thought for the day/ the way we think about numbers and geometry is culturally influenced

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Study_finds_twist_to_the_story_of_the_number_line_999.html

This article says on the one hand, there is no universal mathematics, and on the other that we do so based on our cultural upbringing.

Yes, there's different cultures that have their kids grow up thinking about things(almost as if the mind comes with ingrained notions); and yes, mathematics is probably not 'out there'; but, we do learn from the very beginning from our current perspective.

When mankind first starting thinking about the universe, they thought the earth was the center of the universe, that the earth was flat because that's what our senses show us when we first start looking at it.
Genius is overcoming our cultural upbringing!(like religion)

thought for the day/buddhas and Easter Island statues

What do all those Buddhas and all those faces on Easter Island have in common?  Blank stares at wisdom and the heavens.  There is no other thought coming other than "this is as far as we go as far as thought and mathematics goes!"  Well, I'm sure they didn't think it out quite like that.  I mean there's denotation and then connotative definitions; one is "point to" definitions(denotation), and the other is at least some kind of language description of the structure and behavior of a thing(connotation).  The commonality above between the two cultures is that of denotative.

I would further argue that after they get bored with this stage of human development, they start coming up with ethics and spirituality of it all - religion.  Then, when somebody does do science and mathematics, the religious reaction is one of hate and fear; people have their social power because of the religion; engrained institutions that get their sex, money, and social power because of it.  Untill a dark ages comes to free peoples minds(because the old science is lost and forgotten), people's minds are not free to think factually and logically.   The god concept is further generalised to the heavens(from all the mountains, waters, animals and other such gods) and then to infinity, then higher dimensions; anywhere but somewhere that science can touch it.  Finally, the god concept is made unknowable by various vague statements.  This is ultimately what the god concept is; a vague statement that can prove everything without explaining anything; so, no matter what happens, they can just say, "well, god works in mysterious ways."

quote for the day

"Praised be this science!  Praised be the men that do it! And praised be the human mind, which sees more sharply than does the human eye." - Aaron Bernstein(author of "The People's Books on Natural Sciences" which had influencial thought experiments of traveling close to the speed of light to Albert Einstein).

I like the last point; praide the human mind which sees more sharply than does the human eye.

thought for the day/ megalithic Swedish temple

Scandinavia, Ireland have many more megalithic ruins than Stonehenge.  I've seen golden chariots with female sungods from Norway, Scandinavian smaller stonehenges; the amount of activity before even Egyptian pyramid building is rather striking.  One really wonders what happened to these people. What happened?

I'd speculate once again that people only believe what is socially cool to believe; they don't try to question what would destroy the society and not get them their money, sex and social power.  The signs are everywhere . . . ;

youtube for the day/ Human expansion into space looks to finaly happen!

astro picture for the day

ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image; to think the Hubble astronomers could top the previous Hubble space telescope, planetary nebula pictures!

astro picture for the day

Nasa Hubble Space telescope; the latest Hubble of the LMC(large megellanic cloud)'s star forming region(one of the largest in this sector of the universe!