Category Archives: Plato’s Cave

The Rhetorician

This raises all sorts of questions, the most basic of which are: “What counts as `looking’ vs. `not looking’?” and “Do we really need a separate law of physics to describe the evolution of systems that are being looked at?” … Continue reading

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Oh Dear!… How Technology has Changed Things

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beautya beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable … Continue reading

Posted in Faster Than Light, Game Theory, Heisenberg, Hooft, Outside Time, PHAEDRUS, Plato, Plato's Cave, Robert Pirsig, Symmetry, Symmetry Breaking, Time Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Stargazers and Hill Climbers

AS with Einstein, who was Socrates daemon?:) In Plato’s Apology of Socrates, Socrates claimed to have a daimonion (literally, a “divine something”)[6] that frequently warned him – in the form of a “voice” – against mistakes but never told him … Continue reading

Posted in Kip Thorne, Plato, Plato's Cave, Self Evident, Sir Roger Penrose, Socratic Method, Stephen Hawking, Theory of Everything, TOE | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments

γνώθι σεαυτόν

A stained glass window with the contracted version γνωθι σαυτόν. The saying “Know thyself” may refer by extension to the ideal of understanding human behavior, morals, and thought, because ultimately to understand oneself is to understand other humans as well. … Continue reading

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Foundational Issues

Mathematics Problem That Remains Elusive — And Beautiful By Raymond Petersen Dyson, one of the most highly-regarded scientists of his time, poignantly informed the young man that his findings into the distribution of prime numbers corresponded with the spacing and … Continue reading

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New Technological Freedoms in the Libraries.

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.Ralph Waldo Emerson Trinity College Library, Dublin. (Photo: Candida Höfer.) See:In today’s Media, Has the Soul taken a Hiatus Don’t worry Mr. Chimpanzee, I … Continue reading

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William Thurston

Xianfeng David Gu and Shing-Tung YauTo a topologist, a rabbit is the same as a sphere. Neither has a hole. Longitude and latitude lines on the rabbit allow mathematicians to map it onto different forms while preserving information. William Thurston … Continue reading

Posted in Aristotelean Arche, deduction, Induction, Klein, Plato's Cave, Raphael, School of Athens, Self Evident, Shing-tung Yau, Socratic Method | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Glaucon

Glaucon (Greek: Γλαύκων) (born circa 445 BC) son of Ariston, was the philosopher Plato’s older brother. He is primarily known as a major conversant with Socrates in the Republic (Plato), and the questioner during the Allegory of the Cave. He … Continue reading

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The Light in the Cave

Newton’s Translation of the Emerald Tablet It is true without lying, certain and most true. That which is Below is like that which is Above and that which is Above is like that which is Below to do the miracles … Continue reading

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Inside Out

3.1 As Cytowic notes, Plato and Socrates viewed emotion and reason as in a kind of struggle, one in which it was vitally important for reason to win out. Aristotle took a more moderate view, that both emotion and reason … Continue reading

Posted in Colour of Gravity, Emotion, Outside Time, Plato's Cave, Raphael, School of Athens, Self Evident, Socratic Method, Synesthesia, Topology, Toposense | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment