Olay to Divine Inspiration

I think one needs to draw a distinction here with regard to what consciousness is able to access, given the understanding that information already exists. That becoming aware of it, as part and parcel of something larger then ourselves.....as in the conscious state access versus the unconscious ability and doorway too.

Anyway, I presented the Dialogues of Plato and the Plays of William Shakespeare as forums in which characters real or imagined, help to move forward the reader under "ideological progressions," as if,  dealing with this inductive/ deductive realization of information and probable outcomes once given the scenarios which are displayed for the mind to entertain Understanding our Angels and Daemons

While one gets to the point of what is self evident, and lays the point or question as a point of gaining access to that information, how does one see this conscious intent, as it gains access to levels of perception becoming fully aware of "other entities(Gateway Program)," versus, access to information in terms of the collective unconscious? Everything is information, and information, is not lost.

   Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius. It's a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

    The author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert has thought long and hard about some large topics. Her next fascination: genius, and how we ruin it.Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity

The question arises in my mind with regard to seeing these entities as being apart from oneself(Daemon) not Demon:) and gaining access to the same information exhibited in recognition of this higher intelligence that already exists in us all?? Are you aware of the content of "deep play?"

    The words daemon, dæmon, are Latinized spellings of the Greek δαίμων (daimôn),[1] used purposely today to distinguish the daemons of Ancient Greek religion, good or malevolent "supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes" (see Plato's Symposium), from the Judeo-Christian usage demon, a malignant spirit that can seduce, afflict, or possess humans See:Daemon (mythology)

I try to elaborate more here. So it was more that we loose something of ourselves when we see the nature of "an entity" as something apart from ourselves as we consciously push the boundaries of information access. I give two examples with regard too, Robert Pirsig and John Nash. More the fear then,  that such genius is associated with illness and that with this creative spark, and assumed so?

This understanding is a foundational perspective that Socrates may have shared as he intently listened to people. He was looking for this ability of people to access and use this aspect of them self. To express aspect of this higher intelligence? Historically then, the understanding and development of the Socratic foundations? Here my view may be skewed by what is mythical as Gilbert portrays of Socratic as to "a being" inside of us, while I intend to show a development of knowledge pursue.

So herein lies the difficulties I am facing with regard to TC.

Tacit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge (as opposed to formal, codified or explicit knowledge) is the kind of knowledge that is difficult to transfer to another person by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. For example, stating to someone that London is in the United Kingdom is a piece of explicit knowledge that can be written down, transmitted, and understood by a recipient. However, the ability to speak a language, use algebra,^[1] or design and use complex equipment requires all sorts of knowledge that is not always known explicitly, even by expert practitioners, and which is difficult or impossible to explicitly transfer to other users.
While tacit knowledge appears to be simple, it has far reaching consequences and is not widely understood.

Contents 1 Definition 2 Differences with explicit knowledge 3 Transmission models for tacit knowledge 4 Examples 5 Knowledge management 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

Definition

The term “tacit knowing” or “tacit knowledge” was first introduced into philosophy by Michael Polanyi in 1958 in his magnum opus Personal Knowledge. He famously introduces the idea in his later work The Tacit Dimension with the assertion that “we can know more than we can tell.”.^[2] According to him, not only is the knowledge that cannot be adequately articulated by verbal means, but also all knowledge is rooted in tacit knowledge in the strong sense of that term.
With tacit knowledge, people are not often aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact, regular interaction ^[3] and trust. This kind of knowledge can only be revealed through practice in a particular context and transmitted through social networks.^[4] To some extent it is "captured" when the knowledge holder joins a network or a community of practice.^[5]
Some examples of daily activities and tacit knowledge are: riding a bike, playing the piano, driving a car, and hitting a nail with a hammer.^[6]
The formal knowledge of how to ride a bicycle is that in order to balance, if the bike falls to the left, one steers to the left. To turn right the rider first steers to the left, and then when the bike falls right, the rider steers to the right.^[7] You may know explicitly how turning of the handle bars or steering wheel change the direction of a bike or car, but you cannot simultaneously focus on this and at the same time orientate yourself in traffic.
Similarly, you may know explicitly how to hold the handle of a hammer, but you cannot simultaneously focus on the handle and hit the nail correctly with the hammer. The master pianist can perform brilliantly, but if he begins to concentrate on the movements of his fingers instead of the music, he will not be able to play as a master. Knowing the explicit knowledge, however, is no help in riding a bicycle, doesn’t help in performing well in the tasks since few people are aware of it when performing and few riders are in fact aware of this.
Tacit knowledge is not easily shared. Although it is that which is used by all people, it is not necessarily able to be easily articulated. It consists of beliefs, ideals, values, schemata and mental models which are deeply ingrained in us and which we often take for granted. While difficult to articulate, this cognitive dimension of tacit knowledge shapes the way we perceive the world.
In the field of knowledge management, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to a knowledge possessed only by an individual and difficult to communicate to others via words and symbols. Therefore, an individual can acquire tacit knowledge without language. Apprentices, for example, work with their mentors and learn craftsmanship not through language but by observation, imitation, and practice.
The key to acquiring tacit knowledge is experience. Without some form of shared experience, it is extremely difficult for people to share each other's thinking processes^[8]
Tacit knowledge has been described as “know-how” - as opposed to “know-what” (facts), “know-why” (science), or “know-who” (networking)^{[citation needed]}. It involves learning and skill but not in a way that can be written down. On this account knowing-how or embodied knowledge is characteristic of the expert, who acts, makes judgments, and so forth without explicitly reflecting on the principles or rules involved. The expert works without having a theory of his or her work; he or she just performs skillfully without deliberation or focused attention ^[9]
Tacit knowledge vs. Explicit knowledge:^[10] Although it is possible to distinguish conceptually between explicit and tacit knowledge, they are not separate and discrete in practice. The interaction between these two modes of knowing is vital for the creation of new knowledge.^[11]

Differences with explicit knowledge

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2012)

Tacit knowledge can be distinguished from explicit knowledge in three major areas:

• Codifiability and mechanism of transferring knowledge: while explicit knowledge can be codified, and easily transferred without the knowing subject, tacit knowledge is intuitive and unarticulated knowledge cannot be communicated, understood or used without the ‘knowing subject’. Unlike the transfer of explicit knowledge, the transfer of tacit knowledge requires close interaction and the buildup of shared understanding and trust among them.
• Main methods for the acquisition and accumulation: Explicit knowledge can be generated through logical deduction and acquired through practical experience in the relevant context. In contrast, tacit knowledge can only be acquired through practical experience in the relevant context.
• Potential of aggregation and modes of appropriation: Explicit knowledge can be aggregated at a single location, stored in objective forms and appropriated without the participation of the knowing subject. Tacit knowledge in contrast, is personal contextual. It is distributive, and cannot easily be aggregated. The realization of its full potential requires the close involvement and cooperation of the knowing subject.

The process of transforming tacit knowledge into explicit or specifiable knowledge is known as codification, articulation, or specification. The tacit aspects of knowledge are those that cannot be codified, but can only be transmitted via training or gained through personal experience.

Transmission models for tacit knowledge

A chief practice of technological development is the codification of tacit knowledge into explicit programmed operations so that processes previously requiring skilled employees can be automated for greater efficiency and consistency at lower cost. Such codification involves mechanically replicating the performance of persons who possess relevant tacit knowledge; in doing so, however, the ability of the skilled practitioner to innovate and adapt to unforeseen circumstances based on the tacit "feel" of the situation is often lost. The technical remedy is to attempt to substitute brute-force methods capitalizing on the computing power of a system, such as those that enable a supercomputer programmed to "play" chess against a grandmaster whose tacit knowledge of the game is broad and deep.
The conflicts demonstrated in the previous two paragraphs are reflected in Ikujiro Nonaka's model of organizational knowledge creation, in which he proposes that tacit knowledge can be converted to explicit knowledge. In that model tacit knowledge is presented variously as uncodifiable ("tacit aspects of knowledge are those that cannot be codified") and codifiable ("transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is known as codification"). This ambiguity is common in the knowledge management literature.
Nonaka's view may be contrasted with Polanyi's original view of "tacit knowing." Polanyi believed that while declarative knowledge may be needed for acquiring skills, it is unnecessary for using those skills once the novice becomes an expert. And indeed, it does seem to be the case that, as Polanyi argued, when we acquire a skill we acquire a corresponding understanding that defies articulation ^[12]

Examples

• One of the most convincing examples of tacit knowledge is facial recognition. ‘‘We know a person’s face, and can recognize it among a thousand, indeed a million. Yet we usually cannot tell how we recognize a face we know, so most of this cannot be put into words.’’. When you see a face you are not conscious about your knowledge of the individual features (eye, nose, mouth), but you see and recognize the face as a whole ^[13]
• Another example of tacit knowledge is the notion of language itself—it is not possible to learn a language just by being taught the rules of grammar—a native speaker picks it up at a young age almost entirely unaware of the formal grammar which they may be taught later. Other examples are how to ride a bike, how tight to make a bandage, or knowing whether a senior surgeon feels an intern may be ready to learn the intricacies of surgery; this can only be learned through personal experimentation.
• Collins showed ^[14] that a particular laser (The ppTEA laser) was designed in America and the idea, with specific assistance from the designers, was gradually propagated to various other universities world-wide. However, in the early days, even when specific instructions were sent, other labs failed to replicate the laser, it only being made to work in each case following a visit to or from the originating lab or very close contact and dialogue. It became clear that while the originators could clearly make the laser work, they did not know exactly what it was that they were doing to make it work, and so could not articulate or specify it by means of monologue articles and specifications. But a cooperative process of dialogue enabled the tacit knowledge to be transferred.
• Another example is the Bessemer steel process — Bessemer sold a patent for his advanced steel making process and was sued by the purchasers who couldn't get it to work. In the end Bessemer set up his own steel company because he knew how to do it, even though he could not convey it to his patent users. Bessemer's company became one of the largest in the world and changed the face of steel making.^[15]
• As apprentices learn the craft of their masters through observation, imitation, and practice, so do employees of a firm learn new skills through on-the-job training. When Matsushita started developing its automatic home bread-making machine in 1985, an early problem was how to mechanize the dough-kneading process, a process that takes a master baker years of practice to perfect. To learn this tacit knowledge, a member of the software development team, Ikuko Tanaka, decided to volunteer herself as an apprentice to the head baker of the Osaka International Hotel, who was reputed to produce the area’s best bread. After a period of imitation and practice, one day she observed that the baker was not only stretching but also twisting the dough in a particular fashion (“twisting stretch”), which turned out to be the secret for making tasty bread. The Matsushita home bakery team drew together eleven members from completely different specializations and cultures: product planning, mechanical engineering, control systems, and software development. The “twisting stretch” motion was finally materialized in a prototype after a year of iterative experimentation by the engineers and team members working closely together, combining their explicit knowledge. For example, the engineers added ribs to the inside of the dough case in order to hold the dough better as it is being churned. Another team member suggested a method (later patented) to add yeast at a later stage in the process, thereby preventing the yeast from over-fermenting in high temperatures.^[16]

Knowledge management

According to Parsaye, there are three major approaches to the capture of tacit knowledge from groups and individuals. They are:^[17]

• Interviewing experts.
• Learning by being told.
• Learning by observation.

