Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... , 11 -4 Category:Fundamental categories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://friendfeed.com/citizen... - Thomas Page

Category:Structure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

Relationships http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ~ People_and_self http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ~ , -< + - , + { Family: ... , - { Self: ... , + ^ { Groups: ... , ... , 5 -23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

Social_systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... , 3 -22 sort Built_environment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Kardashev_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

"The Social Conquest of Earth" Edward O. Wilson http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor... - Thomas Page

E.O. Wilson of Harvard University on his book “The Social Conquest of Earth” http://www.charlierose.com/view... , 4 -23 http://longnow.org/seminar... , 5 -30 ( sort Consiliencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Wendell Berry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://hfromm.net/profess... http://www.justmeans.com/Wendell... Consilience, by Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig http://www.123helpme.com/view... , 5 -31 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... , 8 -19 http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms... [[[[[[ 2 -14 The Philosophy of Science in Consilience, by E. O. Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig Introduction The plot where the fields of science, ethics and religion intersect is fertile for study, and the crops it yields often represent the finest harvest of an individualís mind. In our time, modern philosophers of science have tilled this soil and reaped widely differing and important conclusions about the nature of humankind, its relationship to the natural world and the role that science should take in the discernment process. Through the comparison and contrasting of three important worldviewsóas expressed in Consilience, by E. O. Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsigóthe seeds of philosophy and faith can be sown in the budding scientistís psyche, and a bumper crop of beliefs cultivated. History of the Philosophy of Science The surest foundation for the origin of science in its practical form is to be found in the ìco–rdination and standardization of the knowledge of common sense and of industry.î[1] One of the first occurrences of this co–rdination can be traced back to 2500 BCE in the form of edicts from the ancient Babylonian rulers, who issued royal standards of length, weight and capacity. Non-Semitic Sumerians also laid down the elements of mathematics and geometry at that time, making use of fractions, decimals, circles and radial angles. But knowledge as we know it today was tightly woven with magical notions, and as both spread westward they instilled in European thought a reverence for ìspecial numbers, their connections to the gods and the application of geometrical diagrams to the prediction of the future.î[2] As well, the ancient Babylonians were fascinated by the heavens. They were the first to make a map of the stars and associate them with animals like the Ram, Crab and Scorpion, names that we still use to this day. They also realized the periodicity and reliability of astronomical movement and phenomena, and were soon able to predict many of them. Tablets have been found dating to the sixth century BCE that predicted the relative positions of the sun and moon, as well as forecasted the occurrences of eclipses.[3] Out of all this knowledge the Babylonians built up a fantastic system of astrology, through which the starsówhich were thought to fix and foretell the course of human affairsówould give up their secrets. Indeed, this astrological divination was thought by the Babylonians to be ìthe chief and most worthy object of the underlying scienceî of astronomy.[4] Thus, from scienceís earliest moments in the cradle of humanity it has served the twin masters of commerce and superstition, although the citizens of Babylon probably didnít think of it this way. The first person to think specifically about the processes and applications of science was a Greek living 300 years later. His name was Aristotle, and the discipline he created we now call the philosophy of science. According to Aristotle, every particular thing in our world is a union of matter and form. He proposed the theory of induction as an explanation of how generalizations about forms are drawn from sensory experience, and then used to categorize things. This next step, he said, was deduction, by which the generalizations were used as premises to deduce statements about the initial observations. In this way, one can create arguments elucidating how the world works based on compilations of data and observations. It was also Aristotle who propounded that the validity of these arguments must be determined solely by the relationship between the premises and the conclusions reached, so that a conclusion can be true only if its premises are as well.[5] This is still the way we work today. In the medieval period the great Roger Bacon reaffirmed Aristotleís philosophy and added to it. He insisted that all genuine scientific explanations must state causal relationships, and also that a third level of science, the ìtestingî level, must be accounted for as well. In this stage the conclusions reached by the inductive-deductive method are then put to the test of experience. Bacon called this testing procedure the ìfirst prerogativeî of experimental science,[6] and claimed that by steadily working up a pyramid of thus-tested propositions man could discover at the apex the most general principles of the world and in this way recover the dominion over Nature which he lost in the Fall.[7] When Pope Clement IV heard about Baconís proposed unification of the sciences in the services of theology, he asked for a copy of the work. Bacon sent him a copy of The Opus Majus (1268), but the Pope died before seeing it.[8] Three hundred years later, Copernicus published his groundbreaking theory on the motion of planetary bodies, which placed the Sun at the centre of the Universe and was based on revolutionarily simple schemes of mathematical harmony.[9] Again, a Pope Clement (number VII this time) approved the work and asked to see a copyówhich he finally received 13 years later on his deathbed.[10] Inspired by the Copernican upheaval in scientific thought, Galileo proclaimed that all science was written ìin the language of mathematicsî and attempted to reduce the laws of physics to ìprimary qualitiesî (such as shape, size, position and speed) and reject those ìsecondary qualitiesî (like colour, odour, taste and sound) that he believed existed only in the mind of the person perceiving them.[11] This distinction between a common-sense world and that of abstract symbols led Herbert Dingle to write, in 1949, that ìthe undying glory of Galileoís contribution to thought is that, though only half-consciously, he discarded the everyday common-sense world as a philosophical necessity.[12] This was an important shift because it helped Galileo divorce science from teleology, thus giving up the questions of ìwhy?î that had consumed his predecessors to instead focus on those of ìhow?î[13] Instead of waiting for the inevitable call from Rome, Galileo went there himself, ready to convert the papal court to his new ideas. The Papacy, however, had since reversed its views, upset that the Churchís authority was being undermined by the new science. It silenced Galileo, placed him under house arrest and pronounced that the Copernican theory was ìfalse and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture.î[14] Descartes, in 1646, thought about Galileoís ìqualitiesî as he watched a candle melt and decided that though the secondary qualities of the wax had changed, the ìreal natureî of it hadnít, and thus that this ìreal natureî must be an intuition of the mind.[15] A strict adherent to action-reaction principles, he believed that God was the ìprime moverî or ìultimate causeî of all changes in the world and thus had granted humans with the intuition to understand the world through science. Newton, working in England at around the same time, was quick to point out that no person can ever truly know the laws of nature (and thus the mind of God). According to him, a scientist (or ìnatural philosopherî) could explain that phenomena are related in a certain way, but could never establish that the relation could not be otherwise.[16] David Hume picked up this philosophical thread and followed it to the conclusion that all knowledge comes to us from our senses and is thus, in a sense, impossible. Albert Einstein once summarized Humeís position thusly: ìas far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.î[17] One problem with this strict sense-based theory is that if only things which we can see, touch, smell, hear or taste are real, then all our ideas and feelings do not exist because they cannot be sensed, including ideas a bout a sense-based theory. Kant saved Reason from this self-destruction by attacking Humeís ìextreme empiricism.î In his famous Critique of Pure Reason Kant affirmed the place of teleological explanations in science as a regulatory principle by which Reason organizes empirical laws and thus affects causality.[18] This brought him back to an almost Platonic and Cartesian concept of ìideals,î a philosophical precipice from which he cautiously backed away. Nevertheless, the great philosopher and mathematician Henri Poincaré jumped right into the realm of Ideals because for him, there was no question of immutable Ideals that gave scientific laws validity and purpose. He gave as an example the universally-accepted law of inertia, which he maintained could only truly be tested by holding everything in the universe still for a moment, recording all positions and then resuming the same positions and velocities again. Obviously we cannot do this, but equally obvious is the fact that this does not discount the principle of inertia. For Poincaré, it was therefore clear that scientists were making ìleaps of faithî when they applied isolated test results to a whole universe.[19] By the end of the Second World War the scientific community had garnered worldwide honour and prestige. The victorious nations credited atomic science and scientists for ending a bleak period of superstition and ideologies and ushering them into a new era of rational, technology-driven prosperity that was based on pure facts and objective science. For some scientists, like the American Ernest Nagel, it was time for science to expand its reach in and of the world. He proposed, much like Galileo five hundred years before, that all science and scientific laws be ìreducedî to simpler, more all-encompassing laws.[20] The scientific community and the world agreed, and much time was spent trying to reduce theorems and laws to more general forms. However, not everybody has been happy with the trend to reduce, reduce, reduce. Paul Feyerabend, in particular, led an attack with his 1975 treatise Against Method, in which he exploded against what he saw as the ìchauvinismî of modern science: "Scientists are not content with running their own playpens in accordance with they regard as the rules scientific method, they want to universalize these rules, they want them to become part of society at large and they use every means at their disposalóargument, propaganda, pressure tactics, intimidation, lobbyingóto achieve their aims." [21] Not only does Feyerabend have it in for the reductivists and imperialists of science, but also for the process that creates scientific ìcertaintyî in any way, especially when based upon the theory-observation method. He decries this ìdependenceî, and posits that any observation within a system is going to be inherently context-dependent, and thus cannot guarantee the objectivity of which modern science is so proud. Moreover, the very mutability of these contexts over time means that a scientific ìdiscoveryî can only be understood within a context-specific system of thought that is most likely long gone, because ìthe interpretation of an observation-language is determined by the theories which we use to explain what we observe, and it changes as soon as those theories change.î[21] Thus we are left, in these early years of the new millennium, with profound disagreement over the proper way to think about and conduct science. Nevertheless, science rushes on, and it is important now more than ever to keep thinking intentionally about it and its progress. Three late-nineteenth-century philosophers of science have done so in interestingly different ways, and in ways that build upon these ideas old as Aristotle. They are Edward O. Wilson, Wendell Berry and Robert M. Pirsig. Overview of Works Edward O. Wilson was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1929. In 1955 he received his PhD in Biology from Harvard, where he has since taught and cemented his position as one of Americaís foremost biologists and ecologists. Author of two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, in his 1998 opus Consilience he undertakes to prove that his lifeís underlying philosophyóscientific materialismówill provide explanations for all known scientific questions. For him, it is a matteróreminiscent of Nagel and Galileo before himóof bringing together the laws and principles at each level of scientific thought with those at more general and thus more fundamental levels. The object, he says, is ìtotal consilience,î the principle that ìnature is organized by simple universal laws of physics to which all other laws and principles can eventually be reduced.î[22] His book goes over the primary importance of biology and genetics to the way we live, and then tries to tie in biology to the social sciences, the arts, ethics and religion. Overall, most critics have found his arguments scattered and lacking, in that they do not ìdiscuss in any serious way the debates about the unity of science that have concerned philosophers of science over the last half-century and more. Rather, Wilson expounds his point of view on a number of areas of science opinions that are all intended to lend support to the general advocacy of consilience.î[23] Others have seen a man who ìthinks, perhaps with some reason, that religion does not speak to the problems of our age. His alternative may be flawed, but Wilson is at least trying to provide an ethic for this new century.