Re:Enlightenment (Algorithmically Enhanced Systems)

System ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifford Siskin
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Simple Algorithm ◽  
New Science ◽  
Reverse Engineer ◽  
The World ◽  
Iterative Systems ◽  
Way Of Knowing ◽  
Significant Change ◽  
The Universe

To bring the story of system forward to the present, this Coda recounts the author’s involvement in an attempt to reshape knowledge called the Whole Enchilada group. Its work highlighted the ongoing importance of Darwin to current efforts at reform. Building on Daniel Dennett’s focus on the algorithmic in Darwin—the “If … then” format of his arguments—the Coda examines how algorithm and system have been deployed as variations of each other: if we reverse engineer any complex system we will find the simple algorithm that generated it. Just as we engage system as something both conceptual—a way of knowing the world—and as something that is really there, that constitutes part of that world, so algorithm is both a formal mode of producing knowledge about the world and—thanks to its simple-to-complex mechanicity—constitutive of that world. Using David Deutsch’s arguments about knowledge and virtual reality, the Coda then asks “Have we been able to know the world through system because the world is, in fact, itself structured as a system?” This question leads to a turn to Stephen Wolfram’s “new science” and the possibility of significant change: a reformulating on the Enlightenment’s once startling conviction that the world could be known through complex master SYSTEMS into the notion that knowledge—in the form of simple, iterative systems—renders the world. The book ends by emphasizing the persistence of system in the growing consensus that the universe is computational—with system generating the world it helps us to know.

scholarly journals The Post-Renaissance Revolution: The New Science

2012 ◽  
pp. 59-79
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Model ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Dual Model ◽  
New Approach ◽  
New Science ◽  
Cosmological Principle ◽  
The World ◽  
Proper Subject ◽  
Physical Laws ◽  
The Universe

A new approach to thinking about nature was developed in post-Renaissance Europe embracing an ever increasing body of theoretical and technical knowledge. It was accepted that there was and there is evolution both in “inert” and in living mater. This approach implied interactions ruled by “laws” not externally imposed. It applied to Astronomy, Geology, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and established the basis for the industrial revolution and changed the approach to Medicine, Economy and the transmission of Culture. At earlier periods the human experience of the world was interpreted in terms of mythological and religious models. Then in terms of scientific (formal) geometrical models and finally in models based upon scientific causality (first the mechanical model and then the dual model encompassing Relativity and Quantum Mechanics). The current success of astrophysics can only be expressed in the context of the “cosmological principle”: the universe is homogeneous and isotropic. We can extrapolate our laboratory experiment under the same physical laws to infer the part and predict the future. But science has a proper subject and its own limits.

‘A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust’: The World and Self in Thomas Hardy's Poems

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Monika Szuba
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Recurrent Theme ◽  
Body Subject

The essay discusses selected poems from Thomas Hardy's vast body of poetry, focusing on representations of the self and the world. Employing Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concepts such as the body-subject, wild being, flesh, and reversibility, the essay offers an analysis of Hardy's poems in the light of phenomenological philosophy. It argues that far from demonstrating ‘cosmic indifference’, Hardy's poetry offers a sympathetic vision of interrelations governing the universe. The attunement with voices of the Earth foregrounded in the poems enables the self's entanglement in the flesh of the world, a chiasmatic intertwining of beings inserted between the leaves of the world. The relation of the self with the world is established through the act of perception, mainly visual and aural, when the body becomes intertwined with the world, thus resulting in a powerful welding. Such moments of vision are brief and elusive, which enhances a sense of transitoriness, and, yet, they are also timeless as the self becomes immersed in the experience. As time is a recurrent theme in Hardy's poetry, this essay discusses it in the context of dwelling, the provisionality of which is demonstrated in the prevalent sense of temporality, marked by seasons and birdsong, which underline the rhythms of the world.

Imaginings

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-30
Author(s):  
Kelly James Clark
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
First Order ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Empirically Supported ◽  
Group Violence ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe

In Branden Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican’s challenging and provocative essay, we hear a considerably longer, more scholarly and less melodic rendition of John Lennon’s catchy tune—without religion, or at least without first-order supernaturalisms (the kinds of religion we find in the world), there’d be significantly less intra-group violence. First-order supernaturalist beliefs, as defined by Thornhill-Miller and Peter Millican (hereafter M&M), are “beliefs that claim unique authority for some particular religious tradition in preference to all others” (3). According to M&M, first-order supernaturalist beliefs are exclusivist, dogmatic, empirically unsupported, and irrational. Moreover, again according to M&M, we have perfectly natural explanations of the causes that underlie such beliefs (they seem to conceive of such natural explanations as debunking explanations). They then make a case for second-order supernaturalism, “which maintains that the universe in general, and the religious sensitivities of humanity in particular, have been formed by supernatural powers working through natural processes” (3). Second-order supernaturalism is a kind of theism, more closely akin to deism than, say, Christianity or Buddhism. It is, as such, universal (according to contemporary psychology of religion), empirically supported (according to philosophy in the form of the Fine-Tuning Argument), and beneficial (and so justified pragmatically). With respect to its pragmatic value, second-order supernaturalism, according to M&M, gets the good(s) of religion (cooperation, trust, etc) without its bad(s) (conflict and violence). Second-order supernaturalism is thus rational (and possibly true) and inconducive to violence. In this paper, I will examine just one small but important part of M&M’s argument: the claim that (first-order) religion is a primary motivator of violence and that its elimination would eliminate or curtail a great deal of violence in the world. Imagine, they say, no religion, too.Janusz Salamon offers a friendly extension or clarification of M&M’s second-order theism, one that I think, with emendations, has promise. He argues that the core of first-order religions, the belief that Ultimate Reality is the Ultimate Good (agatheism), is rational (agreeing that their particular claims are not) and, if widely conceded and endorsed by adherents of first-order religions, would reduce conflict in the world.While I favor the virtue of intellectual humility endorsed in both papers, I will argue contra M&M that (a) belief in first-order religion is not a primary motivator of conflict and violence (and so eliminating first-order religion won’t reduce violence). Second, partly contra Salamon, who I think is half right (but not half wrong), I will argue that (b) the religious resources for compassion can and should come from within both the particular (often exclusivist) and the universal (agatheistic) aspects of religious beliefs. Finally, I will argue that (c) both are guilty, as I am, of the philosopher’s obsession with belief. 

PERCEPTION AND INTERPRETATION OF CREATIVITY OF ALISHER NAVOI IN FRENCH ORIENTAL STUDIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Mukhammadjon Holbekov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The World ◽  
Oriental Studies ◽  
Short Time ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Precious Stones

The great Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi(1441-1501), during his lifetime, was widely known not only in his homeland, but also far beyond its borders. A contemporary and biographer of Navoi, the famous historian Hondemir, of course, not without some hyperbole, wrote: "He (Navoi -M.Kh.) in a short time took the cane of primacy from his peers; the fame of his talents spread to all ends of the world, and the stories of the firmness of his noble mind from mouth to mouth were innumerable.The pearls of his poetry adorned the leaves of the Book of Fates, the precious stones of his poetry filled the shells of the universe with pearls of beauty

A book of protection: Hoja Ahmad Yassawi's "Devoni Hikmat"

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-160
Author(s):  
Khurshida Salimovna Safarova ◽  
Shakhnoza Islomovna Vosiyeva
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Universe

Every great fiction book is a book that portrays the uniqueness of the universe and man, the difficulty of breaking that bond, or the weakening of its bond and the increase in human. The creation of such a book is beyond the reach of all creators, and not all works can illuminate the cultural, spiritual and moral status of any nation in the world by unraveling the underlying foundations of humanity. With the birth of Hoja Ahmad Yassawi's “Devoni Hikmat”, the Turkic nations were recognized as a nation with its own book of teaching, literally, the encyclopedia of enlightenment, truth and spirituality.

Causality Then and Now

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-177
Author(s):  
Karen Harding
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Mechanical Model ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Way

Ate appearances deceiving? Do objects behave the way they do becauseGod wills it? Ate objects impetmanent and do they only exist becausethey ate continuously created by God? According to a1 Ghazlli, theanswers to all of these questions ate yes. Objects that appear to bepermanent are not. Those relationships commonly tefemed to as causalare a result of God’s habits rather than because one event inevitably leadsto another. God creates everything in the universe continuously; if Heceased to create it, it would no longer exist.These ideas seem oddly naive and unscientific to people living in thetwentieth century. They seem at odds with the common conception of thephysical world. Common sense says that the universe is made of tealobjects that persist in time. Furthermore, the behavior of these objects isreasonable, logical, and predictable. The belief that the univetse is understandablevia logic and reason harkens back to Newton’s mechanical viewof the universe and has provided one of the basic underpinnings ofscience for centuries. Although most people believe that the world is accutatelydescribed by this sort of mechanical model, the appropriatenessof such a model has been called into question by recent scientificadvances, and in particular, by quantum theory. This theory implies thatthe physical world is actually very different from what a mechanicalmodel would predit.Quantum theory seeks to explain the nature of physical entities andthe way that they interact. It atose in the early part of the twentieth centuryin response to new scientific data that could not be incorporated successfullyinto the ptevailing mechanical view of the universe. Due largely ...

