Solar Flares Dancing across the Sun's Glowing Surface

This video of our Sun is mind-boggling!!!

The Most Advanced Civilization In The Universe

 Kardashev scale measures a civilization's level of advancement!!! 

First Interstellar Asteroid Wows Scientists

IS THIS an ALIEN PROBE?

Are you on Twitter? If so, consider following me....

Follow me on Twitter!!!!  Over 7,000 Tweets!

https://twitter.com/Dr_Why_99

Map of Biology

Interesting!!!

Why should you read James Joyce's "Ulysses"? - Sam Slote

Worth watching!!! Explains why Joyce's "Ulysses" is a work of genius....

Blockchain: Massively Simplified | Richie Etwaru | TEDxMorristown

A TED talk on Blockchain tecnology

When Will Time End?

More on our Universe!!!

The Most Distant Galaxy in the Universe So Far

Observation of a galaxy 13 billion light years away ....

Oldest Spiral Galaxy Ever Seen May Reveal Secrets About the Milky Way

Oldest Spiral Galaxy Ever Seen May Reveal Secrets About the Milky Way

Object is 11 Billion light-years away!!!  Seen using gravitational lensing....

Check it out!!!

How big is the universe ... compared with a grain of sand?

Do you know?  How big is the universe ... compared with a grain of sand?  Great video...

Las Meninas: Is This The Best Painting In History?

Much philosophical meaning!!!

The Search for the Theory of Everything - with John Gribbin

Worth watching......

Is The Universe A Hologram?

Worth watching!!!

The School of Athens - Wikipedia

The School of Athens - Wikipedia

We are not the world's policemen! But we should be moral examplars!

America’s Forever Wars https://nyti.ms/2zvavlg

Goodbye Cassini!

Star Trek doctor sings operatic farewell to Cassini!!!

A farewell to @CassiniSaturn, in the style @RobertPicardo sings best: opera! #GrandFinale pic.twitter.com/7bbTTdqW3G

— Planetary Society (@exploreplanets) September 12, 2017

Enjoy!!!!

"The world is all that is the case." L. Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein      This Famous Thinker is buried in the Ascension parish burial grounds!

One of the most original philosophers of the last century. His most noted texts are the 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' and the later'Philosophical Investigations', which more or less entirely refutes the earlier work. But in his own words, 'What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence'. (Final sentence of the 'Tractatus'). (bio by: David Conway) 

Check out Find a Grave here:     https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Wittgenstein&GSiman=1&GScid=859628&GRid=5887946& 

Liebnitz' Final Resting Place....

G.W.F. Leibnitz is buried in Hanover, Germany Check out this site:



https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=12167&PIpi=1045366

Great discussion by physicists and philosophers!

The Junction of Physics and Philosophy

 

Interesting discussion by philosophers and physicists.

Interesting article on space bending geometry...

Check out this NYT 360 degree video on space bending geometry!!!

Richard Burton reads 'Fern Hill' by Dylan Thomas

LITERATURE - James Joyce

Well worth watching!!!

C S Peirce America's Greatest Mind.

Here is C. S. Peirce's notion of the role of chance in the Universe....

The Law of Mind (1892)[edit]

First published in The Monist Vol. II, No. 4 (July 1892), p. 533

A serious student of philosophy will be in no haste to accept or reject this doctrine; but he will see in it one of the chief attitudes which speculative thought may take, feeling that it is not for an individual, nor for an age, to pronounce upon a fundamental question of philosophy. That is a task for a whole era to work out.

The tendency to regard continuity, in the sense in which I shall define it, as an idea of prime importance in philosophy conveniently may be be termed synechism.

We are accustomed to speak of ideas as reproduced, as passed from mind to mind, as similar or dissimilar to one another, and, in short, as if they were substantial things; nor can any reasonable objection be raised to such expressions.

Some minds will jump here jump to the conclusion that a past idea cannot in any sense be present. But that is hasty and illogical. How extravagant too, to pronounce our whole knowledge of the past to be mere delusion!

In the case of colors, there is a tridimensional spread of feelings.

The first character of a general idea … is that it is living feeling … in its absence of boundedness a vague possibility of more than is present is directly felt.

Feeling which has not yet emerged into immediate consciousness is already affectible and already affected.

The uncertainty of the mental law is no mere defect of it, but is on the contrary of its essence. The truth is, the mind is not subject to "law," in the same rigid sense that matter is.

There always remains a certain amount of arbitrary spontaneity in its action, without which it would be dead.

• In an article published in The Monist for January, 1891, I endeavored to show what ideas ought to form the warp of a system of philosophy, and particularly emphasized that of absolute chance. In the number of April, 1892, I argued further in favor of that way of thinking, which it will be convenient to christen tychism (from τύχη, chance). A serious student of philosophy will be in no haste to accept or reject this doctrine; but he will see in it one of the chief attitudes which speculative thought may take, feeling that it is not for an individual, nor for an age, to pronounce upon a fundamental question of philosophy. That is a task for a whole era to work out. I have begun by showing that tychism must give birth to an evolutionary cosmology, in which all the regularities of nature and of mind are regarded as products of growth, and to a Schelling-fashioned idealism which holds matter to be mere specialized and partially deadened mind.

BBC Genius Of The Modern World Episode 3:Freud

BBC Genius Of The Modern World Episode 1:Marx

An excellent series...here is the show on Marx...

BBC Genius Of The Modern World Episode 2: Nietzsche

Michael Moore on Trump, Brexit and Venezuela (extended interview)

Bertrand Russell on the Value of Philosophy.