î[25] Wendell Berry has spent much of his life on a farm in rural Kentucky. He is a farmer, novelist, essayist and poet, and has received for his work, among other honours, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant and the T. S. Eliot Award. In his 2000 essay-cum-book Life is a Miracle (written as a retort to Consilience), Berry argues against Wilsonís radical reductionism and all-encompassing assumptions. In the face of a world Berry sees being rapidly reduced, mechanized and industrialized, Life is a Miracle is his call for a rejection of the so-called ìscientificî approach towards creation. Instead, he urges scientists to form ìlasting, local and sustainableî relationships with their natural environment.[26] Berry spends a long time trying to dismantle Wilsonís case, which seems an easy enough task, but he is often sidetracked and wanders off into discussions of current literature and freedoms in academia. In the end the work feels unfinished, as though a rough draft in dire need of editing. Moreover, some critics claim that Berry misses the point, and that his real enemy is apathy and ìthose who think that giving [away] a few dollars is enough to assuage all fears about the worth of life and the way we are treating our planet.î[27] Robert M. Pirsig has had a restless life. He started studying chemistry and philosophy at the University of Minnesota at age 14, with the intention of becoming a molecular biologist, but he found that from his hypotheses he would only get hypotheses. His search for an underlying universal principle then led him to Benares Hindu University, where he studied Eastern thought. Upon his return he taught English composition and rhetoric at the State University of Montana, and was employed as a writer of technical manuals. After suffering a mental breakdown, he wrote his 1974 masterpiece Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenanceóa loose autobiography, travelogue and set of lay sermons about his life experiences and search for meaning.[28] His goal was to do nothing less than to ìrevamp the whole scientific method that operated from the premise that the observer and what was being observed must be separate realities.î[29] Our thus-bifurcated world, says Pirsig, constantly generates ìantagonistic relationships between mind and matter, feeling and reason, art and science, life and technology.î[30] He attempts to transform this subject/object dualism into a trinity by the addition of ìvalue judgements associated with the words ëexcellenceí, ëworthí and ëgoodnessí that he, together, calls ëQuality.íî[31] Altogether, both scientific and literary critics praised it as ìabsorbing, witty and haunting,î[32] ìoriginal and imaginativeî[33] and ìable to evoke a landscape or intimate a deep sense of uneasiness without being overwritten.î[34] Wilson, Berry and Pirsig have wildly different philosophies of science and its relation to the humanities, religion and ethics. Yet they all passionately believe in their ideas and defend them to the hilt. The study of how their ideas differ, the underlying assumptions on which they are built and their overall conclusions is a fascinating one. Science & the Humanities Edward Wilson wants to foster collaboration between the arts and the sciences. He is sure that if only scholars in the humanities would only ìlift the anathema placed on reductionism,î they would see that by understanding the biologically evolved epigenetic rules that guide all human thought they will be able to better ìgrasp the inborn human natureî of their audience and even, says Wilson, ìeven the greatest works of art might be understood fundamentally.î[35] This is because, of course, like all other biological phenomena the roots of the arts ìdate back in deep history to the genetic origins of the human brain, and are permanent.î The point of consilience, he stresses, lies in the interpretation of the arts, and how the essential ideas of truth and beauty are to be described through ordinary language. Wilson cites recent research into the mathematic modelling of beauty as an example of our pre-determined, permanent affinity for a certain evolutionarily defined Êsthetic. Barely taking into account the extreme changeability of artistic trends, the varying of beauty standards across cultures or the possibility that the arts might touch the soul and the mind as well as the brain, Wilson quickly jumps to a litany of reassurances that in time ìall will be scientifically named, the explanations will be joined and all the facts will prove consilient. Now, with science and the arts combined, we have it all.î[36] Wendell Berry begs to differ. He rightly points out that Wilsonís ìcollaborationî between disciplines is really a subjugation of the arts by science (shades of Feyerabend), since Wilsonís ìhypothesis of the biological origin of the artsî is strictly a scientific one, and ìproposes only scientific tasks.î He also takes great umbrage at Wilsonís assertions that the arts are merely an ìÊsthetic and emotional response,î pointing out that they also include knowledge and can serve to instruct. He also maintains that the arts, unlike the sciences, cannot be reduced: ìThe essential truth of a work of art cannot be extracted, just as beauty cannot be interpreted. To believe that the arts can be interpreted so as to make them consilient with biology or physics is about equivalent to the belief that literary classics can survive as comic books or movies.î[37] Moreover, Berry doesnít see how art as determined by an ìinborn human natureî could explain bad or ìunnaturalî art. If Êsthetics are biologically determined, and all humans want to produce the ìbestî art, then ìhow does the issue of quality arise in the first place?î[38] Issues of quality are of supreme importance to Robert Pirsig. Inspired by the Ideals advocated by PoincarÈ (as well as the philosophy of ìintuitionî put forth by Karl Popper[39]), he suggests that it is the interaction between the subjective self and the objective world that gives us a feeling of quality. He gives it a capital Q and refuses to define it, saying that any attempt to would have to invoke Quality itself. He goes on to explain his belief that this Quality, the ìleading edge of the train of knowledge,î[40] can serve as a new form or paradigm to understanding our world, linking the tragically-divorced realms of art and technology, and on a greater scale, feeling and reason. For him, both scientists and artists need to tap into that recognition of the ìhere and nowî, to fully realize their relationship between themselves and the world around them at every moment and thus to seek oneness with the deep currents of Quality that undergird our existence. For scientists, this might mean a greater realization of the subjective components of the scientific process, while for artists it might be a call to explore and understand the technology around them. Additionally, to Wilson Pirsig would say ìthe arts are irreducible,î but to Berry he would warn that ìbeauty can be interpretedî. To him, we are interpreting it individually and constantly, in the same way that we are always interpreting our surroundings. This act of sensing and interpreting is Quality at work, and it is what makes up reality as we know it. Science, Religion & Ethics Berry is a Transcendentalist through and through, and he doesnít like Wilsonís attack on religion one bit. At every turn he warns us that ìGod and the devices of human understanding are not the same subjectî and thus it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God using scientific methods or rhetoric. Besides, he says, "The walls of the rational, empirical world are famously porous [Ö] what come through are dreams, imaginings, vision, revelations. Beyond any earthly reason we experience beauty in excess of use, justice in excess of anger, mercy in excess of justice, love in excess of deserving or fulfillment. We have known evil beyond imagining [Ö] and compassion and forgiveness beyond measure." [41] Religion, he points out, tries to deal with these religious experiences on their own terms, and he decries those that would use a fundamentally different languageólike that of scienceóto explain them. While he wants both disciplines to be able to live together ìin amity and peace,î he also stresses the importance of both science and religion acknowledging the real differences that exists between them and each ìremaining within its own competence."