Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

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This was the birth of (“economic man”). According to this view, when people interact in the marketplace, their intentions are transparent. They want always and only what is in their own best self-interest. If they are buying something, they want the most of it they can get for the smallest price. If they are selling, they want to get the highest price possible. This desire to maximize self-interest would be pointless if people to get it. Fortunately, in this view, people are rational and are able to out which is the most advantageous to us, and we choose that one. We know what we want, we know when one option is better for us than another, and we always choose the most favorable one. If humans act according to this model of perfect rational selfinterest, then economic interactions become mathematically representable. We can draw supply curves and demand curves. We When we see prices set below this equilibrium, economic forces move prices up. When we see alternative products in the market that are cheaper, we see the equilibrium point move down and prices change. Note that the classical picture of economics has the macro-level of buyers and sellers in the marketplace. What happens in the small—among individual producers, laborers, and consumers— is predictable because they are all seeking only to maximize their own self-interest. When we look at a great number of these interactions together, the behavior of the economy in the large is also directly determinable. Thus, the classical view of economics is based on two primary between people who always act rationally and in their own best 182
self-interest. Second, the large-scale behavior of the economy is the result of well-behaved small-scale interactions. The 20 th century would see advances that undermined both of these assumptions. second—that small-scale interactions give rise to predictable largescale behavior. This predictable behavior is what is known as the (see below). According to this idea, the economy has an equilibrium point, but that does not mean that it is static. Instead, the large-scale economy alternately grows and contracts around a Because people are rational and self-interested and because their decisions take time to implement—the actions of those in the market lag behind the timeframe of the actual changes in the market 183
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Topic Philosophy & Intellectual His
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Steven Gimbel, Ph.D. Professor of P
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Table of Contents LECTURE 11 Dark M
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Table of Contents SUPPLEMENTAL MATE
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: I and technological a
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This question allows us to turn fro
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The study of reality is what philos
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Semmelweis noticed that the inciden
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ut sometimes, even after checking t
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. The Matrix. We don’t believe
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Wisdom comes from rejecting the imp
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Thus, Aristotle’s prime mover, th
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Aristotle had said that an object
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For centuries, mathematics was cons
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th century, the Russian mathematici
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had turned their attention to logic
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Abbott, . Bell, Men of Mathematics.
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Scientists thought that the physica
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H. A. Lorentz had found, when you a
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Thinkers as far back as Gottfried L
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E grounds. First, the prin
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If you woke up tomorrow in a small
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speed up going in and slow down com
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Is it true that a difference that m
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Einstein thought, there would be lo
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Scientists largely hated this idea,
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If Gamow and Alpher’s work was ri
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Although physicists at the end of t
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In the 19 th century, there was the
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In 1873, James Clerk Maxwell publis
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The idea of a large central mass at
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We know, however, that for a given
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whether light is a particle or a wa
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is a particle, then the slits would
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One of the early results of quantum
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eams, we also knew that there were
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The hadrons are made up of quarks,
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As the meaning of the physics began
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The demon is a being with a super-i
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ignoring certain elements, we can c
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One of the simplest fractal pattern
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Earlier, we talked about Thomas Kuh
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so greatly separated that no proces
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een able to form in that environmen
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Nicolson, . Panek, . Our theories
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Similarly, James Clerk Maxwell, in
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But as we move away from the pole,
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Great press has been given to a pot
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Some people take the idea of a theo
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see from CAT scans that when someon
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Because we are just atoms, we, too,
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Would the randomness of quantum mec
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Aristotle thought that this world i
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If you select strange enough traits
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Although this aspect of the theory
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Darwin posited that children look l
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The key to understanding how we pas
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This picture of illness is quite di
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How much of who we are is determine
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inferred that the function of that
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a byproduct of mental illness, Freu
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With the genetic approach, we are w
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After Freud, psychology developed i
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experiences that are not our own, t
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Behaviorism was an attempt to make
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Psychology, which had begun as a se
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I th century, psychology had the lu
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part, in the group. To understand t
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acting in ways that showed a lack o
Page 139 and 140: has learned from the so-called barb
Page 141 and 142: led him to begin one of the most fa
Page 143 and 144: ules. We are now adult in our ethic
Page 145 and 146: In a contract-based relationship, y
Page 147 and 148: The study of psychology changed for
Page 149 and 150: Instead, we are a part of the world
Page 151 and 152: But it turns out that exposure to c
Page 153 and 154: Glickstein, . Lynch, . mean we
Page 155 and 156: But evolutionary psychologists Leda
Page 157 and 158: suited to solving these problems an
Page 159 and 160: As such, when we look at the innate
Page 161 and 162: In looking at reality, we can exami
Page 163 and 164: We see this also in the writings of
Page 165 and 166: one universal is crime. Crime is no
Page 167 and 168: To avoid such situations of anomie
Page 169 and 170: Historians create narratives that e
Page 171 and 172: Society is composed of individuals
Page 173 and 174: © Digital Vision/Thinkstock.
Page 175 and 176: The concept of race has long been a
Page 177 and 178: there are different combinations am
Page 179 and 180: Perhaps race is what Durkheim calle
Page 181 and 182: Gould, . Hernnstein and Murray, . K
Page 183 and 184: Slavery, for example, was a necessa
Page 185 and 186: Parsons’s picture is not the Marx
Page 187 and 188: In defeat, the smaller neighbors wo
Page 189: Economics became a science with the
Page 193 and 194: Under the classical model, this sho
Page 195 and 196: How do we account for these effects
Page 197 and 198: If the star is large enough, when i
Page 199 and 200: © amenic181/iStock/Thinkstock.
Page 201 and 202: What environment on Earth could pro
Page 203 and 204: The possibility of life on other pl
Page 205 and 206: Our newfound alien interlocutors te
Page 207 and 208: Perhaps the best evidence for extra
Page 209 and 210: Mayor and Frei, . Morrison, Billing
Page 211 and 212: It has long been argued, however, t
Page 213 and 214: But the idea of using the body’s
Page 215 and 216: Although that seems worrisome, it i
Page 217 and 218: I equally much for how w
Page 219 and 220: The use of one’s DNA in creating
Page 221 and 222: With cytoplasmic transfer, the nucl
Page 223 and 224: Macintosh, . Given that multiple
Page 225 and 226: we could begin with the desired por
Page 227 and 228: The second step is trickier. Here,
Page 229 and 230: Aside from medical uses, we can alt
Page 231 and 232: We can now use medical technology t
Page 233 and 234: The problem here is that sometimes
Page 235 and 236: of disease and disorder. In America
Page 237 and 238: performance-enhancing drugs? We see
Page 239 and 240: Advances have led to hand-shaped ap
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Warwick then went a step further. H
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Scientists at MIT have taken DNA fr
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Computers can do many things, but c
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possible right answers. The machine
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player having a king and a pawn and
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If intelligence or sentience is an
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enable us to become a global villag
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engineers used their technological
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Another intriguing development on t
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In these lectures, we’ve seen tha
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leave messages or comments, and whe
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This ability of mothers doesn’t m
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But Einstein showed us that the rea
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Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo. Linked: Th
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———. The Descent of Man: and
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Gilligan, Carol. . Cambridg
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Kramer, Peter. . New York: Viking
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eings that we are willing to act in
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Rothman, Sheila M. Medical Enhance
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———. . London: Century, 2002.
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