We Live In Exponential Times

Thanks to planetjan for helping me find this. Here’s a short video on the speed of growth of information technology.

Also check out Ray Kurzweil’s TED talk related to this, and the dangers of the Petabyte Age.

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The Power Of Mystery

J.J. Abrams traces his love of the unseen mystery — the heart of Alias, Lost, and the upcoming Cloverfield — back to its own magical beginnings, which may or may not include an early obsession with magic, the love of a supportive grandfather, or his own unopened Mystery Box.
One of Abrams’ interesting insights: Mystery is [...]

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Methods of Knowing – Observation

Observation. Also referred to as the Scientific Method. At the heart of science lies the scientific experiment. The method of science is rather straightfoward. By some means, usually be reasoning deductively from existing theory or inductively from existing facts or through intuition, the scientist arrives at a hypothesis about some feature of reality. He then [...]

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Methods of Knowing – Intuition

Intuition. Knowledge is also acquired through intuition. By intution we mean sudden insight, that clarifying idea which springs into consciousness all at once as a whole. It is not arrived at without reason. On the contrary, the idea often seems ot occur after conscious reasoning has failed. In The Art Of Scientific Investigation, W. I. [...]

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Methods of Knowing – Authority

Historically, mankind has employed four methods to acquire knowledge:

Authority
Rationalism
Intuition
Observation

Authority. When using authority, something is considered true because of tradition or some person of distinction says it is true. We may believe in the theory of eveolution because our distinguished professors tell us so, or we may believe God exists because our parents say so. This method [...]

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