Interviewing experts can be done in the form of structured interviewing or by recording organizational stories. Structured interviewing of experts in a particular subject is the most commonly used technique to capture pertinent, tacit knowledge. An example of a structured interview would be an exit interview. Learning by being told can be done by interviewing or by task analysis. Either way, an expert teaches the novice the processes of a task. Task analysis is the process of determining the actual task or policy by breaking it down and analyzing what needs to be done to complete the task. Learning by observation can be done by presenting the expert with a sample problem, scenario, or case study and then observing the process used to solve the problem.^{[citation needed]}
Some other techniques for capturing tacit knowledge are:^{[citation needed][original research?]}

• Action learning

All of these approaches should be recorded in order to transfer the tacit knowledge into reusable explicit knowledge.
Professor Ikujiro Nonaka has proposed the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) model, one of the most widely cited theories in knowledge management, to present the spiraling knowledge processes of interaction between explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi 1995).

• The IRG Solution - hierarchical incompetence and how to overcome it argued that tacit knowledge was essentially a property of social networks and that much tacit knowledge was held in, and communicated by this informal lateral communication between network members.

See also

• Knowledge management
• Knowledge tagging
• Procedural knowledge
• Phronesis
• Explicit knowledge
• Descriptive knowledge
• Dispersed knowledge
• Intuition
• Lateral communication
• Lateral media
• Situated knowledge
• Lateral diffusion
• Hidden curriculum
• Cognitive apprenticeship
• Consensus reality
• Community of practice
• Concept map
• Decision making
• Logical consequence
• Activity theory
• Cultural studies
• Michael Polanyi
• Text and Conversation Theory

References

1. ^ Collins, H.M. "Tacit Knowledge, Trust and the Q of Sapphire" Social Studies of Science' p. 71-85 31(1) 2001.
2. ^ Polanyi, Michael (1966), The Tacit Dimension, University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 4.
3. ^ Goffin, K. & Koners, U. (2011). Tacit Knowledge, Lessons Learnt, and New Product Development. J PROD INNOV MANAG, 28, 300-318.
4. ^ Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1993). Tacit knowledge, practical intelligence, general mental ability, and job knowledge. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2, 8-9.
5. ^ Goffin, K. & Koners, U. (2011). Tacit Knowledge, Lessons Learnt, and New Product Development. J PROD INNOV MANAG, 28, 300-318.
6. ^ Engel, P. J. H. (2008). Tacit knowledge and Visual Expertise in Medical Diagnostic Reasoning: Implications for medical education. Medical Teacher, 30, e184-e188. DOI: 10.1080/01421590802144260.
7. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamics
8. ^ Lam, A. (2000). Tacit Knowledge, Organizational Learning and Societal Institutions: An Integrated Framework. Organization Studies 21(3), 487-513.
9. ^ Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1993). Tacit knowledge, practical intelligence, general mental ability, and job knowledge. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2, 8-9.
10. ^ Lam, A. (2000). Tacit Knowledge, Organizational Learning and Societal Institutions: An Integrated Framework. Organization Studies 21(3), 487-51.
11. ^ Angioni, G., Fare, dire, sentire: l'identico e il diverso nelle culture, Il Maestrale, 2011, 26-99
12. ^ Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1993). Tacit knowledge, practical intelligence, general mental ability, and job knowledge. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2, 8-9.
13. ^ Lam, A. (2000). Tacit Knowledge, Organizational Learning and Societal Institutions: An Integrated Framework. Organization Studies 21(3), 487-513.
14. ^ Collins, H.M. "Tacit Knowledge, Trust and the Q of Sapphire" Social Studies of Science' p. 71-85 31(1) 2001
15. ^ J.E. Gordon, "The new science of strong materials", Penguin books.
16. ^ Nonaka, Ikujiro; Takeuchi, Hirotaka (1995), The knowledge creating company: how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 284, ISBN 978-0-19-509269-1.
17. ^ Parsaye, Kamran; Chignell, Mark (1988), Expert systems for experts, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, p. 365, ISBN 978-0-471-60175-3

