Philosophy Wire: Computers. Simulations. Lost wisdom…

Scientists used a supercomputer to perform one of the five largest cosmological simulations ever -- the Last Journey. This simulation will provide crucial data for sky maps to aid leading cosmological experiments. [1] Scientists simulating the cosmos. It is so standard nowadays that we cannot think of the obvious: science has for a long time made simulations possible only via thought experiments. Without any computers or simulations, humans managed to understand the cosmos and lay the foundations for analytical simulations of existence. Useful tools. But be aware! Simulations will one day be here to stay. And any other story beyond theirs will be gone and discredited as if it was never there. And a whole new cosmos will stay hidden beyond the veil of what we see on a computer screen. Until a young man whispers in the dark. "I remember a tale of a man without eyes. Who saw everything and imagined galaxies beyond the edges of the stars afar"...

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Philosophy Wire: Spontaneous!

Autonomous functions for robots, such as spontaneity, are highly sought after. Many control mechanisms for autonomous robots are inspired by the functions of animals, including humans. Roboticists often design robot behaviors using predefined modules and control methodologies, which makes them task-specific, limiting their flexibility. Researchers offer an alternative machine learning-based method for designing spontaneous behaviors by capitalizing on complex temporal patterns, like neural activities of animal brains. They hope to see their design implemented in robotic platforms to improve their autonomous capabilities. [1] Spontaneous. Can intelligence be anything different? Could you ever think of anything new logically? Look at the whirlwinds of leaves. It will rain soon. You know it. You smell it. And yet, when the first drop will drop... You will smile...

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Philosophy Wire: States. Ghosts.

Scientists have been striving to establish the existence of quantum spin liquids, a new state of matter, since the 1970s. A recent discovery physicists could help researchers solve the mystery and result in the next generation of computing. [1] Different states. Of ghosts that we see in the dark. We keep on looking for them. Only because we are afraid to turn off the light. And see that there was nothing. But shadows…

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Philosophy Wire: No limit to life. And yet… we all die?!

No detectable limit to how long people can live: By analyzing the lifespan of the longest-living individuals from the USA, the UK, France and Japan for each year since 1968, investigators found no evidence for such a limit, and if such a maximum exists, it has yet to be reached or identified. [1] No limit to life. And yet… we all die?! Science has the incredible ability to be blind to the obvious. We define life as something materialistic and even then, we cannot find an inherent limitation to its duration. But why would there be a limitation? Because we believe there should be one, judging by our limited perception of life? We are too much obsessed with the end of our existence. We must stop seeing death. And we will enjoy eternal life…

Memento mori (Remember to die)...

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Philosophy Wire: Research and patents. Another plague of science...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-10-01]: Proposal to tie Australia's academic science funding to patents is getting more and more support. [1] Science losing its compass. We discover not in order to share. But in order not to!

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Philosophy Wire: Particles. Particles! Particles!!!

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-05-24]:

A new particle discovered. [1]
And after that a new one. And another. And another. And another...
Starting to walk without having a clue when you will arrive your destination, is the best way to get lost…

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Philosophy Wire: Science jargon, complexity, voidness..

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-12-16]: An international team of scientists has shown for the first time that atoms can work collectively rather than independently of each other to share light. The researchers showed the sharing of light or "photon-mediated interaction" between artificial atoms confined to a one-dimensional quantum system. [1] Science has become complicated and void of meaning. Jargon not related to our every day life. Quantum mechanics is good. Being complicated is not a problem on its own. Not being able to talk into a way that others understand you IS a problem. And it really shows that YOU have not really understood what you have "discovered".

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Philosophy Wire: Concurrent "discoveries"...

Help translate the Harmonia Philosophica book in 6 new languages and get valuable perks in return! Support the Indiegogo project now!

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-08-09]: Scientists from different parts of the world make the same discoveries at the same time. [1] Coincidence? Or a result of the too strict entrenchment of science and the lack of innovative minds?

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Philosophy Wire: Infant research, religion, science.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-06-18]: U.S. Patient Protection Agency drops plan to sanction leaders of a controversial early infant study, which failed to clarify the death risks with their parents before they took their consent. [1] Of course. Why would they punish them anyway? Did you see a lot of priests get punished back in the heydays of religion?

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Philosophy Wire: Ethnicities, DNA, racism...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-22]: Research has revealed that ethnicity may influence antibody genes: Immunity-related DNA sections could actually vary depending on ethnicity. [source: Science Daily] I am really shocked at this racist conclusion. How can ethnicities be "different"? Simple conclusions now need special wording ("could") and extensive research on the fear that someone might call a scientist fascist. Common logic replaced by the oppression of the stupid fears of ignorant majorities...

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Philosophy Wire: ID, Kazakhstan, wrong perceptions...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-12]: Ερευνητές από το Καζακστάν δημοσίευσαν ένα άρθρο (paper) στο οποίο ισχυρίζονται ότι το ανθρώπινο DNA είναι σχεδιασμένο από εξελιγμένους εξωγήινους και ότι εμπεριέχει ένα κρυμμένο μήνυμα. [source: Discovery]

 

Το ερώτημα είναι γιατί δίνουμε τόση σημασία όταν κάποιος λέει κάτι με ένα... paper αλλά δεν δίνουμε καμία όταν το ΙΔΙΟ πράγμα το λέει κάποιος άλλος που δεν έχει τα ίδια διαπιστευτήρια...

