Immortal Curiosity

Notes on Zoological Philosophy, by J.B. Lamarck-

Chapter 7-  Read more... (396 words, estimated 1:35 mins reading time)

• Concerning the influence exerted by the environment on the various living bodies exposed to it. It is in all times and places operative on living bodies.
• The state in which we find any animal is, on the one hand, the result of the increasing complexity of organisation tending to form a regular gradation; and, on the other hand, of the influence of a multitude of very various conditions ever tending to destroy the regularity in the gradation of the increasing complexity of organisation.
• It is only by an inspection of ancient monuments that he becomes convinced that in each of these localities the order of things which he now finds has not always been existent; he may thence infer that it will go on changing.
• First Law of Nature:
  • In animals not past the limit of development, more use of an organ strengthens and develops that organ, while disuse weakens the organ until it disappears.
• Second Law of Nature:
  • All acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise.

11 /26/2005
Notes and thoughts from Stephen Hawking’s The Universe in a Nutshell, chapter 6, Star Trek or Not.

The world’s population plotted through time is a measure of our technological ability to preserve life. During recorded history, this measure has only increased. Of course, there are certain exceptions: the Black death etc. within the last 200 years, population growth has become exponential. Currently, the world population doubles every 40 years. Other measures of technological growth include power consumption and the number of scientific articles published. All three of these measures cannot continue to grow at the same rate that they are now. So what are the possibilities?

Putting self-destruction aside, one major consideration in considering how future development will be shaped would be whether faster than light travel is possible. Since we do not yet possess a complete theory of physics, we cannot rule such a possibility out. However, we do know laws of physics which apply to almost all “normal” situations.  Read more... (779 words, estimated 3:07 mins reading time)

Towards a Universal Characteristic, 1677.

“Number is therefore, so to speak, a fundamental metaphysical form, and arithmetic a sort of statics [from OED: "Originally, the science relating to weight and its mechanical effects, and to the conditions of equilibrium as resulting from the distribution of weight. In modern use, the branch of physical science concerned with the action of forces in producing equilibrium or relative rest, in contradistinction to Dynamics in its older sense as the science of the action of forces in producing motion. In recent terminology, Statics and Kinetics (= the older Dynamics) are the two branches of Dynamics." ] of the universe, in which the powers of things are revealed.”

The Phenomenon of Man (my edition)
by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, trans. Bernard Wall; Perennial, 1965.

~Introduction, by Sir Julian Huxley-  Read more... (1950 words, estimated 7:48 mins reading time)

The Bodily Dimension in Thinking, by Daniela Vallega-Neu. SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy, 2005.

While reading the introduction to the above work (specifically page xiv, in the description of the Cartesian distinction between body as extended substance and mind as thinking substance), I was struck by the following idea: Much of the Western philosophy post-Descartes that I have read seems to be often unable to overcome the dichotomy that he introduced in describing the mind and the body. This inability comes in a number of varieties. Some philosophical systems contain the same division explicitly, some distantly critique it (either because of some sympathy for it or out of a sense of modern philosophical duty). But what is it about his division that makes it so difficult to remove from one’s thinking about mind and body as soon as one has been exposed to the former? Perhaps it is not that “man” is not able to think certain things because of his physical nature, or even his mental nature, but because of the “adhesive” nature of certain thoughts which, by virtue of their coming to be are influential in the course of historical or philosophical thought. Once certain ideas arise, they are very hard to remove from man’s collective epistemological consciousness, and thus make the thinking of certain other thoughts difficult.