Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio (STScI)
- below is a response to an Isaac Asimov Foundation facebook page. Isaac died in like 1992-3, or thereabouts, so you know it's run by some enthusiast. I thought I'd share for various reasons, not the least of which is that Isaac Asimov's Foundation series looks to finally be put into movie form in a year or two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgW9yPuhTQ
Sophie confronts Silas. She asks Silas if he murdered who she thinks is her Grandfather. Silas responds with "I am a messenger from god." I find people think in these kinds of ways all the time. It's like they don't want to get close to the truth; they don't want some inner them being exposed.
Even a 400 A.D. Bishop of Constantinople Gregorius of Nyssa noticed this type of thinking and complained,
"People swarm everywhere, talking of incomprehensible matters, in hovels, streets and square, marketplaces, and crossroads. When I ask how many oboloi I have to pay, they answer with hairsplitting arguments about the born and the unborn. If I inquire the price of bread, I am told that the father is greater than the son. I call a servant to tell me whether my bath is ready; he rejoins that the son was created out of nothing."
There an earlier scene of character Sophie with Robert Langdon. They're in a truck and talking about little things. She asks Mr Langdon, "are you a god-fearing man professor." Langdon replies, "I was raised a catholic." For which she correctly replies, "that's not really an answer."
- comment about Isaac Asimov's Foudation, to become a movie series,
"
I've got quotes from Church fathers that Christianity was indeed a religion against science. I found them comparatively recently compared to my 'Gospel of Truth.' I wrote my 'Gospel of Truth' to put together the best evidences of the religious conspiracy.
http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2011/04/flashgordons-gospel-of-truth.html
I partly got interested in mythology because of Jacob Bronowski's point that poetry and mathematics share a characteristic - analogy. Poetry's analogy is of course similie and metaphor. Analogy in mathematics is called abstraction.. Poetry is vague, mathematics is precise and constructive. Both unify I suppose. I noted that mythology is poetry, and I happened on some interesting sungod mythology, so I persued it for awhile. I've come to think that my connections(and some other connections of James Burke's connections and Jacob Bronowski's further ideas, in his "Origins of Knowledge and Imagination", explains much human psychology. And through my readings of the history of mathematics previous to even all this, in particular Morris Kline's "Mathematics in Western Culture" in particular, I had noted that the history of mankind seems to follow whether mathematics is persued or not. So, one could argue that my Jacob Bronowski "Scientific Humanism" is a kind of Hari Seldon 'Psycho-History.'
The psychology is that of how people either think mathematically or not. Whether they have curiosity or not. Usually, if they are not, they make over/under generalisations, don't question assumptions(even refusing to question assumptions). They resort to violence to solve their problems. Scientific spirited people reason and are willing to be questioned and to question their own beliefs."
- comment about Isaac Asimov's Foudation, to become a movie series,
"
I've got quotes from Church fathers that Christianity was indeed a religion against science. I found them comparatively recently compared to my 'Gospel of Truth.' I wrote my 'Gospel of Truth' to put together the best evidences of the religious conspiracy.
http://wwwscientifichumanism.blogspot.com/2011/04/flashgordons-gospel-of-truth.html
I partly got interested in mythology because of Jacob Bronowski's point that poetry and mathematics share a characteristic - analogy. Poetry's analogy is of course similie and metaphor. Analogy in mathematics is called abstraction.. Poetry is vague, mathematics is precise and constructive. Both unify I suppose. I noted that mythology is poetry, and I happened on some interesting sungod mythology, so I persued it for awhile. I've come to think that my connections(and some other connections of James Burke's connections and Jacob Bronowski's further ideas, in his "Origins of Knowledge and Imagination", explains much human psychology. And through my readings of the history of mathematics previous to even all this, in particular Morris Kline's "Mathematics in Western Culture" in particular, I had noted that the history of mankind seems to follow whether mathematics is persued or not. So, one could argue that my Jacob Bronowski "Scientific Humanism" is a kind of Hari Seldon 'Psycho-History.'
The psychology is that of how people either think mathematically or not. Whether they have curiosity or not. Usually, if they are not, they make over/under generalisations, don't question assumptions(even refusing to question assumptions). They resort to violence to solve their problems. Scientific spirited people reason and are willing to be questioned and to question their own beliefs."