 

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Philosophy Wire: Monitoring neurons for... what?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-04-04]: US, following the EU [1], will initiate the Βrain Initiative research program. This will entail funding of 100 million dollars to develop new technologies (which will allow us for example to monitor more neurons at the same time) to analyze the human brain, which seems to be the new cash cow of scientific research. [2, 3, 4]

 

Some have objections though. And they could be right. Never before was the development of technology put before the development of notions (let alone the development of the theory).

Seeing more neurons without knowing what you look for, is like drilling a hole in the water...

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Philosophy Wire: Change cranium… because?!?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-03-17]: Surgeons have replaced 75 percent of a man’s skull with a custom-designed polymer cranium constructed with a 3-D printer. The surgery took place on March 4 and is the first U.S. case following the FDA’s approval of the implants last month. The patient’s reason for needing such extensive replacement surgery has not been revealed. [source: Science News] “Not revealed” ?!? What does that even mean? This is the first time I hear of a successful surgery that does not reveal the thing it “fixed”. We have all heard of weird medical experiments. Let us just hope this is not another case of “experimenting to earn more money”… Fixing what does not need fixing is not a first for modern medicine…

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Philosophy Wire: Troll, Science, silent censorship…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-02-21]: A study released yesterday claims that every time you write "yawn, slow news day" or "This is not news" or "We should stop wasting tax payer dollars on these so-called 'scientists' because we all know they're just pointy headed communists", you're ruining the perception of whether these concepts should be studied in the first place. In other words, if you're an anti-science troll, then according to that study you're winning. [source: web news] With a bold move, the New Religion (call me Scientism) is trying to install an informal, silent yet utterly effective censorship: if you criticize Science publicly, then you cannot be anything else than a… troll. This is the oppression of the establishment, which takes for GRANTED that what it does is useful and at the same time cannot even imagine the existence of opposite views…

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Philosophy Wire: The greatest prime number, the greatest stupidity.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-02-08]: The greatest so far prime number was calculated. It is 2^57,885,161 - 1, a number with 17,425,170 digits. [source: 1, 2, 3] If one thinks of how many other researches were left without funding so as to give money to that "research", he will start banging his head on the wall until it cracks open...

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Philosophy Wire: Stolen doctorates. Dull era...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-02-06]:

The minister of Education in Germany was stripped off her doctorate in Philosophy due to plagiarism.

Stolen doctorates. [1] Big surprise.
I always wandered.
In a society where doctorates are increasing with geometric progression, we should have a new "Theory of Relativity"-type discovery every week...
Innovation today is a synonym for copy-paste-rebrand.
The era of people like Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond seems far far away..

PS. For those who do not know Louis, his 1924 "Recherches sur la théorie des quanta" (Research on the Theory of the Quanta) doctorate thesis, introduced his theory of electron waves. This included the wave–particle duality theory of matter, based on the work of Max Planck and Albert Einstein on light. The thesis examiners, unsure of the material, passed his thesis to Einstein for evaluation who endorsed his wave–particle duality proposal wholeheartedly; de Broglie was awarded his doctorate. This research culminated in the de Broglie hypothesis stating that any moving particle or object had an associated wave. An era where new science was produced based on doctorates. A different era...

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Philosophy Wire: UK, “free science”, propaganda…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-07-16]: The UK government is to develop plans to make publicly funded research results freely available to all. Currently, scientists and members of the public have to pay the leading scientific journals to see research that has already been paid for from the public purse. Under new proposals the government will pay publishers a fee each time a paper is published. In return the research will be available to those who wish to see it [source: BBC News]. The total cost of the subsidy is estimated to be £50m a year which will be taken from funds that would otherwise have been spent on research. Giving millions to have the public reading scientific papers, while they could give those millions to conduct research? Too good to be true? Don’t be naive - think twice: the best propaganda is the one which cannot be seen as a propaganda! And what is better than something “free”? After all, they said it themselves: “It [refers to the abovementioned idea of free papers] will allow academics and businesses to develop and commercialise their research more easily and herald a new era of academic discovery”… Beware of those bearing gifts! True knowledge is never “free” (and I do not refer to money) !!! [see Should knowledge be free and accessible? No. It cannot!]

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Philosophy Wire: Science, censorship, Nature

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-05-03]: The editor of Nature claims that the censorship mechanism which is in place for scientific publications that may help bioterrorists, has to be improved [source: BBC News]. That is what it takes to be objective! You end up censoring yourself at the end!

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Philosophy Wire: LSD, potential, fears…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-03-11]: One dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD could help alcoholics give up drinking, according to scientists who analyzed researches conducted back in the 1960’s [source: BBC News]. LSD is a class A drug in the UK and is one of the most powerful hallucinogens ever identified. It appears to work by blocking a chemical in the brain, serotonin, which controls functions including perception and behaviour. Many philosophers think that the brain actually acts as a BARRIER, thus filtering perception and limiting our perception of reality as it is. But modern “politically correct” science cannot go to such places…

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Philosophy Wire: The Moon, magnetism, simplicity

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-03-10]: The Moon has no magnetic field. However many of its areas have magnetic materials. Scientists conducted research and with the help of models (not… supermodels) reached to the “conclusion” that those magnetic material must be there from the impact of meteorites with… TATATA! magnetic materials [source: web news] !!! Sometimes being a scientists is more simple than most people think it is…

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