Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

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This theme is also the central concept behind the television series and movies of the Star Trek franchise: “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” Star , the discovery of life beyond our own world creates peace on Earth. In a move right out of Ferdinand Tönnies, the instant we conceive of ourselves as part of a larger collective of life forms throughout the universe, the differences between people on Earth shrink away, and we see the human race as being homogeneous. We see the same sort of narrative in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 stories, visitation of the aliens helps spark human evolution, leading to the development of consciousness. Once the human species becomes self-aware and able to use tools, it is on its way to developing the ability to travel in space. If Star Trek and 2001 fold us into the plans of the rest of the universe, Carl Sagan’s takes us a step further. In this book, when humans make contact with beings from another planet, we are given plans for a machine whose function we do not know. When the machine is activated, it takes its passengers through wormholes to meet these more intelligent beings. 196
Our newfound alien interlocutors tell us that they have found evidence of these advanced beings in the irrational number pi. After returning to Earth, the protagonist sets a powerful computer to examine pi from multiple expressions. The universal intelligence. Note that Sagan artistically makes the move that we have seen implicit in the development of science. We start with reality as a set of individuals, thinking that humans are the only life. We then move to relations, seeing ourselves as just one life form in a universe with others. Finally, we take the holistic turn: It is the entirety that is real, and individuals are modes of the entirety. In , it is not that intelligent life is at some place in the universe but that the universe is an intelligence, and we are an aspect of it. intelligence was to send messages into space. In 1977, the United States launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, each bearing a “note” from Earth. But there are several concerns about this approach. these tiny craft are next to nothing. Second, extracting and making sense of our message would require intelligence. Another approach to discovering extraterrestrial life is to listen for any possible contact it has tried to make with us. The lead in this project has been taken by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute. SETI’s most notable effort involves the Allen Telescope Array, a collection of hundreds of radio telescopes arranged over more than two acres of land in California. In particular, the array focuses on signals coming from the so-called water hole. 197
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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
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has learned from the so-called barb
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led him to begin one of the most fa
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ules. We are now adult in our ethic
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In a contract-based relationship, y
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The study of psychology changed for
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Instead, we are a part of the world
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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 and 190: Economics became a science with the
Page 191 and 192: self-interest. Second, the large-sc
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: The possibility of life on other pl
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
Page 241 and 242: Warwick then went a step further. H
Page 243 and 244: Scientists at MIT have taken DNA fr
Page 245 and 246: Computers can do many things, but c
Page 247 and 248: possible right answers. The machine
Page 249 and 250: player having a king and a pawn and
Page 251 and 252: If intelligence or sentience is an
Page 253 and 254: 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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