How owns what on the planet? The results of capitalism.

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Markham's Behavioral Health: Generational cohorts and the differentiation of self

Markham's Behavioral Health: Generational cohorts and the differentiation of self: The idea of the socializing and conditioning of children which occurs facilitated by the culture the child grows up in, of which parents are...

Average tuition costs in US colleges 2022

 

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What are the top universities in the US?

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World population by countries. Which are the biggest?

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The shadow side of American democracy

 The shadow side of American democracy is always with us whether it was the Native American Genocide, slavery of black Americans, misogony toward women, child labor, discrimination against immigrants, the red scare of McCarthy, corrupt politics, the con of Donald Trump and his cult, etc.

In spite of this shadow, once it is made conscious which often takes decades if not centuries, truth, justice, goodness and beauty has triumphed. What do you make of that?

The misguided belief in “alternative facts.”

Conversely, to the extent that GPS works, its success reinforces our confidence in all the underlying assumptions, including the assumption that Euclidean geometry describes, with good accuracy, the reality of spatial geometry on earthly scales. And so far, GPS has worked flawlessly.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. 19). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Kellyanne Conway told reporters that the Trump administration worked on a belief in alternative facts. How did that work out for them and us?

Space without objects is like one hand clapping.

Direct, everyday experience teaches us that objects can move from place to place without changing their properties. This leads us to the idea of “space” as a kind of receptacle, wherein nature deposits objects. 

Practical applications in surveying, architecture, and navigation led people to measure distances and angles among nearby objects. Through such work, they discovered the regularities on display in Euclidean geometry.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. 16). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Hans said to Gretel: "What is space?"

Gretel said, “Space is the receptacle that holds objects.

Hans said, “What if there were no objects?”

Gretel said, “Then there would be no space.”

Hans said, “It’s kind of like one hand clapping.”

Gretel laughed and then Hans laughed too.

What does Wilczek mean by the term “radical conservatism?”

The method of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton combines the humble discipline of respecting the facts and learning from Nature with the systematic chutzpah of using what you think you’ve learned aggressively, applying it everywhere you can, even in situations that go beyond your original evidence. If it works, then you’ve discovered something useful; if it doesn’t, then you’ve learned something important. I’ve called that attitude Radical Conservatism, and to me it’s the essential innovation of the Scientific Revolution. 

Radical Conservatism is conservative because it asks us to learn from Nature and to respect facts—key aspects of what is called the scientific method. But it is radical, too, because it pushes what you’ve learned for all it’s worth. This is no less essential to how science actually works. It provides science with its cutting edge.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (pp. 4-5). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

As a psychotherapist I often ask my clients “How is that working for you?” Learning how to live life and be happy is often trial and error and often people have to learn the hard way. Few would call this approach to living “scientific.” 

Socrates taught that an “unexamined life is not worth living.” Living an examined life entails the willingness to learn from one’s experience. Some people would rather be right, that is hold tightly to their beliefs no matter what, while others are curious, humble, and willing to learn. This is the attitude that Frank Wilczek calls “radical conservatism” which means keep and continue what works and yet be open to new applications and possibilities.

Reality doesn’t care anything about your beliefs.

The second theme is that to appreciate the physical universe properly one must be “born again.”

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xv). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Quantum mechanics reveals that you cannot observe something without changing it, after all. Each person receives unique messages from the external world.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xvii). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Psychophysics reveals that consciousness does not direct most actions, but instead processes reports of them, from unconscious units that do the work.

Wilczek, Frank. Fundamentals (p. xvii). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Since we were babies we perceive and manipulate our immediate world. The results of this manipulation comes to be what we think we know. But as we get older we begin to realize that sometimes what we think we know isn’t so. The bumper sticker says, “Reality doesn’t care anything about your beliefs.”