The famous essay by the British Analytic thinker, Bertrand Russell.  Often included in the first chapter of Introduction to Philosophy texts.



Well read, and worth listening to.....

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power (2017)- Official Trailer - Paramo...

  Don't miss the sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth".   Each of us has a responsibility to our Mother the Earth.....

The LHCb experiment is charmed to announce observation of a new particle with two heavy quarks -- ScienceDaily

Fascinating!!  The LHCb experiment is charmed to announce observation of a new particle with two heavy quarks -- ScienceDaily

Using ancestry DNA to explore our humanness: Anita Foeman at TEDxWestChe...

Mr. Robot will be back for a new season soon!

Highly recommended award winning program, "Mr. Robot."  Third season coming in October....

Check out this video describing it....

http://www.usanetwork.com/mrrobot/videos/mr-robotdec0d3ddoc 

How Far Away Is It - 11 - Andromeda and the Local Group (1080p)

If you have the patience, this video is very informative and beautiful!!!

Year Million.....on the future viewed philosophically...

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Channel's "Year Million" poses some interesting philosophical questions.  In the penultimate show of this season the hive mind is discussed....  How many of us are willing to give up our individuality even temporarily to meld with the collective mind???   Here is a link to the show's teaser:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/year-million/videos/year-million-teaser/

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/antarctica-larsen-c-ice-shelf-cracking

Global Warming is Real!!   Ice sheets are calving...weakening the mail ice shelf!!!  https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/antarctica-larsen-c-ice-shelf-cracking

Grav Waves???

LIGO discovers third gravitational wave!!!

For those who have seen accounts of Red Rain on Secrets of Space or other science programs, I have discovered an article from the journal Microbiology ( ) in which the authors have found a way of identifying the presence of DNA in the heart of these red cell that fell as red rain in Kerala, South India over a period of several months in 2001. Here is the conclusion of the authors of this highly technical article: "We report results showing the location of a red pigment in the external layers of red rain cells and its apparent role in the impermeability to various staining reagents, including DAPI. We also show that extraction of this pigment from Phase contrast CFP ET-DsRed GFP YFP Fig. 3. Phase-contrast micrographs of red rain cells suspended in DMSO and their corresponding fluorescence emission under excitation filters [cyan fluorescent protein (CFP), ET-DsRed, GFP and yellow fluorescent protein (YFP)]. The arrow points (see Article for photos) to cells surrounded by invisible matrix, which appears to be their leaked inner contents fluorescing under all excitation filters....the outer layer with DMSO enhances the permeability of red rain cells to chemical stains, allowing positive DAPI staining, indicating the presence of DNA in the central core. Results based on polarizing microscopy indicate the crystalline nature of the red pigment in the peripheral layers. It is also evident that the removal of red pigment allows these cells to fluoresce at a wide range of excitation wavelengths, whilst untreated cells are completely refractive. Although the nature of the red compounds is still uncertain, it is clear from this investigation that these compounds firmly intercalate deep into the thick outer layers of these cells, which may facilitate resistance to hostile environments. The results presented here do not make the origin of the red rain cells of Kerala any clearer, but do clearly indicate the presence of DNA, and offer an explanation for the negative staining results reported by Louis & Kumar (2006). It is possible that these red cells arrived on earth via space dust from space missions, or from meteorites. What do you think? For article see the following: Microbiology Society Journals is inviting submissions of research papers and reviews that explore topics surrounding archaea for a new thematic collection. MICROBIOLOGYRESEARCH.ORG

Reminds me of current political situation!!!

"Begging the Question" and its proper use as a Logical Fallacy

Currently, many people use the phrase, “begging the question” to mean that something needs to be questioned, or that such and such is a question that need to be answered. But for those trained in classical Logic, this is a misuse of the phrase. Aristotle defined this fallacy in his Prior Analytics (Bk. II xvi 64b28–65a26) stating that such a fallacy occurs when one begs or assumes the point to be proven. In other words, the conclusion of an argument is assumed to be true, u...

Happy Anniversary Space Telescope Hubble: View this short video for the fascinating history of a great scientific instrument!!!

Please check out this NOAA website with the latest Global Warming information:

http://www.noaa.gov/news/january-was-3rd-warmest-on-record-for-globe


Global Warming is real despite what some in Congress say!!!

Sincerely, Dr_Why

What is Time????

For an interesting discussion on the nature of time, see the Scottish philosopher MacTaggart's discussion in Wikipedia.   His distinction between two theories of time, based on either the "A-series" and the "B-series" has become a standard way of debating the topic in philosophy.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time

Consider the Carrington Event:  Why is it important to us now?  Perhaps we should not be so dependent on our digital devices?

In 1859, Sir Richard Carrington observed a coronal mass ejection of staggering proportion that was aimed at the earth producing a large geomagnetic storm in our magnetosphere.


The author of the Wikipedia article on this event (See this link to the article:  Wikipedia Article reference ) makes this worrisome statement: "Studies have shown that a solar storm of this magnitude occurring today would likely cause more widespread problems for a modern and technology dependent society."

A great and wonderful logician and philosophy professor has died.  Raymond Smullyan who wrote widely on logic and mathematics.  I used his logic books  in my courses...Here is his obit from the NYTimes...check it out..   Wonderful Puzzle books such as "What is the Name of this Book?"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/11/us/raymond-smullyan-dead-puzzle-creator.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

Consciousness -- the final frontier | Dada Gunamuktananda | TEDxNoosa 2014

Wonderful Presentation on Consciousness

Tibetan Music, Healing Music, Relaxation Music, Chakra, Relaxing Music f...

Relaxing Music to sooth and heal your stress....Give it a try!!!  Dr. Why