npr blog 13.7 Cosmos and Culture

[Alex]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/

About Our Blog

Welcome to 13.7, a blog set at the intersection of science and culture. Our goal is to engage in a discussion with each other — and you — about how science has shaped culture and how culture has shaped science.

(P.S. In case you haven't guessed, clicked or Googled yet, the name refers to the estimated age of the universe — 13.7 billion years.)

[Alex]

Is Scientific Inquiry Restricted To Nature?
by Tom Clark and Ursula Goodenough
June 9, 2010
npr blog "13.7: Cosmos And Culture"
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/06/09/127591801/is-scientific-inquiry-restricted-to-nature 



Alex's comment:  這篇文章短小、精煉、簡單、清楚、易明！

[Alex]

Brian Hines blogged this short article at Church of the Churchless (and mentioned me, haha):

Science is open to the supernatural
12 June 2010
http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2010/06/science-is-open-to-the-supernatural-if-theres-proof.html

 

[Alex]

Understanding Our Inner Ape
by Ursula Goodenough
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/06/25/128107938/understanding-our-inner-ape

...In the foreground is Dorothy, a chimpanzee in her late 40’s who died of heart failure. Her human caregivers at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon prepared her for burial and wheeled her passed the enclosure housing other chimpazees in the group.

They immediately assembled at the fence, their faces etched with grief as they held one another. They also fell into silence — highly unusual for a group of chimpanzees — as the procession passed and watched as she was lowered into the ground.

...the more we learn about the non-human great apes, with whom we share most recent common ancestry some five to six million years ago, the more we come to recognize features of our own nature.

Returning to the photograph of the funeral, we witness first-hand the kind of deep love that chimpanzees develop for one another, a wake-up call to those who would posit that humans have somehow been endowed with novel capacities along this axis.  ...


Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are
Frans De Waal
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594481962

Power, sex, violence and kindness: these four broad-spectrum categories encompass much of human behavior, so it's only fitting that they're also the primary subject material for Frans de Waal's book Our Inner Ape. The few (but deeply detailed) chapters are a mesmerizing read that spans biology, child psychology, postmodern theorists and fundamental morality, using tales of stern chimps, and sexy bonobos to examine humans' place between them. In the process, he examines why we need to know our place in the world, how our body language communicates feelings, and where the roots of empathy lie in mammalian life.  ...

[Alex]

Usula Goodenough on immortality:

...I think of my finite life cycle as a gift, or at least a gift by comparison with the dreary notion of endless existence. Its finiteness allows me to do my thing, make my mistakes, achieve my successes, love and nurture my family and community, run my course like every other critter, and then move out of the way.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/07/15/128536658/is-death-a-disease-that-can-be-cured



Alex's comment: Good!  

[Alex]

My Covenant With Mystery
by Ursula Goodenough
August 27, 2010
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/08/27/129471676/my-covenant-with-mystery



This short article explains the heart of Religious Naturalism, a spirituality based on Naturalism: to recognize Mystery as mystery, refrain from theorizing with theisms (images of ultimacy), and concentrate on feeling the "sacredness" in the universe, life, and humanity.  

這篇題為《與神秘立約》的簡短文章解釋了宗教自然主義---一個基於自然主義的靈性---的核心：承認神秘為神秘，避免以各種的神論（對終極的圖像）將之理論化，集中注意力感受宇宙、生命、和人類本身的「神聖」。

[Alex]

Are You A Religious Naturalist Without Knowing It?
by Ursula Goodenough
January 29, 2010
13.7 blog, npr
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/01/are_you_a_religious_naturalist.html

[Alex]

Understanding Nature On Her Terms, And The Fear That Comes With It
by URSULA GOODENOUGH
September 16, 2010
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/09/16/129905713/understanding-nature-deep-in-our-bones-and-fear-that-comes-with-it#more

...Here’s what I say to undergraduates when we arrive at this potentially gloomy juncture. I say to them, OK, a good-looking guy walks by and I feel my pulse quicken and my face flush. Do I say to myself, aah, norepinephrine released from my sympathetic neurons has just stimulated my sinoatrial node to generate increased cardiac output? Of course not. I say to myself, Wow, that’s a really good-looking guy!  It’s not like I can’t go there. I can certainly reflect on how interesting it is that the experience I just had was mediated by action potentials and calcium influx. But, I assure them, this doesn’t wreck the experience. It’s just a second way to think about it. The immediate experience, the subjective experience, is uncompromised. Subjectivity, in the end, is immune to anything but its own inherent experiential manifestations.

[Alex]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/11/17/131383533/avoiding-the-void-a-brief-history-of-nothing-ness

[Alex]

What Is Unity?
by MARCELO GLEISER
September 7, 2011
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/09/07/140211660/what-is-unity

"This connectivity, at its most essential, springs from the unity of the laws of nature. Across the universe, across time (at least as far as fractions of a second after the big bang), we can state that the same laws of physics and chemistry hold. We see stars billions of light years away, and their spectra show hydrogen, helium and a host of other chemical elements, just like the ones we see here on Earth. These ancient stars, that don't exist anymore, burned just like the stars we see around us.

"The universe is connected through its unique laws. But what are these laws and where do they come from? Here, science has little to say. What we call laws of nature are, in reality, expressions of how we interpret what we see in nature, what we measure. They express patterns identified across space that we can quantify and compare to measurements. So, as the creators of these laws, we are connected to the universe not only through our material composition, but as beings capable of mindfulness.

"As I wrote elsewhere, we are how the universe thinks about itself, a notion that others had before me.

"I thus leave us with this wonderful video, where Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson "sing" about the unity of nature and our connectivity to each other and to the cosmos. If everyone took in their message, unity would be that much closer."



Alex's comment:  What a spiritual devotional grounded on Physics!  Amen!  這就是「靈修」，建基於物理學的真實「靈修」！

[Alex]

Richard Dawkins Celebrates Reason, Ridicules Faith
March 26, 2012

[Alex]

Blackboard Rumble: Why Are Physicists Hating On Philosophy (and Philosophers)?
Adam Frank  |  May 1, 2012  |  npr 13.7 blog

...Make no mistake, philosophy (and the philosophy of science) are not about doing science. Instead, these fields ask entirely different kinds of questions. They explore the relation between the possible and the actual, the correct links between an argument and it's conclusions or the tension between theoretical models and claims of evidence for those models.

Carbon-nanotube physicists are so deep within the traditional modes of empirical (i.e., data-driven) scientific investigation that they can happily ignore what goes on in the halls of philosophy. But as Krauss' example shows, cosmologists can push so hard and so far at the boundaries of fundamental concepts they cross over and fall prey to their own unspoken philosophical biases and misconceptions. ...

...Dismissing philosophy, whose boundaries these scientists often cross with their grand claims, is a terrible way to map such exotic new terrain. As Krauss and others have found, it's easy to get lost out there.



See A Universe from Nothing (book by Krauss)

[Alex]

Does The Internet Bring You Immortality?
by MARCELO GLEISER
September 5, 2012

"Something of you now exists so long as electrons course through the wires of any person's computer in the world. It's quite a thought to recognize that we have a new kind of immortality to share."



Alex's comment: 互聯網帶給你「永生」。