stellar-indulgence:

Pretty awesome poster…

Principal subjects of science appear in this poster as geological strata.  Psychology rests atop biology because—as far as we know—psychological events are a special class of biological events.  So, psychology is “grounded” in biology.  Biology, in turn, is grounded in chemistry.  And chemistry is grounded in physics.  Finally, all these branches of science rest on the deepest stratum, philosophy.  Each major subject reveals three substrata that describe “structures” of differing scale, large to small.  Each such structure refers laterally to a crucial scientific theory that underlies our understanding of the universe at that level.

Source: http://wonderfest.org/

A science is only as good as its foundation.

Philosopher’s Minimalism by Genís Carreras

Prints available at society6. Entitled “Philographics”, these minimalist geometric shapes represent various philosophical doctrines like existentialism, empiricism, nihilism, and solipsism. Several more can be seen on Carreras’ website, but spoiler alert: there appears to be no mention of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, which is just as much a code of ethics as it is a religious experience.

(via: io9)

skeptv:

Can animals suffer? Debunking the philosophers who say no, from Descartes to William Lane Craig

Rene Descartes argued that animals could neither think nor feel due to their lack of a pineal gland, an idea not taken seriously now. But a modified version of this argument has recently been revived this time using the pre frontal cortex to argue that animals cant suffer. This film aims to debunk this claim and we talk to some of the leading scientists in the world to refute this claim.

All of the scientists who were featured in the movie were sent a preview copy and asked to let us know if they feel we had misquoted them or made any scientific errors. No instances were identified by them.

Many thanks to those that helped in the making of this movie.
Dr Anita Alvarez, Imperial College/UCL
Prof Stuart Firestein, Columbia University
Prof Joaquinn Fuster, UCLA
Prof Bruce Hood, Bristol University
Dr Lori Marino, Emory Univeriy
James Moskito, Great White Shark Adventures
Dr Diana Reiss, City University NY

All of the wildlife footage was filmed by us and the music is by Symphony of Science and is used with permission.

What’s invisible? More than you think - John Lloyd

View full lesson on ed.ted.com http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-s-invisible-more-than-you-think-john-lloyd

Gravity. The stars in day. Thoughts. The human genome. Time. Atoms. So much of what really matters in the world is impossible to see. A stunning animation of John Lloyd’s classic TEDTalk from 2009, which will make you question what you actually know.

Lesson by John Lloyd, animation by Cognitive Media.

knowyourmeme:

KYMdb - YOLO

meta-maieutics:

I wrote this quote in big letters on a piece of paper and left it on the kitchen table for my father to read before leaving the house for a couple of days to visit a friend. It was meant as a response to this ridiculous argument we’d had the night before about him not wanting to watch a Stephen Hawking documentary on the basis that he believed him to be “full of shit” and that he “let his emotions get in the way of his intellect”, culminating in his girlfriend-ish-thing accusing him of “intellectual arrogance”, etc. etc. etc.

He responded to my message with “Who to believe? Stephen Hawking said last night that philosophy is dead!”

I just sighed and once again resigned myself to the fact that arguing with my father is impossible because he gets so caught up on connotations of words that he neglects to spend any time thinking about the actual intention behind them.

I’m familiar with this statement. It was this one he was referring to?

In his book, The Grand Design, Hawking opens with the idea that “philosophy has not kept up with modern discoveries in science, particularly physics.”
 
More specifically he asserts that science, in place of philosophy, has moved into position to be responsible for answering such questions as, “How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator?”

I realize his stance makes a lot of people angry while stating the obvious, and would like to help clarify. When we want to know more about something, we turn to science and its methods, not philosophical ponderings, to learn empirically verifiable information. Can it be wrong? Yes. Can it get you closer than philosophy alone? Yes. This is the hard-to-argue obvious notion he’s stating, but when you call something people are attached to “dead,” they tend to get fairly upset. Of course, I’m referring to none other than Friedrich Nietzsche, another INTJ. His version, I will include for reference.

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

—Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Ok, some plot twist this is, right?
Nietzsche was a philosopher, and Hawking says philosophy has died!

For the sake of understanding, let’s keep going. Nietzsche lived in a time when knowledge about reality, about the universe, when empiricism was at an all time low. With the same set of cognitive tools as Hawking, he did the same thing Hawking did. He pointed out that which will not last.

God is dead, and we no longer need to use religion to explain the universe, just as philosophy is dead, and we no longer need to rely on it to explain the universe. Scientific empiricism solves all of these things. If we don’t know, we can approach that unknown. With philosophy, we’re left to our own devices, at the mercy of our imagination, ability to reason, knowledge, assumptions, and worst yet: left to decide. This is not so with scientific empiricism. If you think you can decide how the universe works for even a second, the universe is there to show you complete indifference to your conclusions, as it continues onward as it always has: regardless.

This is what Stephen Hawking is referring to, and if anyone is interested, he is a fantastic writer. As for arguments with your father. Don’t bother. Aim to enlighten and inform, rather than persuade and disagree. You might be delighted to find that’s all he needed. Disarm the argumentative with genuine openness while asking the right questions they need in order to get there.

naked-glass:

The Stoic Club (later becoming The Lazy Cowpoke Stop’n Go) is a club located in Summers from EarthBound. It is a private club whose members stare at a rock believed to be magical and philosophize. Members eat the magic cake provided by the woman in the pink dress near the entrance of the club.

“I’ve finally awakened the inner me, the true self. The patrons of this club are able to stare into their own soul hard enough to burn a hole in their psyche. I’m now comfortable enough to stare at the real me, the true self, and burn the impression into my super-ego.”

“Didactically speaking, seminal evidence seems to explicate the fact that your repudiation of entropy supports my theory of space-time synthesis. Of this, I am irrefutably confident.”

“You guys can’t envision the final collapse of capitalism?”

“The show? It’s already started. Everyone stares at the stone on stage and philosopizes….Doesn’t it sound stupid?”

Mono-ha, you must love them.

This game belongs in the Louvre. It is a masterpiece.