Further reading

• Angioni G., Doing, Thinkink, Saying, in Sanga & Ortalli (eds.) , Nature Knowledge, Berghahm Books, New York-Oxford 2004, 249-261.
• Angioni, G., Fare, dire, sentire: l'identico e il diverso nelle culture, Il Maestrale, 2011, 26-99
• Bao, Y.; Zhao, S. (2004), "MICRO Contracting for Tacit Knowledge - A Study of Contractual Arrangements in International Technology Transfer", in Problems and Perspectives of Management, 2, 279- 303.
• Brohm, R. Bringing Polanyi onto the theatre stage: a study on Polanyi applied to Knowledge Management, in: Proceedings of the ISMICK Conference, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1999, pp. 57–69.
• Brohm, R. (2005), Polycentric Order in Organizations, Erasmus University Rotterdam: Published dissertation ERIM, hdl:1765/6911
• Collins, H.M. "Tacit Knowledge, Trust and the Q of Sapphire" Social Studies of Science' p. 71-85 31(1) 2001
• Dalkir, Kimiz (2005) "Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice" pp. 82–90
• Gladwell, Malcolm 2005. Blink: the power of thinking without thinking. Little, Brown: New York.
• Gourlay, Stephen, "An Activity Centered Framework for Knowledge Management". In Claire Regina McInerney, Ronald E. Day (2007). Rethinking knowledge management. Springer. ISBN 3-540-71010-8.
• Nonaka, Ikujiro; Takeuchi, Hirotaka (1995), The knowledge creating company: how Japanese companies create the dynamics of innovation, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 284, ISBN 978-0-19-509269-1
• Patriotta, G. (2004). Studying organizational knowledge. Knowledge Management Research and Practice, 2(1).
• Ploszajski, P.; Saquet, A.; Segalla, M. Le savoir tacite dans un contexte culturel (z: ), Les Echos, Le Quotidien de L’Economie, 18 Novembre 2004, Paris 2004
• Polanyi, Michael. "The Tacit Dimension". First published Doubleday & Co, 1966. Reprinted Peter Smith, Gloucester, Mass, 1983. Chapter 1: "Tacit Knowing".
• Reber, Arthur S. 1993. Implicit learning and tacit knowledge: an essay on the corgnitive unconscious. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510658-X
• Sanders, A. F. (1988). Michael Polanyi's post critical epistemology, a reconstruction of some aspects of 'tacit knowing'. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
• Smith, M. K. (2003) 'Michael Polanyi and tacit knowledge', the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/thinkers/polanyi.htm.© 2003 Mark K. Smith
• Tsoukas, H. (2003) ‘Do we really understand tacit knowledge?’ in The Blackwell handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management. Easterby-Smith and Lyles (eds), 411-427. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
• Erik Cambria and Amir Hussain: Sentic Computing: Techniques, Tools, and Applications. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, ISBN: 978-94-007-5069-2, 2012
• Wenger E. Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity, Cambridge University Press, New York 1998.
• Wilson, Timothy D. 2002. Strangers to ourselves: discovering the adaptive unconscious. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA. 0-674-01382-4

External links

Look up Tacit in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up tacit in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• More on tacit knowledge in organizations
• Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind - tacit knowledge
• Tacit knowledge, tacit knowing or behaving? by Stephen Gourlay (PDF)
• The Duality of Knowledge
• Processes of Knowledge Transformation from the ITtoolbox Wiki
• National Library for Health Knowledge Management Specialist Library - collection of resources about auditing intellectual capital.

Process Fractal vs Geometry Fractals

Let proportion be found not only in numbers, but also in sounds, weights, times and positions, and whatever force there is.Leonardo Da Vinci

The Mandelbrot set, seen here in an image generated by NOVA, epitomizes the fractal. Photo credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation

 "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line." So writes acclaimed mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot in his path-breaking book The Fractal Geometry of Nature. Instead, such natural forms, and many man-made creations as well, are "rough," he says. To study and learn from such roughness, for which he invented the term fractal, Mandelbrot devised a new kind of visual mathematics based on such irregular shapes. Fractal geometry, as he called this new math, is worlds apart from the Euclidean variety we all learn in school, and it has sparked discoveries in myriad fields, from finance to metallurgy, cosmology to medicine. In this interview, hear from the father of fractals about why he disdains rules, why he considers himself a philosopher, and why he abandons work on any given advance in fractals as soon as it becomes popular. A Radical Mind

As I watch the dialogue between Bruce Lipton and Tom Campbell here, there were many things that helped my perspective understand the virtual world in relation to how the biology subject was presented. It is obvious then why Bruce Lipton likes the analogies Tom Campbell has to offer. The epiphanies Bruce is having along the road to his developing biological work is very important. It is how each time a person makes the leap that one must understand how individuals change, how societies change.



Okay so for one,  the subject of fractals presents itself and the idea of process fractals and Geometry Fractals were presented in relation to each other. Now the talk moved onto the very thought of geometry presented in context sort of raised by ire even though I couldn't distinguish the differences. The virtual world analogy is still very unsettling to me.

So ya I have something to learn here.

I think my problem was with how such iteration may be schematically driven so as toidentify the pattern. Is to see this process reveal itself on a much larger scale. So when I looked at the Euclidean basis as a Newtonian expression the evolution toward relativity had to include the idea of Non Euclidean geometries. This was the natural evolution of the math that lies at the basis of graduating from a Euclidean world. It is the natural expression of understanding how this geometry can move into  a dynamical world.

So yes the developing perspective for me is that even though we are talking abut mathematical structures here we see some correspondence in nature . This has been my thing so as to discover the starting point?

A schematic of a transmembrane receptor

It the truest sense I had already these questions in my mind as  I was going through the talk. The starting point for Bruce is his biology and the cell. For Tom, he has not been explicit here other then to say that it is his studies with Monroe that he developed his thoughts around the virtual world as it relates to the idea of what he found working with Monroe.

So it is an exploration I feel of the work he encountered and has not so far as I seen made a public statement to that effect. It needs to be said and he needs to go back and look over how he had his epiphanies. For me this is about the process of discovery and creativity that I have found in my own life. Can one feel so full as to have found ones wealth in being that you can look everywhere and see the beginnings of many things?

This wealth is not monetary for me although I recognized we had to take care of or families and made sure they were ready to be off on their own. To be productive.

The Blind Men and the Elephant
John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

 So for me the quest for that starting point is to identify the pattern that exists in nature as much as many have tried various perspective in terms of quantum gravity. Yes, we are all sort of like blind men trying to explain the reality of the world in our own way and in the process we may come up with our epiphanies.

These epiphanies help us to the next level of understanding as if we moved outside of our skeletal frame to allow the membrane of the cell to allow receptivity of what exist in the world around as information. We are not limited then to the frame of the skeleton hardened too, that we cannot progress further. The surface area of the membrane then becomes a request to open the channels toward expansion of the limitations we had applied to ourselves maintaining a frame of reference.

The Ganzfeld effect

The  Ganzfeld effect (from German for “complete field”) is a phenomenon of visual perception caused by staring at an undifferentiated and uniform field of color. The effect is described as the loss of vision as the brain cuts off the unchanging signal from the eyes. The result is "seeing black"^[1] - apparent blindness.

History 

 

In the 1930s, research by psychologist Wolfgang Metzger established that when subjects gazed into a featureless field of vision they consistently hallucinated and their electroencephalograms changed.

The Ganzfeld effect is the result of the brain amplifying neural noise in order to look for the missing visual signals. The noise is interpreted in the higher visual cortex, and gives rise to hallucinations. This is similar to dream production because of the brain's state of sensory deprivation during sleep.

The Ganzfeld effect has been reported since ancient times. The adepts of Pythagoras retreated to pitch black caves to receive wisdom through their visions^[2], known as the prisoner's cinema. Miners trapped by accidents in mines frequently reported hallucinations, visions and seeing ghosts when they were in the pitch dark for days. Arctic explorers seeing nothing but featureless landscape of white snow for a long time also reported hallucinations and an altered state of mind.

The effect is a component of a Ganzfeld experiment, a technique used in the field of parapsychology.
The artist James Turrell (partly inspired by clear blue skies) has created many such "Ganzfelds" throughout his oeuvre.

See also

• Sensory deprivation
• Ganzfeld experiment
• Dark retreat
• Floatation tank
• Hypnagogia

 

References

1. ^ Ramesh B. Ganzfeld Effect.
2. ^ Ustinova, Yulia.Caves and the Ancient Greek Mind: Descending Underground in the Search for Ultimate Truth, Oxford University Press US, 2009. ISBN 0199548560

• Wolfgang Metzger, "Optische Untersuchungen am Ganzfeld." Psychologische Forschung 13 (1930) : 6-29. (the first psychophysiological study with regard to Ganzfelds)

 EGG: Did you reach this conclusion through more traditional media, like painting or sculpture?

JT: I haven't had anything to do with either sculpture or painting. I have done works that look painted or works that have form and look like sculpture. I make these spaces that apprehend light for your perception. In a way, it's like Plato's cave, where we are sitting in the cave looking at the reflection of reality with our backs to reality. I make these spaces where the spaces themselves are perceivers or in some way pre-form perception. It's a little bit like what the eye does. I mean, I look at the eye as the most exposed part of the brain, as something that is already forming perception. I make these rooms that are these camera-like spaces that in some way form light, apprehend it to be something that's physically present.

EGG: What happens when you use space this way?

JT: This results in an art that is not about my seeing, it's about your direct perception of the work. I'm interested in having a light that inhabits space, so that you feel light to be physically present. I mean, light is a substance that is, in fact, a thing, but we don't attribute thing-ness to it. We use light to illuminate other things, something we read, sculpture, paintings. And it gladly does this. But the most interesting thing to find is that light is aware that we are looking at it, so that it behaves differently when we are watching it and when we're not, which imbues it with consciousness. Often people say that they want to touch some of the work I do. Well, that feeling is actually coming from the fact that the eyes are touching, the eyes are feeling. And this happens because the eyes are quite sensitive only in low light, for which we were made. We're actually made for this light of Plato's cave, the light of twilight. See: Interview with James Turrell

psychomanteums

The room is set up to optimize psychological effects such as trance. Its key features are low light or near-darkness, flickering light, and a mirror. The dimness represents a form of visual sensory deprivation, a condition helpful to trance induction, the undifferentiated colour without horizon producing the Ganzfeld effect^[4], a state of apparent "blindness". The Ganzfeld experiment replicates the conditions of a psychomanteum where a state of trance may be induced by a uniform field of vision. In the way of strobe or flashing light, stimulus is provided by indirect, moving light in the psychomanteum. Flickering candles or lamps are sometimes recommended to induce hallucination. It is supposed the indeterminate depth of the mirror’s darkness allows the eyes to relax and become unfocused, a state that reduces alertness.^[2]

Dr. Raymond Moody, author of the 1981 book about near death experiences, Life After Life, included the psychomanteum in his research trialling 300 subjects which he recorded in his 1993 book, Reunions. Moody viewed the room as a therapeutic tool to heal grief and bring insight.^[2]

How Time Ages the Pyramids

Chanticleer - A Pleasure Garden

Believing that something must be true about the world because you can’t imagine otherwise is, five hundred years into the Age of Science, not a recommended strategy for acquiring reliable knowledge. It goes back to the classic conflict of rationalism vs. empiricism. “Rationalism” sounds good — who doesn’t want to be rational? But the idea behind it is that we can reach true conclusions about the world by reason alone. We don’t ever have to leave the comfort of our living room; we can just sit around, sharing some single-malt Scotch and fine cigars, thinking really hard about the universe, and thereby achieve some real understanding. Empiricism, on the other hand, says that we should try to imagine all possible ways the world should be, and then actually go out and look at it to decide which way it really is. Rationalism is traditionally associated with Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza, while empiricism is associated with Locke, Berkeley, and Hume — but of course these categories never quite fit perfectly well.SEE:What Can We Know About The World Without Looking At It?

I had been able to isolate Lee's Smolin's method of approach as to whether something can exist within, or, exists outside of time. Thoughts about Meno come to mind and Plato's Problem and Meno: How Accurately Portrayed?

The idea that truth is timeless and resides outside the universe was the essence of Plato's philosophy, exemplified in the parable of the slave boy that was meant to argue that discovery is merely remembering. Lee Smolin

Of course this article of yours Sean has lead to interesting thoughts. His talk with Memories Arise Out of a Equilibrium David Albert.....how does one logically proceed with inquiry. Why is the past so different, in so many ways, from the future? (12:20)

Sean Carroll

This raises all sorts of questions, the most basic of which are: “What counts as `looking’ vs. `not looking’?” and “Do we really need a separate law of physics to describe the evolution of systems that are being looked at?”

See:Quantum Diavlog

***

When you are told that carrots have human rights because they share half our genes -- but not how gene percentages confer rights -- wizard. When someone announces that the nature-nurture debate has been settled because there is evidence that a given percentage of our political opinions are genetically inherited, but they don't explain how genes cause opinions, they've settled nothing. They are saying that our opinions are caused by wizards, and presumably so are their own. That the truth consists of hard to vary assertions about reality is the most important fact about the physical world David Deutsch: A new way to explain explanation

***

Of course thanks to Lubos for link on Rationalism vs empiricism You can find his thoughts there and more information around his heading below.

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism concerns the extent to which we are dependent upon sense experience in our effort to gain knowledge. Rationalists claim that there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience. Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge.

Rationalists generally develop their view in two ways. First, they argue that there are cases where the content of our concepts or knowledge outstrips the information that sense experience can provide. Second, they constuct accounts of how reason in some form or other provides that additional information about the world. Empiricists present complementary lines of thought. First, they develop accounts of how experience provides the information that rationalists cite, insofar as we have it in the first place. (Empiricists will at times opt for skepticism as an alternative to rationalism: if experience cannot provide the concepts or knowledge the rationalists cite, then we don't have them.) Second, empiricists attack the rationalists' accounts of how reason is a source of concepts or knowledge.See: Rationalism vs. Empiricism

The Pyramid(as an expression of Liberal Arts Encapsulated) is a combination of  the Trivium , and  the Quadrivium

***

The Socratic Method.....and Plato's Ideas, is Replaced by Google?

David Deutsch: A new way to explain explanation

When you are told that carrots have human rights because they share half our genes -- but not how gene percentages confer rights -- wizard. When someone announces that the nature-nurture debate has been settled because there is evidence that a given percentage of our political opinions are genetically inherited, but they don't explain how genes cause opinions, they've settled nothing. They are saying that our opinions are caused by wizards, and presumably so are their own. That the truth consists of hard to vary assertions about reality is the most important fact about the physical world. It's a fact that is, itself,

***  

See Also:


Apart from universes - David Deutsch from Philosophy of Physics on Vimeo.

TED Talk-Leonard Susskind: My friend Richard Feynman

I decided when I was asked to do this that what I really wanted to talk about was my friend Richard Feynman. I was one of the fortunate few that really did get to know him and enjoyed his presence. And I'm going to tell you the Richard Feynman that I knew. I'm sure there are other people here who could tell you about the Richard Feynman they knew, and it would probably be a different Richard Feynman.

Richard Feynman was a very complex man. He was a man of many, many parts. He was, of course, foremost a very, very, very great scientist. He was an actor. You saw him act. I also had the good fortune to be in those lectures, up in the balcony. They were fantastic. He was a philosopher; he was a drum player; he was a teacher par excellence. Richard Feynman was also a showman, an enormous showman. He was brash, irreverent -- he was full of macho, a kind of macho one-upsmanship. He loved intellectual battle. He had a gargantuan ego. But the man had somehow a lot of room at the bottom. And what I mean by that is a lot of room, in my case -- I can't speak for anybody else -- but in my case, a lot of room for another big ego. Well, not as big as his, but fairly big. I always felt good with Dick Feynman.

See Also: Leonard Susskind: My friend Richard Feynman

***

At 9:16 AM, June 01, 2011,  Plato said

Listening to this talk with regard to Susskind's opinion about his friend Dick, he too would have thought about, "irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience." Albert Einstein


Pure thought(what does this linguistic representation actually mean) would have to lead you there and be most understandable as to leaving no doubt as to what has been derived.


I have often wondered where Feynman actually deduced his diagrams from and for me I think seeing how Dirac worked, this was suffice to me to actually see how "i" in for matrices was derived.


This again is my opinion. I am searching for answers.


For me it was about where one set them self in terms of their observation of the place "this simplicity" might have been realized.


Coxeter might have said circle when looking at a round table from above, while standing to the side, he would say ellipse

***

At 10:10 AM, June 03, 2011,  Plato said...

Nothing worse then having to quote oneself in order to press the point. Carry on with life indeed as if nothing missed.:)

Pure thought(what does this linguistic representation actually mean) would have to lead you there and be most understandable as to leaving no doubt as to what has been derived.

Algorithmically, the HTML language is representative of the order in which we might represent an idea....as is done mathematically...that it is conceptually enriched(put a cloud around it) that by such representation it would include historical understandings. These encapsulated by that rhetorical past is "inclusive."

You just take that for granted/assumption as long as the interpretation actually speaks to the historical development and proceeds forward toward an phenomenological order.

Most had to go through the historical development in order to understand where we are today. For the layman in my "seeing choice of method of production" toward falsifying, the choice of structure of phenomenological order is displayed as to demonstrate the thinking's involved scientifically that demonstrates the logic of approach toward a culmination of models of apprehension.

This display's the approach for myself. Might it be an example then of the whole development toward phenomenological order?

Best,

Intelligent Life in the Universe?

While Drake's equation is a good basis for systematic investigations of signals from extraterrestrial intelligences, I care little about the admittedly scarce possibility that we ever receive positive news from our SETI searches. I care more about the fact that, if we consider the whole universe instead than restricting to our small galaxy, and if we omit to require that other civilizations exist at present (whatever this means over billion-light-year distance scales), the probability becomes a certainty.Tommaso Dorigo

I was over at Tommaso Dorigo's Blog, Quantum Diaries Survivor" reading his take on Extraterrestrials: A Dime A Dozen and the opening with Stephen Hawkings Lecture. I cut out the section of my interest as well to see what Dr. Hawking was talking about, besides reading Tommaso's take.

Qualitatively, I have come to realize,  given the framework for consideration of such possibilities,  these equations mean an inductive/deductive self evident constraint  how are we ever to consider the possibility( You have to give yourself permission to entertain).

I mean can we ever know the framework of that Extraterrestrial Intelligence given the parameters for our own belief structures? We do not even know what is possible "not having the framework" to properly question how this can be so?

So what I found in Dr.Hawkings lecture was the generalities of consensus across the industry of science and no new ways in which to possibly perceive the" right questions concerning the framework for possible new intelligences" that we would perceive as Extraterrestrials.

***

NASA's 50th Anniversary Lecture By Professor Stephen Hawking

...........DR. HAWKING: What will we find when we go into space? Is there alien life out there, or are we alone in the universe?

We believe that life arose spontaneously on the Earth. So it must be possible for life to appear on othersuitable planets, of which there seem to be a large number in the galaxy.

But we don't know how life first appeared. The probability of something as complicated as a DNA molecule being formed by random collisions of atoms in ocean is incredibly small. However, there might have been some simpler macro molecule which can build up the DNA or some other macro molecule capable of reproducing itself. Still, even if the probability of life appearing on a suitable planet is very small, since the universe is infinite, life would have appeared somewhere. If the probability is very low, the distance between two independent occurrences of life would be very large.

However, there is a possibility known as panspermia that life could spread from planet to planet or from stellar system to stellar system carried on meteors. We know that Earth has been hit by meteors that came from Mars, and others may have come from further afield. We have no evidence that any meteors carried life, but it remains a possibility.

An important feature of life spread by panspermia is that it would have the same basis which would be DNA for life in the neighborhood of the Earth.

On the other hand, an independent occurrence of life would be extremely unlikely to be DNA based. So watch out if you meet an alien. You could be infected with a disease against which you have no resistance.

One piece of observational evidence on the probability of life appearing is that we have fossils from 3.5 billion years ago. The Earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago and was probably too hot for about the first half billion years. So life appeared on Earth within half-a-billion years of it being possible, which is short compared to the 10-billion-year lifetime of an Earth-like planet.

This would suggest either panspermia or that the probability of life appearing independently is reasonably high. If it was very low, one would have expected it to take most of the 10 billion years available. If it is panspermia, any life in the solar system or in nearby stellar systems will also be DNA based.

While there may be primitive life in another region of the galaxy, there don't seem to be any advanced intelligent beings. We don't appear to have been visited by aliens. I am discounting reports of UFOs. Why would they appear only to cranks and weirdos?

[Laughter.]

DR. HAWKING: If there is a government conspiracy to suppress the reports and keep for itself the scientific knowledge the aliens bring, it seems to have been a singularly ineffective policy so far.

Furthermore, despite an extensive search by the SETI project, we haven't heard any alien television quiz shows. This probably indicates that there are no alien civilizations at our stage of development within the radius of a few hundred lightyears. Issuing an insurance policy against abduction by aliens seems a pretty safe bet.

Why haven't we heard from anyone out there? One view is expressed in this Calvin cartoon. The caption reads: "Sometimes I think that the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

More seriously, there could be three possible explanations of why we haven't heard from aliens. First, it may be that the probability of primitive life appearing on a suitable planet is very low.

Second, the probability of primitive life appearing may be reasonably high, but the probability of that life developing intelligence like ours may be very low. Just because evolution led to intelligence in our case, we shouldn't assume that intelligence is an inevitable consequence of Darwinian natural selection.

It is not clear that intelligence confers a long-term survival advantage. Bacteria and insects will survive quite happily even if our so-called intelligence leads us to destroy ourselves.

This is the third possibility. Life appears and in some cases develops into intelligent beings, but when it reaches a stage of sending radio signals, it will also have the technology to make nuclear bombs and other weapons of mass destruction. It will, therefore, be in danger of destroying itself before long.

Let's hope this is not the reason we have not heard from anyone. Personally, I favor the second possibility that primitive life is relatively common, but that intelligent life is very rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth.

[Laughter.]

DR. HAWKING: Can we exist for a long time away from the Earth? Our experience with the ISS, the International Space Station, shows that it is possible for human beings to survive for many months away from Planet Earth. However, the zero gravity aboard it causes a number of undesirable physiological changes and weakening of the bones, as well as creating practical problems with liquids, et cetera.

One would, therefore, want any long-term base for human beings to be on a planet or moon. By digging into the surface, one would get thermal insulation and protection from meteors and cosmic rays. The planet or moon could also serve as a source of the raw materials that would be needed if the extraterrestrial community was to be self-sustaining independently of Earth.

What are the possible sites of a human colony in the solar system? The most obvious is the Moon. It is close by and relatively easy to reach. We have already landed on it and driven across it in a buggy.

