Video about the universe

In this video we saw, a guy tries to refute all of the arguments that we know believe are true about the universe, using specific things.

At the beginning I just thought that this guy was on crack, but then... what if we are all wrong, just like the people who didn't want to believe in Copernicus' system? And what if this guy were right and we just didn't want to believe him because we had been taught something else?
Its like its all happening all over again.
How do we know we are right?

I mean, I have never seen any videos or pictures of the Earth moving.

I dont have a theory to negate his, just like the people in the medieval times with Copernicus.

Now days, we don't question these things. We just learn them in our sixth grade science class and absorb them.
Its like if we take a leap of faith.

Copernican Revolution #5

De Revolutionibus is not a perfect book, but is has facts that helped push new ideas.

Copernicus based himself on his predecessors Ptolemy and Hipparchus. and the Copernicans based themselves on Copernicus, just as he did before them.

All of these astronomers had different spectacles. Depending on which ones they had on, they saw the world differently. Ptolomaic spectacles, Copernican spectacles.

Could Kepler have done his solar system without Brahe?
I dont think so, because Brahe's data was more accurate than any other, and Kepler tried to fit in his solar system into this data. So without this data, Kepler would've had an incomplete system.

Gödel, Escher, Bach #14

Just because a program can create words, doesn't mean its intelligent. 

When we compare Hofstader's phrases of humans with the ones with computers, we cant really tell the difference. But the phrases made by the humans have more meaning, while the ones of the computer are just words arranged together, and it doesn't mean that the computer knows what it is writing. 

When we read we only see symbols, that we later translate from our eyes to our ears and later to our mind. (from one level to next, and the next). 

Why should we think that Artificial Intelligence just wants to represent our intelligence, like a copy. When we should really look at AI as an improvement of our thought?

This way AI wouldn't just be a machine that helps us do things (like a calculator).

Meta-Dialogue: may 16

So in this meta-dialogue we tried something different. We wrote down all of the meta-questions of the term and later we wrote on the board all of the questions we had thought of this week. We later picked a couple of those questions, by voting with post-its and we discussed those chosen questions. 

Meta-questions of the term:

What is matter?

What is observation?

What is substance?

What is measurement?

What is cosmos?

What is science?

What is Creation?

Our Questions:

Is God and his creation coherent?

Why is technology trying to imitate the human being?

What if everything we are is just a program?

What if everything is a program?

How do we know if something is coherent?

What is tacit knowledge of thought?

What if God was one of us?

What would happen if there were no leaps of faith?

What is intelligence?

How necessary is subjectivism in order to reach objectivism?

How can we reach approximations of something objective?

Who is the observer? Me, God or the universe?

Why do we give meaning to any content?

How do the parts relate to the whole?

Is there a necessity to believe in God? Why?

What rules would God break, if there are no rules?

How can we measure things that our eyes cant really see?

What if God just created a program to let us choose freely but at the end only let the ones that resemble his ideal survive?

What if everything is just a human invention?

Where do good ideas come from?

Way of the Samurai

So today was mi turn to be quiet for the entire day, and to my delight, I didn't speak a whole word since I woke up until 7pm.

GEB dialogue:

No one had read, and this had also happened last week. It amazing how we are almost at the end of the term and people are still not reading. Also this chapter was amazing and I wanted to hear the dialogue.

Carmen, my partner in this vow of silence said her first word.

On Dialogue:

After Bert had asked a question, Grace and Isa tried to answer, but I thought that they weren't really answering the question, just giving characteristics.
I also want to give a shout-out to Diego, because I believe he was the only one to grasp the question and answer it correctly.

I also noticed in this dialogue that we are not really listening and understanding each other. For example: Pablito said something and Javier said the same exact thing, only with different words. Example 2: Bert didn't understand what Pablito was trying to say. Example 3: Chacho repeated a quote that Bert had already read.

I was really impressed that everyone spoke in this dialogue. I mean, there are some that always speak more than others, but in overall everyone spoke. But this brings me to another point, why was I so shocked that everyone spoke, when its supposed to be like this all of the time? Well, my only guess is that we don't do this often.

Another thing I noticed is that we are not reading thoroughly. Isa asked what leisure meant, and everyone tried  to explain it, and the funny thing was that in the parragraph right after the word, was the definition of it.

Meno

Virtue appears to be present in those who posses it by the gods.

What are the characteristics of virtue?

• Compared to colors. All virtues have a special characteristic that makes them all virtues. 
• virtue is not knowledge so it is not teachable. 
• knowledge is not virtue (being virtuous is not dependent on what we know). 
• virtue is a good thing.
• virtue is part of wisdom. 

You cant say that you have a right opinion. You can have A opinion, which might be either right or wrong. Some external force is the one that will have to say whether it is correct or not. 

True opinion is only fit if it has been proved. 

 Socrates knows that the search for knowing is essential. 

There is something about the nature of knowledge that is not virtuous. 

Once you have received the gift  manifested as a correct opinion it doesn't mean that we have knowledge  that what we are saying is right.. 

"We should call no less divine and inspired those public men who are no less under the gods' influence and possession, as their speeches lead to success in many important matters, though they have no knowledge of what they are saying."

"Virtue would be neither an inborn quality nor taught, but comes to those who posses it as a gift from the gods which is not accompanied by understanding."

The Copernican Revolution #4

Before St.Aquinas came to unite christian beliefs with the aristotelian system, the reading of Aristotle was rediscovered because the church had a monopoly on education, so it could control it.

Movement wasn't perfect. Being still was perfect. So it is confusing when it says God ascended into the heavens. "Moving earth would be moving God's thrones."

The thought and the non-progress of astronomy for centuries made the solar system and the human thought be stuck in an endless loop.

You must step out of the system.

One must follow errors in order to arrive at something new.
Copernicus' work is just full of errors and this is were new ideas were born.