[42] He does wet his toes in the pool of science, however, to point out that Biblical religion, as he understands it, is explicitly against Wilsonís philosophy of Reductionism. The great theme of the Bible, says Berry, is that of wonder at the ìmanifoldî works of God, who knows the fall of every sparrow and has ìnumbered the very hairs on your head.î[43] The principle that is opposite to Wilsonís reduction, he concludes, is ìGodís love for all things, for each thing for its own sake and not for its category.î[44] Wilson does seem to have a problem with religion. Having grown up in a fundamental Christian household, he still feels ìbound to respect its ancient traditions,î but he sets up an elaborate mock debate between an Empiricist and a Transcendentalist where it is clear whom he believes to be the fool. Wilson simply does not need religion anymore, he states, favouring instead a purely material origin of ethics. He says that individuals by and large are predisposed biologically to make certain choices that lead them to a belief in God, and he also proposes that religions be treated as organisms, with their growth plotted over time. In this way he proposes to turn his reductivist lens on religion and ethics, to find the ìepigenetic rules of moral reasoningî which, he concedes, will ìprobably turn out to be an ensemble of many algorithms.î[45] Humanity will have to make a choice, he says, between a moral reasoning ìcentred in idioms of theology and philosophy, where it is now, or shifted towards a science-based material analysis.î[46] There does not seem to be a possibility of coexistence, for Wilson, who boasts that ìScience has always defeated religious dogma point by point when the two have conflicted.î Instead, he sees the two as perpetual competitors and foresees the result of their match as ìthe secularization of the human epic, and of religion itself.î[47] As for Pirsig, he has identified a big, unifying, underlying, all-creating and all-encompassing force that resists definition, is timeless and gives our lives meaning. He calls it Quality, but it would be a simple hop, skip and a jump to calling it ìGod.î He himself later recognizes its same description and qualities in the works of Lao-Tzu, where it is called Tao,[48] and even recognizes it as the Dharma of the Hindus.[49] Thus Pirsigís work, while perhaps not offering many religious answers, is wide open to religious interpretation, and might be able to offer the right religious questions. Near the end of the book Pirsig also touches on the question of ethics. He traces the current reason/feeling dichotomy back to the ancient Greeks, who engaged in the same battle. Aristotle, Plato and the dialecticians were defending Reason, and the absoluteness of Truth, while a group of philosophers called Sophists were teaching that all principles are relative, and that ìman is the measure of all things.î The Truth won, Good lost, and according to Pirsig we have lived lives of Reason ever since. But Pirsig likes the theory that ìman is the measure of all things,î because for him it places man neither as source nor as passive observer of things, but rather envisions that relationship between man and experience that he sees as the embodiment of Quality. The Sophists, he discovers, had a name for this which can be interpreted as ìvirtue,î or ìexcellenceî and they believed that it had been around before substance, before form and before mind and matter.[50] Thus to be ethical, Pirsig reasons, one must simply follow this virtue. Whether one calls it Tao, Dharma or Quality, it is all the same fundamental Goodness from which all reality as we know it flows. Pirsig leaves it up to the reader to decide what to call it, ultimately, but to me it seems very close to that Christian idea of ìGod." Role and Future of Science This last section will be mostly self-evident. Pirsig is not worried about science as long as we can keep up with Quality, which is the way we understand science. Berry, for his part, calls upon all scientists to emancipate their research from the grip of the corporations that fund them. As a more practical man, he is concerned with the immediate future of science, which he sees as representing a trend towards corporate servitude. Wilson, not surprisingly, feels great about scienceís future and role. Not only does he see the future of science as bright, but also that of humanity, because for him science is the future of humanity. Conclusion The philosophy of science, and of its greater implications and relations to society, is a vitally important field to study. Especially for those planning a life in the sciences, and who worry about leading ethical lives, the exploration of different worldviews can help frame the reference of their own thoughts and elucidate their proper beliefs. As well, an understanding of the history of scientific and philosophic thought helps to contextualize and qualify these worldviews. Wendell Berry, Edward Wilson and Robert Pirsig have all gone through this process, and the worldviews they present to us in the form of their respective books illustrate nicely the different schools of scientific and philosophic thought that each of them represents. The great sticking points for them are those of the relationship between the science and the humanities; the relationship of science to religion and ethics; and the way in which they view the role and future of science. Wilson represents the empiricist arm of Empiricism. He rejects religion inasmuch as he cannot quantify it and echoes the cry from Galileo and Nagel to ìreduce by all means.î Yet he considers himself an ethical man, but born out of a materialist and science-driven personal morality, which he seesóalong with the eventual domination of all other fields by Scienceóas the future of the human race. Berry, on the other hand, takes a page from Feyerabend and attacks the idea that anybody will ever be able to know everything. Life is a mystery, he maintains, that is God-given and cannot be reduced, just as a great poem cannot be translated. He wants science to move slowly and cautiously, with great reverence for the Earth. He also challenges scientists to discard the influence of corporations on their work, and to truly respect care for the communities in which they live. This he sees as the only future for science. Pirsig is a stranger to the conversation. He follows the Ideals of Plato, Poincaré and Popper to their limit and then takes them one step further. He views the world as made up of interactions of people and their environment, relationships which he calls Quality. It is this Quality that will heal the rifts between science and the humanities, he says, a rift which he considers unnatural. His philosophy is almost religious in and of itself, as he proposes a force which is all-powerful, timeless and when followed, leads one to the ethical life. The future of science, and of all humanity, lies in the recognition of and striving for this Quality. Epilogue I find all these ideas interesting. Regardless of what I think of them, they are fundamentally exciting because they show people thinking actively about their world, its future and the way they should act within it. Personally, I think my own philosophy of science and the world will reflect my many influences, and thus incorporate some of all of these authorís ideas. I like the determination of Wilson, the caution of Berry and the inquisitiveness of Pirsig. If I can become a humble scientist who is mindful of overarching relationships in the world, then hopefully I will be able to represent the best of all three philosophies. Endnotes 1. Sir William Dampier, A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy and Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949, p. 1. 2. Ibid, p. 2. 3. L.W. King, A History of Babylon, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1915, p. 71. 4. J. C. Gregory, Ancient Astrology and Nature (vol. 153), London: International Astronomical Association, 1944, p. 512. 5. John Losee, A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 9. 6. Roger Bacon, The Opus Majus (vol. II), New York: Russel and Russel, 1962, p. 615. 7. Benjamin Farrington, The Philosophy of Francis Bacon, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1964, p. 30. 8. Losee, A Historical Introduction, p. 30. 9. Philipp Franck, Philosophy of Science, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1957, p. 352. 10. Dampier, A History of Science, p. 112. 11. Galileo, "The Assayer", (trans. S. Drake), in The Controversy on the Comets of 1618(S. Drake and C. OíMalley, eds.) Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960, p. 309. 12. Herbert Dingle, "The Nature of Scientific Philosophy", in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (part IV) (62), 1949, p. 409. 13. Dampier, A History of Science, p. 133. 14. Ibid., p. 133. 15. RenÈ Descartes, "Meditations of First Philosophy", in The Philosophical Works of Descartes (vol. I) (S. Haldane and G. Ross, eds.), New York: Dover Publications, 1955, p. 154. 16. Sir Isaac Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, (vol. II), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962, p. 547. 17. Albert Einstein, "Geometry and Experience", in Sidelight on Relativity, New York: E. P. Dutton Co., 1923, p. 28. 18. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, (trans. F. Miller), New York: Macmillan, 1934, p. 530. 19. Henri Poincaré, The Foundations of Science, New York: The Science Press, 1921, p. 322. 20. Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961, p. 336-7. 21. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, New York: Verso Books, 1975, p. 169. 22. Paul Feyerabend, "An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience", Proc. Arist. Soc. (58), 1958, p. 160-2. 23. Edward O. Wilson, Consilience, New York: Vintage Books, 1998, p. 60. 24. John Dupré, "Unification Not Proved", Science (280), 1998, p. 1395. 25. Michael Ruse, "On E. O. Wilson and His Religious Vision", Science (290), 2000, p. 943. 26. Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle, Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2000, p. 148. 27. Ruse, On E. O. Wilson, p. 943. 28. Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, New York: Bantam Books, 1974. 29. R. Z. Sheppard, "The Enormous Vroom", Time (103), April 15, 1974, p. 99-100. 30. George Basalla, "Man and Machine", Science (187), 1975, p. 248-50. 31. Ibid. 32. Michael Stone, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", The Christian Century (92), 1975, p. 448. 33. Basalla, "Man and Machine", p. 248. 34. Robert Adams, "Good Trip", New York Review of Books (21), 1974, p. 22. 35. Wilson, Consilience, p. 232-233. 36. Ibid., p. 258. 37. Berry, Life is a Miracle, p. 117. 38. Ibid., p. 108. 39. Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, New York: Basic Books, 1959, p. 47. 40. Pirsig, Zen and the Art, p. 254. 41. Berry, Life is a Miracle, p. 100. 42. Ibid., p. 98. 43. Matthew 10.29 44. Berry, Life is a Miracle, p. 103. 45. Wilson, Consilience, p. 278. 46. Ibid., p. 262. 47. Ibid., p. 290. 48. Pirsig, Zen and the Art, p. 227. 49. Ibid., p. 340. 50. Ibid. References • Adams, Robert. "Good Trip". New York Review of Books (21), 1974. • Basalla, George. "Man and Machine". Science (187), 1975. • Berry, Wendell. Life is a Miracle. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2000. • Dampier, Sir William. A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1949. • Descartes, RenÈ. "Meditations of First Philosophy", in The Philosophical Works of Descartes (vol I.) (S. Haldane and G. Ross, eds.) New York: Dover Publications, 1955. • Dingle, Herbert. "The Nature of Scientific Philosophy". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (part IV) (62), 1949. • DuprÈ, John. "Unification Not Proved". Science (280), 1998. • Einstein, Albert. "Geometry and Experience", in Sidelight on Relativity. New York: E. P. Dutton Co., 1923. • Farrington, Benjamin. The Philosophy of Francis Bacon. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1964. • Feyerabend, Paul. "An Attempt at a Realistic Interpretation of Experience". Proc. Arist. Soc. (58), 1958. • ______________. Against Method. New York: Verso Books, 1975. • Franck, Philipp. Philosophy of Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1957. • Galileo. "The Assayer". (trans. S. Drake), in The Controversy on the Comets of 1618. (S. Drake and C. OíMalley, eds.) Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960. • Gregory, J. C. Ancient Astrology and Nature. (vol. 153), London: International Astronomical Association, 1944. • Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. (trans. F. Miller), New York: Macmillan, 1934. • King, L.W. A History of Babylon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1915. • Losee, John. A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. • Nagel, Ernest. The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Barce & World, 1961. • Newton, Sir Isaac. Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (vol. II), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962. • Pirsig, Robert. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York: Bantam Books, 1974. • PoincarÈ, Henri. The Foundations of Science. New York: The Science Press, 1921. • Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Basic Books, 1959. • Ruse, Michael. "On E. O. Wilson and His Religious Vision". Science (290), 2000. • Sheppard, R. Z. "The Enormous Vroom". Time (103), April 15, 1974. • Stone, Michael. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". The Christian Century (92), 1975. • Sullivan, J. W. N. The Limitations of Science. New York: Viking Press, 1933. • Wilson, Edward O. Consilience. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. How to Cite this Page MLA Citation: "Consilience, by Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig." 123HelpMe.com. 14 Feb 2014 <http://www.123HelpMe.com/view...>. - Thomas Page