On the other hand, the Moon is small and without atmosphere or a magnetic field to deflect the solar radiation particles, like on Earth. There is no liquid water, but there may be ice in the craters at the north and south poles. A colony on the Moon could use this as a source of oxygen with power provided by nuclear energy or solar panels. The Moon could be a base for travel to the rest of the solar system.

Mars is the obvious next target. It is half as far, again, as the Earth from the Sun and so receives half the warmth. It once had a magnetic field, but it decayed 4 billion years ago, leaving Mars without protection from solar radiation. It stripped Mars of most of its atmosphere, leaving it with only 1 percent of the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere.

However, the pressure must have been higher in the past because we see what appear to be runoff channels and dried-up lakes. Liquid water cannot exist on Mars now.

It would vaporize in the near-vacuum. This suggests that Mars had a warm wet period during which life might have appeared either spontaneously or through panspermia. There is no sign of life on Mars now, but if we found evidence that life had once existed, it would indicate that the probability of life developing on a suitable planet was fairly high.

NASA has sent a large number of spacecraft to Mars, starting with Mariner 4 in 1964. It has surveyed the planet with a number of orbiters, the latest being the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. These orbiters have revealed deep gullies and the highest mountains in the solar system.

NASA has also landed a number of probes on the surface of Mars, most recently the two Mars Rovers. These have sent back pictures of a dry desert landscape. However, there is a large quantity of water in the form of ice in the polar regions. A colony on Mars could use this as a source of oxygen.

There has been volcanic activity on Mars. This would have brought minerals and metals to the surface which a colony could use.

The Moon and Mars are the most suitable sites for space colonies in the solar system. Mercury and Venus are too hot, while Jupiter and Saturn are gas giants with no solid surface.

The moons of Mars are very small and have no advantages over Mars itself.

Some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn might be possible. In particular, Titan, a moon of Saturn, is larger and more massive than other moons and has a dense atmosphere.

The Cassini-Huygens Mission of NASA and ESA has landed a probe on Titan which has sent back pictures of the surface. However, it is very cold, being so far from the sun, and I wouldn't fancy living next to a lake of liquid methane.

What about beyond the solar system? Our observations indicate that a significant fraction of stars have planets around them. So far, we can detect only giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn, but it is reasonable to assume that they will be accompanied by smaller Earth-like planets. Some of these will lay in the [inaudible] zone where the distance from the stars is the right range for liquid water to exist on their surface.

There are around a thousand stars within 30 lightyears of Earth. If 1 percent of each had Earth-size planets in the [inaudible] zone, we would have 10 candidate new worlds. We can revisit it with current technology, but we should make interstellar a long-term aim. By long term, I mean over the next 200 to 500 years. The human race has existed as a separate species for about 2 million years.

Civilization began about 10,000 years ago, and the rate of development has been steadily increasing.

If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before.

***

This same perspective about which I have involved myself with the issues of gravity has been at the forefront of my journey with regards to understanding gravity, and what we have come to know of it on Earth, is that it is not as it is in heaven?:)

Thoughts have this forming effect too, and in the world of Physical constants, how are such thoughts to be measured? "Particulate expressions" in such reductionist modes which lead to a inductive/deductive self evidential state of a ever forming Higg's field?? What thought has traversed the room, to arrive on the other side of the room with consensus?

Not as if, we can defy it's hold on us, while taking plane flights to experience this sensation of dropping fast to earth and leaving ourselves suspended for a time. That it is a consensus borne in mind that such an idea is limited to the framework for which all ideas about it are limited too.

The net result is that the meager N=2.1 becomes over 20 trillions! This means that there are presently 20 trillion civilizations around. 20 trillions. Okay, we might have dropped or added one factor of a hundred too many here or there, but the number is still enormous, no escape!

Is that not a sobering thought ? To me, that is both awesome and saddening. As far as awe is concerned, of course there is no need to explain it. But there is sadness too: for imagine the incredible, unfathomable number of things that we will never be able to know, constrained in our tiny planet, during our insignificant lives. Masterpieces, inventions, acts of bravery, adventures. But also wars, atrocities, catastrophes. The history of the universe will never be written - but it would be quite a read, I am sure.Tommaso Dorigo

So as with the idea of Intelligences in the universe, I place gravity along side of it, as in the context of formulating the right questions. In Tommaso's blog the entry is the deciphering in context of the Drake Equation yet not bound by it in belief. This does not make Tommaso irresponsible to me in shirking the basis of that determination by using the equation.

So of course along the way in my endeavors with those who I have conversed, or left trail bytes for consideration, is the idea that the world as we see it is not always as it seems and that by consensus, the framework is establish is one which limits our views according too.

A "synopsis of the events" can lead us too, and as has been extrapolated according to the world of science. The thoughts that are left to me have been the idea of how scientists can ever introduce new formulations outside of that structure consensus without first taking a new baby step(how so?). They have had to all come to agreement on the latest version of that consensus.

Then there are, the Physical Constants. It is as if in relation to the formulation to a mathematical consistency as a correlative function of the Drake equation in the process of.

This does not mean we sanction irresponsibility to the quest of discovering new worlds of thought, be it in context of Extraterrestrial Intelligences, or even about gravity and the quantum world in which it shall work.

I still visit those scientists who have placed "Outreach" even amidst the data and scientific endeavors they are pursuing. I look for the glimmer of hope that such baby steps are borne out of such minds.

Having defined all the parameters of your science what would be the next question that would lead you to new insights? What new science beyond the experiments that you are working on?