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Physics as a Way of Thinking (1936) [pdf]
- Oddstrider 8y agoIt seems to me this article uses Physics to justify the view that courts should "abstract new laws" as they deem necessary. This is wholly undemocratic and while it claims to solve one problem (that of legal frameworks growing obsolete) it creates the problem of 'laws by committee' or 'expert rule'.
- curo 8y agoI guess science has always been this contemptuous of both its ancestors and the religious. > The Buddhist finds his answer in a toleration for what he may neither understand nor alter. Huh? There is a rich spectrum of buddhist philosophy (Theravada, Mahayana, Zen, Tibetan) and all profess to demonstrate the ways of perceiving and understanding truth and pre-conceptual reality of this world. Straw man here? > When we try to conceive of the state of mind of primitive man, the first thing that occurs to us is the bewilderment and terror he must have felt in the presence of the powers of nature. Have a physicist and a "primitive man" face the powers of nature and see who's more comfortable with their surroundings.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ThomPete 8y agoI have never heard any of those Buddhist philosophies speaking of truth like you seem to imply. They don't mean truth in the way Aristotle thinks about it.
- vajrabum 8y agoHow do you mean?
- ThomPete 8y agoI mean Buddhist do not believe in truth as some narrative.
- sillysaurus3 8y agoWhat do Buddhists believe?
- ThomPete 8y agoPhilosophically they aren't concerned with truth. They are concerned with the ultimate truth which can't be reached through theorizing. They have no problem with conventional western based truth it's just not the bedrock. Or put another way. Buddhist would say you can't know the truth but you can be it.
- ShabbosGoy 8y ago> Have a physicist and a "primitive man" face the powers of nature and see who's more comfortable with their surroundings. What’s the old joke? How many physicists does it take to change a lightbulb?
- jcelerier 8y agonone: they consider the light negligible against the sun's.
- mettamage 8y agoI find Buddhism too complex to grok. Whatever arrives as popular Buddhism in the west seems to be distorted info that doesn’t even scratch the surface. Scientists who talk about Buddhism will only get credibility in my eyes if they apply the same investigativeness towards Buddhism as they love science. Two places they would need to look at is its diversity and their willingness to engage in scientific conversation. The Dalai Lama seems to engage in it, not sure to what extent that counts as Buddhism but it is something. —- not an expert on Buddhism or physics
- RichardCA 8y agoIt's a misconception to view Buddhism like some sort of mental puzzle. There is plenty of free material online. Just start. http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english.php http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_eng...
- adrianratnapala 8y ago> I guess science has always been this contemptuous of both its ancestors and the religious. > > The Buddhist finds his answer in a toleration for what he may neither understand nor alter. Let's be charitable; this is not contempt, it is merely shallow knowledge. In 1936, educated westerners had heard the praises of Buddhism but had little access to sophisticated teaching. Buddhism really does teach us to accept the world as it is, and that the world as it is goes beyond the reach of propositional knowledge. So it is understandable that someone with a hazy (but not wrong) impression of that call it "toleration for what he may neither understand nor alter".
- oldandtired 8y agoTo see the following in the first page of the article already turns me off reading any more "To get an impression of primitive man's approach to the physical universe ..." The underlying assumption that cultures from 2000 years or more ago are primitive belies the facts that we are unable to do things that they did on a regular basis in various engineering capacities. Just consider that they built structures that still exist today when we have difficulty building structures that last beyond 50 years before they have to be torn down due to failures in the materials.
- inteleng 8y agoSurvivorship bias.
- ljw1001 8y agosure, but. what things built in the last 20 years do think most likely to last for 2000? I'm not sure I can think of any. Parts of a big highway maybe?
- btrettel 8y agohttps://www.nist.gov/el/materials-and-structural-systems-division-73100/nist-stone-wall https://www.nist.gov/el/materials-and-structural-systems-div... This should provide some information about the durability of stone. I am not aware of similar experiments for other materials.
- inteleng 8y agoI imagine the Brooklyn Bridge will be standing for at least a few hundred more years unless it goes underwater. Plenty of buildings in the mountains should survive.
- emit_time 8y ago> Just consider that they built structures that still exist today when we have difficulty building structures that last beyond 50 years before they have to be torn down due to failures in the materials. That might have quite a bit to do with the economic incentives people base their decisions around when building. Also, survivorship bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)
- vfinn 8y agoVaguely reminds me of Hegel as Hegel describes in his Phenomenology of Spirit the history of the human kind as a progress of collective consciousness (and as I see it, in parallel the progress of individual consciousness). What Hegel describes, in my perspective, is science as a way of thinking, or rather, science as a way of being, where you find yourself and people find you as you immerse yourself into the journey of the progressive world. Recommend to try the preface of the Phenomenology of the Spirit to get some kind of idea of Hegel's thinking / speculative logic, which I find fascinating.
- aurelien 8y agoAstrophysics as a way of thinking ... we are Type 0
- amelius 8y agoIf you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- Oddstrider 8y agoIt seems to me this article uses Physics to justify the view that courts should "abstract new laws" as they deem necessary. This is wholly undemocratic and while it claims to solve one problem (that of legal frameworks growing obsolete) it swaps democracy for 'laws by committee' or 'expert rule'. As a computer scientist I'd call this unscientific or at least a sloppy proposal.
- YvetteBrooks 8y agoNo formulas, only speculations IMHO. Physics is fundamental, not abstract...
- nyc111 8y ago> Primitive man must have noticed that events did not occur simultaneously... Could not make sense of this statement. Isn't just the opposite true? Whatever happens, happens simultaneously because for us only the present exists.