Weird (B)log

One of many odd logs you encounter washing up on the shores around here. This one, found near McKenzie Bight, in Gowlland Tod, is actually quite big. In places logs (blogs?) gather together in twisted arrangements, interconnecting and interweaving in unexpected ways. Like an orgy of giant swizzle sticks. Make mine a double.

Have, in fact, been fairly sober about things these days. Wouldn’t want to slip off a (b)log and fall in the ocean…

N.B. From weird log to weird blog.

Rocky the Robo-Squirrel?

Somehow, I wish this were a joke. Robot squirrels that help scientists at Hampshire College study the pesky rodents. Really? I mean, we’re supposed to believe the nefarious beasts with the o-so-fluffy tails are actually fooled by this robotic ruse. Doubtful…

My suspicious side can’t help but wonder whether this is a carefully crafted plan to combat the squirrel conspiracy. A feeble attempt to thwart their fiendish quest for world domination.

I tell ya, the stuff that gets funded as scientific research. Amazing. Bullwinkle is probably turning over in his grave.

Alien Oceans

Read with interest a random news story about possible oceans on Saturn’s moon, Titan. I recently mentioned the famed satellite in connection to the passing of Arthur C. Clarke, which is little coincidence given how many times Titan has likely been featured in the pages of a sci-fi story. The number is legion.

Alien oceans. Phenomenal. Not feeling alienated from the ocean these days, an aspect of life difficult to quantify. Surely a boon, not to be taken for granted.

So, on that note, I’ll sign off for the day. And keep thinking about oceans — alien and familiar…

Beach

Near Witty’s Lagoon in Metchosin, a place I’ve mentioned before. In the distance the Olympic mountains obscured by clouds…

Breaking the Galilean Spell

Causality is a curious thing. We learn it at a young age, but for some the lesson never totally takes. It’s a simple formula: “Don’t do x or y will happen.” Or, even…”If you do x then y will result.” You get the idea…

But is that how life really functions? Much of our understanding of what it means to be rational and scientific derives from a beginning point of rational and scientific inquiry — the 17th century transformation grandly labeled “The Scientific Revolution”. In this sense the origins of science are rooted in a linear, mechanical, mathematical and, ultimately, de-spiritualized vision of nature. In an essay in Edge entitled “Breaking the Galilean Spell” Stuart A. Kauffman from the University of Calgary challenges these assumptions, arguing for the legitimacy of scientific phenomena that are “emergent” (i.e. incalculable based on what is already given).

I have written about ideas like emergence and the spiritual vs. scientific divide before, using the term vitalism in relationship to these ideas. In an importance sense, emergence and vitalism are synonyms. They are, as suggested by the philosopher of science Georges Canguilhem, more moral than methodological imperatives. Kauffman argues in his interesting little essay (derived from a book…) that there is a dire ethical need to understand nature and science through new metaphors and paradigms. Our survival may depend on it.

N.B. This article found by way of Arts & Letters Daily.