Philosophy Wire: Reactions. Touching. Knowledge.

Levitation has long been a staple of magic tricks and movies. But in the lab, it's no trick. Scientists can levitate droplets of liquid, though mixing them and observing the reactions has been challenging. The pay-off, however, could be big as it would allow researchers to conduct contact-free experiments without containers or handling that might affect the outcome. Now researchers have developed a method to do just that. [1] Trying to make the perfect reaction. Trying to examine the cosmos without touching it. At the end we will succeed. And while looking at the perfect laboratory apparatus, allowing touchless chemical reactions totally isolated from the environment, we will notice out hands. (I do not touch anything) And the cosmos will not explode. And the reaction will not happen after all. And the universe will just whisper... "How can you know anything without touching it?"...

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Philosophy Wire: Balance and Sour. Memento mori.

Scientists at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences have discovered an entirely new class of ion channels. These channels let protons (H+ ions) into cells, are important in the inner ear for balance and are present in the taste cells that respond to sour flavors. [1] Life is sweet. But you can never appreciate that if you haven’t experienced the sour. Appreciation of light comes only from the realization that light is made up of darkness as well. Balance comes only from the realization that “lack of balance” is what we must seek. Life is based on the realization that we have to die. Memento mori…

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Philosophy Wire: Inequality. In your brain. But not in your mind?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-04-30]: Scientists claim that altering brain chemistry makes us more sensitive to inequality. [1] We try to fix our problems by changing our brain. But what would happen if we realized that it is our brain that is responsible for these problems? Without brain, without thought, there is no inequality. Without thought there is no malice. Do not think how you will solve the problems. Thinking is what created them in the first place. See the flower. Smell the woods. Without too much thought. Do you feel better?

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Philosophy Wire: See a chemical bond. Without seeing anything at all.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-03-17]:

Scientists have used an X-ray laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to get the first glimpse of the transition state where two atoms begin to form a weak bond on the way to becoming a molecule.

This fundamental advance, reported Feb. 12 in Science Express and long thought impossible, will have a profound impact on the understanding of how chemical reactions take place and on efforts to design reactions that generate energy, create new products and fertilize crops more efficiently. [1]

But can we see a chemical bond?

Do chemical bonds exist?

Or do we just NAME what we see “chemical bonds”?

We all too often misunderstand what we see with what exists. And this is mainly due to the fact that we have gotten away from Philosophy. We believe we know and yet one of the greatest achievements of great philosophers was to admit that we do NOT know anything. We “see” and yet the only thing we do, the only thing we CAN do, is to think! To imagine!

Imagine everything.

Imagine nothing… What we imagine is indeed what exists!

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Philosophy Wire: Fe.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-09-06]: Curiosity detected an iron meteorite. [1] A meteorite which carries (Gr. φέρω) iron. Φέρω. Ferrum. Fe. Ancient knowledge. Embedded into our words. How much we knew... How mush will we learn if we just pay attention...

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Philosophy Wire: Essential elements...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-07-18]: Twenty-seven chemical elements are considered to be essential for human life. Now there is a 28th: bromine. In a new paper, researchers establish for the first time that bromine, among the 92 naturally-occurring chemical elements in the universe, is the 28th element essential for tissue development in all animals, from primitive sea creatures to humans. [1] We like tagging things. We like to analyze things. But in a world where everything is interconnected, how can anything NOT be essential? Let the butterfly fly. And you will see worlds coming to an end...

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Philosophy Wire: Element 117... Knowledge... Existence...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-06-15]: Element 117 is close to be "discovered" and gain its place in the periodic table. [1] We discover what we already believe it exists. We find whatever we are already certain it exists. Existence is driven by knowledge. Not the other way around… But who drives knowledge? My God! :)

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Philosophy Wire: Xenon, Earth's core, existence "under conditions" and... HOW TO READ Harmonia Philosophica for Dummies.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-05-09]:

Mysteriously, most of the gas xenon that scientists expected to find in Earth's atmosphere is missing. Now, researchers say they might have the answer to this puzzle: This noble gas, which usually does not bond with other atoms, may chemically react with iron and nickel in Earth's core, where it's held.
Yes, even the chemically inert can be chemically active under certain conditions. [1]

Harmonia Philosophica has already commented on a similar news before.

Try to search for the related post by using specific related tags, like "existence", conditions", chemistry".
Have you reached to the related article? (solution: THIS)

Let's see what I said some time ago...

"Everything can exist under specific circumstances! What makes us to believe that something CANNOT exist? How can we even talk about something that does not and cannot exist? How can we not know Parmenides?"

WOW!
Spot on!
Thank you my self! :)
Keep up the good work! Hehehe...

Knowledge is always hidden somewhere.
All you have to do is try to find it.

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Philosophy Wire: NaCl3! Yes!

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-01-27]: NaCl3? Yes! It can exist! (well, under 200,000 atmospheres) [1] Everything can exist under specific circumstances! What makes us to believe that something CANNOT exist? How can we even talk about something that does not and cannot exist? How can we not know Parmenides?

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Philosophy Wire: Chemistry, Nobel, non-chemistry...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-11-06]: Nobel prize for Chemistry awarded to three people not doing… chemistry. [1] When simulating becomes better than doing, you know something is wrong. How can you get an axiom-changing paradigm shift and change of some axioms, when all your science is based on these axioms?

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Philosophy Wire: Quasi-crystals and Quasi-scientists…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-10-06]: The Nobel of physics went to the one who discovered the “quasicrystals” [source: web news]... These crystals follow non-repeating patterns, like the arabesque creations of Islamic art. But “normal” scientists cannot deal with the “non normal”. Such things were “not supposed” to exist and that is why many “scientists” opposed the idea and ridiculed Shechtman for years. How many other dogmatisms of the  “this is the way things are and don’t argue about it” kind escape the Nobel committee’s eyes every day?

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