scholarly journals Technology of an Unfree World. I. Primary Code

Author(s):  
Hauke RITZ

The actual technological revolution challenges our ideas about civilization to a much larger extent than all previous technological breakthroughs. Does it not lead us into a new world where there is no place for human freedom, and what has made possible such a trajectory of technological progress? To answer the latter question, it is necessary to analyze the logic of natural science development as well as the currently dominant scientific image of the universe. In the first part of his research, the author focuses on the premises of the scientific method, on the basic assumptions about the nature of our reality, which precede any scientific research and unconsciously structure the perception of reality.

Philosophy ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 6 (21) ◽  
pp. 30-42
Author(s):  
Joseph Needham

Thosewho still interest themselves in problems connected with God, Freedom, and Immortality are not accustomed to look to natural science for any light on these dark places. It is usually admitted that the scientific method operates with basic assumptions which are far from binding on philosophers, and which indeed have no very satisfactory metaphysical authority. In spite of a few protests by philosophers, scientific thinkers have on the whole felt entitled to neglect the philosophical consequences of their theories, and have gone ahead in the investigation of nature by accepting only such hypotheses as explained the maximum number of known facts, irrespective of their possible results on other fields of work. When a strictly scientific theory is invested with philosophical importance, some form of materialism, however well disguised, usually results.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 4178-4187
Author(s):  
Michael A Persinger ◽  
Stanley A Koren

                The capacity for computer-like simulations to be generated by massive information processing from electron-spin potentials supports Bostrom’s hypothesis that matter and human cognition might reflect simulations. Quantitative analyses of the basic assumptions indicate the universe may display properties of a simulation where photons behave as pixels and gravitons control the structural organization. The Lorentz solution for the square of the light and entanglement velocities converges with the duration of a single electron orbit that ultimately defines properties of matter. The approximately one trillion potential states within the same space with respect to the final epoch of the universe indicate that a different simulation, each with intrinsic properties, has been and will be generated as a type of tractrix defined by ±2 to 3 days (total duration 5 to 6 days). It may define the causal limits within a simulation. Because of the intrinsic role of photons as the pixel unit, phenomena within which flux densities are enhanced, such as human cognition (particularly dreaming) and the cerebral regions associated with those functions, create the conditions for entanglement or excess correlations between contiguous simulations. The consistent quantitative convergence of operations indicates potential validity for this approach. The emergent solutions offer alternative explanations for the limits of predictions for multivariate phenomena that could be coupled to more distal simulations.


Miss Dorothy Stimson, Dean of Groucher College, U.S.A., in an article in Isis for 1 September 1935, tried to traverse the view stated in the Introduction to my Comenius in England (Oxford University Press (1932)), pp. 6-7, that the visit of Comenius (Komensky) to London in 1641-1642 marked an important stage in the development in England of the idea of a great society for scientific research which resulted in the organization of the informal ‘Invisible College’ by Theodore Haak and others in 1645, and prepared the way for the foundation of the Royal Society in 1662. She was however unable to explain away the fact that Theodore Haak, who was one of the most active supporters of Komensky’s plan for a Scientific College in 1641, was in 1645 the virtual founder of the informal ‘Invisible College,’ the precursor of the Royal Society. Miss Stimson stresses the contrast between the universal speculative plan of Comenius as outlined in his Via Lucis (1642), and the empirical and specialized activities of the Invisible College. Miss Stimson however has completely overlooked the fact that John Wilkins (1614-1672), Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, whom she rightly regards as one of the most active members of the Invisible College, held views very similar to those of Comenius on scientific method and on the desirability of a universal language.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Piotr Urbanowicz

Summary In this text, I argue that there are numerous affinities between 19th century messianism and testimonies of UFO sightings, both of which I regarded as forms of secular millennialism. The common denominator for the comparison was Max Weber’s concept of “disenchantment of the world” in the wake of the Industrial Revolution which initiated the era of the dominance of rational thinking and technological progress. However, the period’s counterfactual narratives of enchantment did not repudiate technology as the source of all social and political evil—on the contrary, they variously redefined its function, imagining a possibility of a new world order. In this context, I analysed the social projects put forward by Polish Romantics in the first half of the 19th century, with emphasis on the role of technology as an agent of social change. Similarly, the imaginary technology described by UFO contactees often has a redemptive function and is supposed to bring solution to humanity’s most dangerous problems.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-41
Author(s):  
Sigita Švedienė

There are several methods of information convenient for natural science education, including press and television. The author checks the information which was published on the TV show and press by Rūta Janutienė, concerning the bread contamination with high stability toxin glyphosate. This herbicide is used to sprey the crop. The article provides information about the worldwide scientific research in order to investigate the effect of toxic glyphosate on humans and the environment. The conclusion is drawn about the negative influence of glyphosate on the reproducability. The author proves that journalist Rūta Janutienė has touched an essential contemporary ecological issue. Key words: natural science information, herbicide, assessment of toxicity, reproducibility.


Author(s):  
Noël O’Sullivan

This chapter considers four of the most influential visions that characterized the response to totalitarianism, and in particular the various concepts of limit they provide, since those are the basis of the opposition which each vision sought to oppose to the totalitarian ideal. The first vision is the positivist one of Karl Popper, for whom the logic of scientific method offers the only genuine knowledge of man and society. The second great vision is that of Berlin, who abandons positivism and instead presents the human condition in tragic terms, on the grounds that it is intrinsically characterized by a plurality of incommensurable and conflicting values. A third vision situates positivism in a naturalistic portrait of the human condition. Finally, there is the ‘civil’ vision of Michael Oakeshott, which is ultimately grounded in a radical, anti-reductionist conception of human freedom.


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