Jacob

Physics & Philosophy

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Seeing this enough makes it easier to discern who's worth talking to.

[ᾶσχτ (âsht) @utilitaryan]

Every conversation I overhear between “friends” seems to follow the same pattern of two people who tolerate each other taking turns to talk about their interests and anxieties, whilst the other vaguely nods along, offering little beyond the appearance of attention.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Much of the essence of physics, I have found, is captured in the Greek origins of the word and what the earliest philosophers were investigating in it. This set the foundation for its future developments, attributes, and inquiries.

[Jörg Middendorf @JMZwitscher]

@DawsonSWilliams An interesting metaphysical question: What is the essence of physics?

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Generally, I think studying one section of one chapter of one "great book" over the period of 4-6 months teaches you more than if you read a catalogue of them in that same time.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

“... these authors forget that the achievements which they attribute to the barbarians belong to the Greeks, with whom not merely philosophy but the human race itself began.”

Diogenes Laertius

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Thought the same thing. You can't expect to pick up an ODE textbook if you haven't mastered trigonometric functions.

[West Coast Platonist @Tool_Being]

If you bounce off a dense philosophical text it's because it has something profound to say and you haven't spent the years needed to properly understand the dense intellectual history it emerges from and which the author understandably doesn't have time to catch you up on.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

The lengths for which the right will go to not support their own ...

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

One of life's greatest blessings, though it is not granted to everyone, is the chance to befriend serious men. Plato knew how fortunate he was to have found Aristotle, and Einstein enjoyed most his walks with Godel.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Most men are unserious.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

I remember reading once someone describe Hesiod as the poet of the stoics. Still think that's fairly accurate.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

This already happened with the four colour theorem.

[Rado Kirov @radokirov]

Mathematics is entering its modern era. For centuries it remained in its baroque/classical/romantic era, even as the world around it transformed. AI is forcing that change.

There will be disruption, alienation, and a sense of loss. But also new heights, entirely new kinds of mathematics, and democratization and scale beyond what we currently imagine.

After centuries of piano sonatas, what will be the first guitar solo of mathematics? The first synthesizer? What will sound like noise before we learn how to hear it as music?

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Emblematic.

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: The UK’s largest telescope for studying space is now set to close after the Government pulled its funding

It supported various Apollo missions and tracked Soviet rockets in the Cold War

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

The political ineptitude of the modern merchant could be forgiven if he did not dabble in such an area, and showed even the most basic of competencies.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

“Homer is new and fresh this morning, and nothing, perhaps, is so old and tired as today's newspaper.”

Charles Péguy

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

@FischerKing64 Joseph Campbell was the same, but then so were many other during that time given their proper due.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Bachelard hits upon the right mark at the beginning, but does not understand why, then further misdirects himself. I guess the philosophic soul is rare.

[Ronald Christ @RonaldCHRIST12]

"[The reader] will see that the Heraclitean flux is a concrete philosophy, a complete philosophy. One cannot bathe twice in the same river because already, in his innermost recesses, the human being shares the destiny of flowing water. Water is truly the transitory element. It is the essential ontological metamorphosis between fire and earth. A being dedicated to water is a being in flux. He dies every minute; something of his substance is constantly falling away. Daily death is not the exuberant death of fire that pierces the sky with its arrows; daily death is the death of water. Water always flows, always falls, always ends in its horizontal death. In innumerable examples we shall see that for the materializing imagination the death of water is more dreamlike than the death of earth: the pain of water is infinite."

Gaston Bachelard, Water and Dreams

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

When the rich fail to uphold their side of the bargain, interventionist states step in. A common pattern in history.

[Will Manidis @WillManidis]

for all the talk of “growing billionaire power” it’s telling that our industrialists are forced to take to open letters to adjudicate if the government is going to break up their firms when just a generation ago even a minor railroad baron could kill hundreds without reproach

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Self study isn't shameful when institutional quality has since evaporated, and the older generations never matured into proper elders and teachers. It tends to be the only option left.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

Most men get consumed by the heights of their social or professional position that they make a habit of insolence and disregard towards men of otherwise equal standing, deluding themselves into thinking the separation stands on legitimate grounds.

[Jacob @JacobsArche]

God can cause unsullied light to spring out of black night.

Pindar

[Athanasius @Athanasius_45]

Nietzsche on Plutarch: