Archive for the ‘old dead white guys’ Category
Snakes of Hawaii
June 16th, 2009
I liked this selection from Philip K. Dick’s essay How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later:
In Plato’s Timaeus, God does not create the universe, as does the Christian God; He simply finds it one day. It is in a state of total chaos. God sets to work to transform the chaos into order. That idea appeals to me, and I have adapted it to fit my own intellectual needs: What if our universe started out as not quite real, a sort of illusion, as the Hindu religion teaches, and God, out of love and kindness for us, is slowly transmuting it, slowly and secretly, into something real?
We would not be aware of this transformation, since we were not aware that our world was an illusion in the first place. This technically is a Gnostic idea. Gnosticism is a religion which embraced Jews, Christians, and pagans for several centuries. I have been accused of holding Gnostic ideas. I guess I do. At one time I would have been burned. But some of their ideas intrigue me. One time, when I was researching Gnosticism in the Britannica, I came across mention of a Gnostic codex called The Unreal God and the Aspects of His Nonexistent Universe, an idea which reduced me to helpless laughter. What kind of person would write about something that he knows doesn’t exist, and how can something that doesn’t exist have aspects? But then I realized that I’d been writing about these matters for over twenty-five years. I guess there is a lot of latitude in what you can say when writing about a topic that does not exist. A friend of mine once published a book called Snakes of Hawaii. A number of libraries wrote him ordering copies. Well, there are no snakes in Hawaii. All the pages of his book were blank.
For the purposes of this post, I’m going to go ahead and ignore all the interesting metaphysical material that PKD deals with here and just say that I want that book.
Superstition in the Pigeon, and rambling about education
May 28th, 2009
I just finished B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two, the influential psychologist’s fictional account of a behaviorist utopia. Since I have the (bad?) habit of only reading a book’s associated Wikipedia page after reading the work itself, I only just now learned about Skinner’s experimentation with pigeons. Minds are awesome!
On a totally different topic, reading Walden Two also got me thinking about education. Much like Randall Munroe’s treehouse, there’s a process running in the background of my mind that’s constantly thinking about the perfect college. Self-directed learning and intentional communities seem like ideas that would positively reinforce each other. The needs of a small community would constantly provide practical problems which would both necessitate and reward innovation, while hopefully the constant injection of new ideas would help the community to thoughtfully grow in useful directions. So I guess I’m describing a secular, progressive monastery? Except with a good broadband connection and an easy commute to a major cultural center. Independence -/-> isolation.
On a related note, Deep Springs College. I’d love to visit there someday and see how it operates. Or, you know, teach there in a decade or so. I’d also like to visit Twin Oaks. And I can’t very well write a post about self-directed education without mentioning Sphere College, which I understand is coming together beautifully.
animals, books, old dead white guys, science | No Comments »
Almost Everyone Poops
May 21st, 2009
According to 2nd-century gnostic theologian Valentinus‘ epistle to Agathapous:
“He was continent, enduring all things. Jesus digested divinity; he ate and drank in a special way, without excreting his solids. He had such a great capacity for continence that the nourishment within him was not corrupted, for he did not experience corruption.”
I just love the world so much.
Cosmos on Hulu!
April 7th, 2009
It seems that the entire series of the 1980 Carl Sagan-narrated Cosmos is now free on hulu! Hearing Sagan say “billions and billions” more than makes up for hulu’s crippling streaming problems.
I’m also pretty sure that this is my 150th post! Woo.
magic number, old dead white guys, science, video | 2 Comments »
The Pseudodoxia Epidemica
March 8th, 2009
In the 1600s a doctor named Thomas Browne wrote a comprehensive refutation of many of the superstitions of his day. This has recently been published online.
Some of the propositions he refutes:
- The common Tenent, that Crystall is nothing else but Ice strongly congealed.
- That bitter Almonds are preservatives against Ebriety.
- That an Elephant hath no joints.
- That Iews stinke.
- Concerning the beginning of the world, that the time thereof is not precisely knowne, as commonly it is presumed.
You get the idea. This book is amazing.
The Circular Ruins
February 17th, 2009
Jorge Luis Borges, for both of my readers who don’t know him, was one of the best Argentine writers of the 20th century. I’m currently working through a collection of his short fictions, and it’s like reading a modern-day 1001 Nights. His writing is full of gems. It sparkles with wonder.
One of his justly better-known stories is The Circular Ruins. As it turns out, the complete text of that piece is available online for free. You should probably read it; it’s short, I promise, and if you don’t like it you can write negative comments on my blog, though I will delete them.
EDIT: I just finished El Hacedor/The Maker, and found this paragraph in the afterword:
A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.
Armand Dufaux
January 22nd, 2009
Armand Dufaux (1883-1941) was one of the first Swiss aviators. Trained as an engineer, he designed a number of flying machines, including the Dufaux 4, one of the first biplanes. In 1910, he flew this plane across the length of Lake Geneva, winning a prize of 5000 Swiss francs.
He wasn’t always so successful, however. Dufaux’s first attempt at an aircraft was the helicopter pictured above. It worked about as well as you might imagine.
art+design, flight, history, old dead white guys, science | No Comments »
The Felicific Calculus
January 20th, 2009
In the 18th and 19th centuries, English philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill developed a handy moral system called utilitarianism. It states that the goal of an action should be to cause the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This is an extremely practical rule; the only thing required is a method for quantifying happiness.
The felicific calculus deals with a number of factors (called vectors, to my delight). For each person affected by an action, sum up the first six values below, then sum the respective values of each person. If this final summation is positive, then the action is good! Wikipedia lists the vectors:
- Intensity
- How strong is the pleasure?
- Duration
- How long will the pleasure last?
- Certainty or uncertainty
- How likely or unlikely is it that the pleasure will occur?
- Propinquity or remoteness
- How soon will the pleasure occur?
- Fecundity
- The probability that the action will be followed by sensations of the same kind.
- Purity
- The probability that it will not be followed by sensations of the opposite kind.
- Extent
- How many people will be affected?
This really only pushes the quantification problem back a step, but these categories are a little easier to score.
Bentham also did a bunch of other neat things: he came up with the Panopticon, a hypothetical prison in which all inmates are constantly under (possible) surveillance; developed some of the first ideas about animal rights; and through his friendship with Adam Smith tried to apply some of his ideas about utility to economics. He also had his body preserved in a small glass closet – I’ll let Wikipedia explain this…
“As requested in his will, his body was preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet, termed his “Auto-icon.” Originally kept by his disciple Dr. Southwood Smith, it was acquired by University College London in 1850. The Auto-icon is kept on public display at the end of the South Cloisters in the main building of the College. For the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the college, the Auto-icon was brought to the meeting of the College Council, where he was listed as “present but not voting.” Tradition holds that if the council’s vote on any motion is tied, the auto-icon always breaks the tie by voting in favour of the motion.”
The head is made of wax, and was regularly stolen by students as a prank. So I guess what I’m saying here is that utilitarianism is pretty exciting stuff.
An Aeolipile
January 15th, 2009
Hero of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician, engineer, and scientist in the first century AD. He developed a whole bunch of nifty inventions, including the first vending machine, the syringe, the force pump, and a windmill-operated organ. He also built the aeolipile, a device which consisted of a small tank of water with directed nozzles. This was essentially the first jet engine, as this video demonstrates:
As soon as I get a functional kiln installed out in the shop I’m making one of these things.
Camille Flammarion
December 30th, 2008
Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) was a French astronomer and author who wrote several seminal works of early science fiction (a genre that was then much more charmingly referred to as “scientific romance” and almost never featured robots going berserk).
The reason I’m posting this is to show off this lovely quote:
What intelligent being, what being capable of responding emotionally to a beautiful sight, can look at the jagged, silvery lunar crescent trembling in the azure sky, even through the weakest of telescopes, and not be struck by it in an intensely pleasurable way, not feel cut off from everyday life here on earth and transported toward that first stop on the celestial journeys? What thoughtful soul could look at brilliant Jupiter with its four attendant satellites, or splendid Saturn encircled by its mysterious ring, or a double star glowing scarlet and sapphire in the infinity of night, and not be filled with a sense of wonder? Yes, indeed, if humankind — from humble farmers in the fields and toiling workers in the cities to teachers, people of independent means, those who have reached the pinnacle of fame or fortune, even the most frivolous of society women — if they knew what profound inner pleasure await those who gaze at the heavens, then France, nay, the whole of Europe, would be covered with telescopes instead of bayonets, thereby promoting universal happiness and peace.
- Camille Flammarion, 1880
I really love the optimism of that era. Right up until around WWI, the western world sincerely believed that scientific and technological innovation basically corresponded with moral advancement. If you’ve followed this blog for any period of time, you may have noticed that I have a certain affection for the Victorian age; that hopefulness is probably the main reason (apart from spats, of course).