Evolution and Our Inner Conflict http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012... sort pstp anthro ~ For the real human story, history makes no sense without prehistory, and prehistory makes no sense without biology. Within biology itself, the key to the mystery is the force that lifted pre-human social behavior to the human level. ~ Each person, working his way back and forth through his social network, almost continuously reviews past experiences while imagining the consequences of future scenarios. ~ A second diagnostic hereditary peculiarity of human behavior is the overpowering instinctual urge to belong to groups in the first place. To be kept in solitude is to be kept in pain, and put on the road to madness. A person’s membership in his group — his tribe — is a large part of his identity. It also confers upon him to some degree or other a sense of superiority. When psychologists selected teams at random from a population of volunteers to compete in simple games, members of each team soon came to think of members of other teams as less able and trustworthy, even when the participants knew they had been selected at random. ~ Until about three million years ago the ancestors of Homo sapiens were mostly vegetarians, and they most likely wandered in groups from site to site where fruit, tubers, and other vegetable food could be harvested. Their brains were only slightly larger than those of modern chimpanzees. By no later than half a million years ago, however, groups of the ancestral species Homo erectus were maintaining campsites with controlled fire — the equivalent of nests — from which they foraged and returned with food, including a substantial portion of meat. Their brain size had increased to midsize, between that of chimpanzees and modern Homo sapiens. The trend appears to have begun one to two million years previously, when the earlier prehuman ancestor Homo habilis turned increasingly to meat in its diet. With groups crowded together at a single site, and an advantage added by cooperative nest building and hunting, social intelligence grew, along with the centers of memory and reasoning in the prefrontal cortex. Probably at this point, during the habiline period, a conflict ensued between individual-level selection, with individuals competing with other individuals in the same group, versus group-level selection, with competition among groups. The latter force promoted altruism and cooperation among all the group members. It led to group-wide morality and a sense of conscience and honor. The competitor between the two forces can be succinctly expressed as follows: within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. Or, risking oversimplification, individual selection promoted sin, while group selection promoted virtue. So it appeared that humans are forever conflicted by their prehistory of multilevel selection. They are suspended in unstable and constantly changing locations between the two extreme forces that created us. We are unlikely to yield completely to either force as an ideal solution to our social and political turmoil. To yield completely to the instinctual urgings born from individual selection would dissolve society. To surrender to the urgings from group selection would turn us into angelic robots — students of insects call them ants. The eternal conflict is not God’s test of humanity. It is not a machination of Satan. It is just the way things worked out. It might be the only way in the entire universe that human-level intelligence and social organization can evolve. We will find a way eventually to live with our inborn turmoil, and perhaps find pleasure in viewing it as a primary source of our creativity. { It led to group-wide morality and a sense of conscience and honor. ~ The competitor between the two forces can be succinctly expressed as follows: within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. Or, risking oversimplification, individual selection promoted sin, while group selection promoted virtue. } , 8 -9 sort RIP Military Historian John Keegan, Who Saw War as Product of Culture Rather Than Biology http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-c... , 3 -31 anthro sort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

8 -6 sort http://www.the-scientist.com/... , http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-b... http://terpsinoe.wordpress.com/2011... - Thomas Page

8 -5 http://friendfeed.com/citizen... - http://friendfeed.com/citizen... - Thomas Page

Socially distributed cognition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... , 9 -1 sort to where ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... 11 -6 http://friendfeed.com/citizen... , 11 -13 Folkway Politics built up without conscious design http://dictionary.reference.com/browse... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

sci fri social http://www.sciencefriday.com/blogs... http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment... [[[[ http://www.sciencefriday.com/blogs... - Thomas Page

fictional cultures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki... , 11 -6 Reptilians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politic... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... sort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... , 11 -9 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki... , [[ 11 -17 Sith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Jedi [[[[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... 1 -9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

Society - Culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... A society is a grouping of individuals, which is characterized by common interest and may have distinctive culture and institutions. Society can also be explained as an organized group of people associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, recreational, or other purposes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... [ the normative structure of values, customs and meanings that exist in any culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... [ Folkways -Mores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Categories: Conformity Consensus reality Morality Sociological terminology Social agreement 11 -17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... [[[[ 11 -28 Work Ways: “Work ethics and work experiences; attitudes toward work and the nature of work.” Time Ways: “ Attitudes toward the use of time, customary methods of time keeping, and the conventional rhythms of life.” Wealth Ways: “ Attitudes towards wealth and patterns of its distribution.” Rank Ways: “The rules by which rank is assigned, the roles which rank entails, and the relations between different ranks.” Social Ways: “Conventional patterns of migration, settlement, association and affiliation.” Order Ways: “Ideas of order, ordering institutions, forms of disorder, and treatment of the disorderly.” Power Ways: “Attitudes toward authority and power; patterns of political participation.” Freedom Ways: “Prevailing ideas of liberty and restraint, and libertarian customs and institutions.” - Thomas Page

Sort 8 -28 Long knives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... or big knives was a term used by the Iroquois and later by American Indians of the Ohio Country to designate British colonists of Virginia, in contradistinction to those of New York and Pennsylvania. It is a literal translation of the treaty name that the Iroquois first bestowed on Virginia Governor Lord Howard in 1684, Assarigoe (variously spelled Assaregoa, Assaragoa, Asharigoua), meaning "cutlass" in Onondaga. This word was chosen as a pun on Howard's name, which sounds like Dutch hower meaning "cutlass" (similar to the Iroquois' choice of the name Onas, or quill pen, for the Pennsylvania Governors, beginning with William Penn.) The name "long knives" is also thought to refer to the swords carried by colonial military officers. George Rogers Clark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... spoke of himself and men as "Big Knives," or Virginians, in his speeches to the Indians in 1778 after the capture of Illinois. In the latter part of the American Revolutionary War, down to and during the War of 1812, the term was used to designate Americans. - Thomas Page

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They were old once now they are our age. Viewing old pictures. Sort sort Non Linear Time? - Thomas Page

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Human BEING http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... 5 -27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

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Transnational Global planetary transworld universal [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Cultural_universals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

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9 -29 sort We are stardust Billion year old carbon We are golden Caught in the devil's bargain And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden - Thomas Page

