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Tag Archives: particularity

The inexhaustible wealth of appearance, information and specificity

When perceiving an object, for example a chair, the statement “this is X” (this is a chair) is almost entirely uninteresting. The concept by which we identify the object is a mere word, and in a sense entirely devoid of meaning. That concept does help us align this object with other entities in space and […]

Posted 13 December 2015 † Johan § Philosophy ‡ Comments (4) ° Also tagged: , , , , ,

Mysteries of the scientific method

Scientific method can be understood as the following steps: formulating a hypothesis, designing an experiment, carrying out experiments, and drawing conclusions. Conclusions can feed into hypothesis formulation again, in order for a different (related or unrelated) hypothesis to be tested, and we have a cycle. This feedback can also take place via a general theory that […]

Posted 07 November 2015 † Johan § Bioinformatics § Computer science § Philosophy ‡ Comments (1) ° Also tagged: , ,

Historical noise? Simulation and essential/accidental history

Scientists and engineers around the world are, with varying degrees of success, racing to replicate biology and intelligence in computers. Computational biology is already simulating the nervous systems of entire organisms. Artificial intelligence seems to be able to replicate more tasks formerly thought to be the sole preserve of man each year. Many of the results […]

Posted 24 June 2015 † Johan § Bioinformatics § Computer science § Philosophy ‡ Comments (4) ° Also tagged: , , , ,

Naming as metaphor

A metaphor lets us view something as something else. Thus it has creative potential: “a forest of legislation” lets us take the behaviours, meaning and ideas we normally associate with forests and apply them in a completely different context. But if no two situations in “reality” are the same – if Heraclitus is right that everything […]

Posted 06 April 2015 † Johan § Philosophy ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , ,