the public to define electricity as mysterious, utopian, and an alternative to nearby fire-based energy sources. With its adoption occurring simultaneously with Progressivism and consumerism, electricity use was encouraged and seen as an integral part of improvement and modernity, leading Americans to culturally construct electricity as unlimited and environmentally inconsequential—a newfound "basic right" of life in the United States.
The evolution of gravitational tests from an epistemological perspective framed in the concept of rational reconstruction of Imre Lakatos, based on his methodology of research programmes. Unlike other works on the same subject, the evaluated period is very extensive, starting with Newton's natural philosophy and up to the quantum gravity theories of today. In order to explain in a more rational way the complex evolution of the gravity concept of the last century, I propose a natural extension of the methodology of the research programmes of Lakatos that I then use during the paper. I believe that this approach offers a new perspective on how evolved over time the concept of gravity and the m...
"Mapping Meanings," a broad-ranged introduction to China's intellectual entry into the family of nations, guides the reader into the late Qing encounter with Western, at the same time connecting convincingly to the broader question of the mobility of knowledge.
In the steam-powered mechanical age of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the work of late Georgian and early Victorian mathematicians depended on far more than the properties of number. British mathematicians came to rely on industrialized paper and pen manufacture, railways and mail, and the print industries of the book, disciplinary journal, magazine, and newspaper. Though not always physically present with one another, the characters central to this book—from George Green to William Rowan Hamilton—relied heavily on communication technologies as they developed their theories in consort with colleagues. The letters they exchanged, together with the equations, diagrams, tables, or...