Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge"An original work of synthesis... a program of unrivalled ambition: to unify all the major branches o knowlede - sociology, economics, the arts and religion - under the banner of science." - The New York Times
It is all connected; religion, neuroscience, language, personal taste, biology, politics and law... And the future of humanity depends on how successful biologists, neuroscientists and empiricists are in convincing us of this undeniable fact. |
The Ionian Enchantment
"When we have unified knowledge, we will understand who we are and why we are here."
The idea that everything in the world, and maybe the universe, can be explained by a small number of natural laws is, to me, another way of saying that since everything is connected, the understanding of one aspect of the universe will inevitably lead to the understanding of the others, either simultaneously, or through a slow process of evolution.
This notion of girl meets metaphysics in a way, to access metacognition and a deeper understanding of the world could be the purpose of my existence. We are all made of stardust anyway, so there is no reason why everything is not connected and has certain shared particles.
I believe that this book can be a gateway drug, a trampoline to a never-ending learning process driven by scientific discovery and plain trial and error. One journey I am definitely eager to begin. Specially after reading how Edward Wilson recommends we undertake this task:
“If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.
The ancient Greeks expressed the idea in a myth of vaulting ambition. Daedalus escapes from Crete with his son Icarus on wings he has fashioned from feathers and wax. Ignoring the warnings of his father, Icarus flies toward the sun, whereupon his wings come apart and we are left to wonder: Was he just a foolish boy? Did he pay the price for hubris, for pride in sight of the gods? I like to think that on the contrary, his daring represents a saving human grace.”
The idea that everything in the world, and maybe the universe, can be explained by a small number of natural laws is, to me, another way of saying that since everything is connected, the understanding of one aspect of the universe will inevitably lead to the understanding of the others, either simultaneously, or through a slow process of evolution.
This notion of girl meets metaphysics in a way, to access metacognition and a deeper understanding of the world could be the purpose of my existence. We are all made of stardust anyway, so there is no reason why everything is not connected and has certain shared particles.
I believe that this book can be a gateway drug, a trampoline to a never-ending learning process driven by scientific discovery and plain trial and error. One journey I am definitely eager to begin. Specially after reading how Edward Wilson recommends we undertake this task:
“If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.
The ancient Greeks expressed the idea in a myth of vaulting ambition. Daedalus escapes from Crete with his son Icarus on wings he has fashioned from feathers and wax. Ignoring the warnings of his father, Icarus flies toward the sun, whereupon his wings come apart and we are left to wonder: Was he just a foolish boy? Did he pay the price for hubris, for pride in sight of the gods? I like to think that on the contrary, his daring represents a saving human grace.”
The Great Branches of Learning
“The greatest enterprise of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkage of the sciences and humanities. The ongoing fragmentation of knowledge and resulting chaos in philosophy are not reflections of the real world but artifacts of scholarship. The propositions of the original Enlightenment are increasingly favored by objective evidence, especially from the natural sciences. Consilience is the key to unification.“
The idea of describing the continuous struggle of unifying the sciences and humanities as an enterprise, makes it sound as though the real value is not in the outcome but in the process. As we discussed today during Dialogue, this is not a call to eliminate distinctions between both but to understand and engage in it more profoundly, and the pursuit should be to make a bridge between the two, not to intend to merge them to a weird amalgam of facts and scientific understanding.
In fact, the author goes even further and claims that every College Student should be able to answer the question: What is the relation between science and humanities and how is it important for human welfare? And so we must ask, how can we connect the sciences and the humanities? Wilson claims that we need to remember the values of the Enlightenment.
The idea of describing the continuous struggle of unifying the sciences and humanities as an enterprise, makes it sound as though the real value is not in the outcome but in the process. As we discussed today during Dialogue, this is not a call to eliminate distinctions between both but to understand and engage in it more profoundly, and the pursuit should be to make a bridge between the two, not to intend to merge them to a weird amalgam of facts and scientific understanding.
In fact, the author goes even further and claims that every College Student should be able to answer the question: What is the relation between science and humanities and how is it important for human welfare? And so we must ask, how can we connect the sciences and the humanities? Wilson claims that we need to remember the values of the Enlightenment.