Reflections into the Spirit of the Islamic Corpus of Knowledge and the Rise of the New Science

1993 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-164
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Dhaouadi
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Third World ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Western Science ◽  
New Science ◽  
Scientific Disciplines ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Primary Reference

There is no question that contemporary western civilization has beendominant in the field of science since the Renaissance. Western scientificsuperiority is not limited to specific scientific disciplines, but is rather anovetall scientific domination covering both the so-called exact and thehuman-social sciences. Western science is the primary reference for specialistsin such ateas as physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, economics,psychology, and sociology. It is in this sense that Third World underdevelopmentis not only economic, social, and industrial; it also suffersfrom scientific-cultutal underdevelopment, or what we call "The OtherUnderdevelopment" (Dhaouadi 1988).The imptessive progress of western science since Newton and Descartesdoes not meari, however, that it has everything tight or perfect. Infact, its flaws ate becoming mote visible. In the last few decades, westernscience has begun to experience a shift from what is called classical scienceto new science. Classical science was associated with the celestialmechanics of Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, the new physics of Galileo,and the philosophy of Descartes. Descartes introduced a radical divisionbetween mind and matter, while Newton and his fellows presented a newscience that looked at the world as a kind of giant clock The laws of thisworld were time-reversible, for it was held that there was no differencebetween past and future. As the laws were deterministic, both the pastand the future could be predicted once the present was known.The vision of the emerging new science tends to heal the division betweenmatter and spirit and to do away with the mechanical dimension ...

The Writings of Skryabin

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Nicholls ◽  
Michael Pushkin ◽  
Vladimir Ashkenazy
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Creative Activity ◽  
Creative Play ◽  
Religious Feeling ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Section Viii ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Final Text ◽  
Life Work

An introduction by Boris de Schloezer gives the genesis of the final text in the section, the Preliminary Action, and explains its relation to Skryabin’s projected life-work, the Mystery. Section I: an effusion of Orthodox religious feeling from teenage years. Sections II-VII: Around 1900, an expression of rejection of God in the face of disillusion is followed by the text of the choral finale of the First Symphony, declaring faith in the power of art. An unfinished opera libretto, symbolic in narrative, expressing belief in Art’s power to seduce and persuade. Three notebooks develop a world view in which the world is the result of the self’s creative activity. The creation of art and of the universe are identical. There is a higher self, identical with divinity. Forgetfulness of individuality leads to freedom and universal consciousness. Section VIII: The literary poem written during the composition of the symphonic Poem of Ecstasy summarises the scenario developed in the notebooks. Life starts with the desire to create, delight in creative play meets opposition, the creative goal is achieved and disappointment sets in. The process is repeated until it is realized that the struggle is itself joyful and self-affirmation is achieved. Section IX: The text of the Preliminary Action is symbolic in structure. Primal Male and Female Principles emerge; the Female is identified with Death. Life arises from the union of energies. Struggle and bloodshed follow. The conclusion is an impulse towards unification, the synthesis of experience and dematerialisation. Both the complete first draft and the incomplete revision are included.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Pacchioni
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Radical Transformation

About 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of the agriculturalrevolution, on the whole earth lived between 5 and 8 million hunter-gatherers, all belonging to the Homo sapiens species. Five thousand years later, freed from the primary needs for survival, some belonging to that species enjoyed the privilege of devoting themselves to philosophical speculation and the search for transcendental truths. It was only in the past two hundred years, however, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, that reaping nature’s secrets and answering fundamental questions posed by the Universe have become for many full-time activities, on the way to becoming a real profession. Today the number of scientists across the globe has reached and exceeded 10 million, that is, more than the whole human race 10,000 years ago. If growth continues at the current rate, in 2050 we will have 35 million people committed full-time to scientific research. With what consequences, it remains to be understood. For almost forty years I myself have been concerned with science in a continuing, direct, and passionate way. Today I perceive, along with many colleagues, especially of my generation, that things are evolving and have changed deeply, in ways unimaginable until a few years ago and, in some respects, not without danger. What has happened in the world of science in recent decades is more than likely a mirror of a similar and equally radical transformation taking place in modern society, particularly with the advent ...

Realism and Poetry

2019 ◽  
pp. 485-505
Author(s):  
Jonathan N. Barron
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
American Poetry ◽  
Robert Frost ◽  
Interior Space ◽  
New Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Poetic Realism ◽  
American Cities ◽  
Sara Teasdale ◽  
Pragmatic Philosophy

American poetic realism still remains a largely unknown and untold story. Although it came to American poetry relatively late by comparison with fiction, the typical American realist poem has a distinctive nexus combining theme, diction, and style. Chief among the first American realists are Robert Frost, Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Sandburg, and Sara Teasdale. Specifically, realist poetry expresses a pragmatic philosophy rejecting the individual’s location in the world as something knowable, fixed, and stable. Realist poets reject as amoral and quietist the commitment to beauty for the sake of beauty and tend toward virtues associated with masculinity. Their poetry rejects generic nouns in favor of particulars and depicts recognizable contemporary landscapes and, above all, contemporary American cities such as Chicago, Boston, or New York. It emphasizes the interior space of the self as revealed by the new science of psychology. It also focuses on the living idiom of talk and speech rather than a “literary” language.

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