The Garden , Events , Choices , ... - Thomas Page

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E._O._Wilson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... The Meaning of Human Existence, 2014 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news... http://friendfeed.com/bigthin... [ 10 -30 Ant Men http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... 10 -31 sort The Dragons of Eden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Thomas Page

1 -25 So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection. ???????? Connection dynamics - optimization... - Thomas Page

Psychogenic_pain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Pain_(philosophy) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Suffering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Nociception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://friendfeed.com/citizen... Unpleasantness - Thomas Page

Sort > Psychological_pain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://www.bookmorebrides.com/why-soc... http://www.wikihow.com/Read-Bo... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://www.nature.com/nrn... vicodin-for-social-exclusion http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2012... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed... http://www.nature.com/nrn... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed... Acetaminophen-Mechanism_of_action http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... whats-tylenol-doing-to-our-minds http://www.theatlantic.com/health... - Thomas Page

Taking the edge off , enduring the occasional perfect storm of dysfunctional group discombobulatory social whatchamacallits... 2 Tylenol pm efficacy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... explanatory style ... - Thomas Page

1 -17 took a knife edgy and dull 1 -20 http://youtu.be/sIaiICH50PU [[[[[[ what does this have to do with pain ? sort sort sort 9 -15 Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage Eight Steps to Living More Courageously (or Telling the Story of Who You Are with Your Whole Heart) The No More Someday Plan of Action We’ve got to do the work and stop waiting to get into the arena http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... until we feel “bulletproof and perfect.” Here’s how: Notice your own vulnerability. Once you identify your own vulnerability, you have the ability to acknowledge it and act consciously rather than let it “run” you. Be kind to yourself if when you get a vulnerability hangover. http://www.romankrznaric.com/outrosp... Acknowledge when shame runs you. (Clue: It sounds like “You aren’t good enough” or “Who do you think you are?”) Practice empathy (“Empathy is the antidote to shame.”) [{( 12 -11 RSA Shorts - The Power of Empathy http://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw ]}) Let yourself be seen. Love with your whole heart. Practice Gratitude and Joy. Believe that you are enough. , [ We live in a culture where making yourself vulnerable – exposing your fears and uncertainties, taking emotional risks – is considered a form of weakness, and something most of us want to run away from. But Brené’s research reveals the hugely positive outcomes that emerge from stepping into the arena of vulnerability.{{[[{{ Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... }}]]}} ] LIMBIC EMOTION AFFIRMATIONS PRAYER MANTRAS http://friendfeed.com/citizen... {{ battlecry against vulnerability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Today is a good day to die - , good day to die In Black Elk Speaks, recounting the Battle of the Little Bighorn described the warriors under Crazy Horse: "...off toward the west and north they were yelling " Hokahey!" like a big wind roaring, and making the tremolo; and you could hear eagle bone whistles screaming." "Hokahey" is simply an exclamation to draw attention, similar to a coach saying, "lets do it!" In all probability Crazy Horse never said, "Today is a good day to die," that is the English bastardization of a common Sioux battle-cry of, "Nake nula wauŋ welo!" This phrase really means, "I am ready for whatever comes." It was meant to show the warriors were not afraid of the battle or dying in it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki... , https://friendfeed.com/citizen... [[[[ Love leaders maintain a foundation of character and integrity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... . They build relationships based on trust. Trust can be defined as a willingness to accept the judgment and decisions of another person. Trust cannot be maintained in a relationship that lacks integrity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... , [[[[[[ "I love what you have to say about shame, but I'm curious why you didn't mention men." And I said, "I don't study men." And he said, "That's convenient." And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Because you say to reach out, tell our story, be vulnerable. But you see those books you just signed for my wife and my three daughters? They'd rather me die on top of my horse than watch me fall down. When we reach out and be vulnerable, we get the shit beat out of us. And don't tell me from the guys and the coaches and the dads. Because the women in my life are harder on me than anyone else." , 9 -16 Broken trust ... , Betrayal ... , Infidelity ... , ... , emotions of vulnerability ... { also gut wrenching - heart rending extreme type } ? victim mentality ? both sides ? sympathy empathy complexity forgiveness ... ? 9 -17 sort emotion of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ? , lack of remorse or need for other to express ? forms of apology? step 8 -9? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki... , {{ [[ Identifying Vulnerabilities and Risks in Your Network ( personal universe and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ) past present future . Always wear your psychological hazmat suit and use proper safety gear when working with toxic ...! digging up past injuries hurts wrongdoings ect. , COURAGE ( to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.) , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... , 9 -19 ''Write your injuries in dust, your benefits in marble.'' - Benjamin Franklin , 1 -20 Accidently Mean Momma tried to raise me better but her pleading I denied ... ? dysfunction... 1 -21 small d , Freakish what the hell is that all about (word)? Conditionality... Lost then loss of _ ? = ? , Look out kid it's something you did God knows when but your doin it again, [ cold heartlights ? [[ 1 -26 passing it on with compounded interest shame { whys of ??? { getting over it being over it most of the time ... - Thomas Page

Carry On https://friendfeed.com/citizen... - Thomas Page