Do we exist?

Nihilism: Producing reality out of mere mental representations, and thus in effect from nothingness. Kant: Infer substantive philosophical knowledge from logic alone is impossible. Logic abstracted from the content of knowledge and thus could not produce a new object of knowledge.

Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs and sign systems. This includes the investigation of apprehension, prediction and meaning: how it is that we develop meaning, make predictions, and apprehend the world. General theories of signs are called semiotics. Semioticians generally understand signs to have meaning within larger systems. The words and phrases of a language, for example, have meaning within that language, and are meaningful only because of their place in that language's structure. Fashion and different ways of dressing also have meaning, but only within a given culture. Within film theory, films are often understood to have meaning due to conventional systems of editing techniques, shots, and other cinematographic techniques. Semiotics is not the same as the study of communication. It may be considered as firstly concerned with signification and secondly with communication (see Danesi 1994), or, less often, considered not to study communication at all (Nattiez 1987; trans. 1990: 16). Semiosis or semeiosis is the process that forms meaning from our apprehension of the world through signs.

Religion

Religion represents the long line of memories in the history of nations.

Guiding Principles

If symmetry is one corner stone in the search for physical laws, another guiding principle is simplicity.

Thought

Early natural philosophers speculated that our brain contained a kernel of self-awareness. This "little person" peered out through our eyes and listened through our ears and somehow made sense of the universe. Neuroscientists ejected the "homunculus" from our heads. The circuitry of our brains does not all converge on one point where the essence of ourselves can sit and ruminate. One can analyze the instruments and techniques of the musicians or watch the conductor or even read the musical score, but the actual music cannot be found anywhere until the performance begins.
 
Excerpt:
Scientific American MIND: Thought, Ideas, Brain Science.
Letter from the editor, John Rennie.

MindStyle

Mindstyle refers to tendencies in how a person responds to surroundings. It's the way a particular mind tastes the world. Mindstyle describes tendencies, natural patterns of response, essential characteristics, tendencies in processing information, and preferences in how to approach situations. Visual thinkers are often able to think on their feet. They simply "see" the way things are, without pondering much. Poetic-symbolic thinkers tend to appreciate more ethereal flavors and nuance that are difficult to visualize. Auditory-verbal thinkers instinctively search for terminology-driven concepts. Episodic thinkers habitually see the world as strings of events or stories to tell, whose meaning lies in their interconnectedness. People who tend to be concept creators excel at assembling experience and observations into bundles or packets.

Theory U

At the heart (or the bottom) of Theory U lies the following assumption: that each of us isn't one but two. Each and every human being or social entity has two forms. One is the person or group that we have become on a journey that is in the past. That’s the one we know well. The other one is the person or group that we could become on a journey into the future -it's our highest future possibility. It's a dormant possibility that is waiting for us. Stanford University's Michael Ray refers to the first person as the self with a small s and the second person -our highest future possibility- as the Self with a capital S. The essence of presencing is that these two selves begin to talk to another. This connection establishes a subtle but very real link to our highest future possibility that can then begin to help and guide de us.

Serendipity

Personality Tests

Modern Futurism

Futures Research

Climate

Holistic Views

Agli inizi del '900, il fisico tedesco Alfred Wegener fu attirato da una strana coincidenza: la forma delle coste occidentali del continente africano e quella della costa orientale del continente sudamericano avevano una straordinaria somiglianza, sembravano due pezzi di puzzle che si incastravano. Sulla base di osservazioni analoghe Wegener, avanzň l'ipotesi che fino a 200 milioni di anni fa esistesse una grande terra emersa, detta Pangea, circondata da un unico grande oceano, detto Panthalassa.

Research

Disinformation

People :: Companies

Places

Startup

NOE :: Network Of Excellence

Technology Assessment

Financing Research and Art Projects

Sharing Art Projects

Travel

Influential artists

If space is infinite, then we may be at any point in space. If time is infinite, we may be at any point in time :: Borges 1977

Buy IT

Lifestyle

Consumer reviews

Ethical Consumer

Writing Systems

Magazines and newspapers

According to Michael Ringier, tabloid journalism must be high on emotions, but at the same time informative. Last but not least tabloid journalism must entertain.

Web Tools

Web Links

Reality Mining

Unprecedented data sets about continuous human behaviour. We are collectively annotating the planet.

Imagery Providers

Fonts

Constructing Mental Models

Software for Research

Software for Scenario Planning

Software for the Innovation Process

Information

GNU

Media Law

Patent & Trademark Search

Trademark Violation

On Wednesday, December 15th 2004, a federal judge handed online search engine Google Inc. a victory in the trademark infringement case, ruling that when users searched for insurer GEICO, Google could display rivals as well. Google derives most of its revenue from selling ads that are triggered when visitors to its site search for specific terms such as "Geico low-cost auto insurance." Google reported revenue of $806 million during its most recent quarter. Other online companies who offer comparison-shopping features on their site include Yahoo, eBay and Amazon.com. GEICO, which sells low-cost insurance directly to the public, is one of several companies which have challenged how Google allows competitors to use their trademarked names to generate advertisements linked to the Web sites of rivals. Keyword-searches can be understood as the online equivalent of consumers holding a company's in-store discount coupon electing to buy a rival's product one analyst said. He contrasted that with traditional trademark violations in magazines, in which one advertiser uses an ad to bash the products of a rival.

Copyright

Will

Web Domains

Buy and Sell Domain Names and Websites

Rich Media Marketing Tools

E-mail Marketing Tools

SOS :: Self-Organizing Systems

Better World

Mobile Phones Recycling

Planet Earth

Live Solar System

Relativity

The two basic postulates of special relativity:

Energy

Probably the most famous scientific equation of all time, first derived by Einstein is the relationship E = mc2. This tells us the energy corresponding to a mass m at rest. What this means is that when mass disappears, for example in a nuclear fission process, this amount of energy must appear in some other form. It also tells us the total energy of a particle of mass m sitting at rest. In fact Einstein's relationship tells us more, it says Energy and mass are interchangeable. Or, better said, rest mass is just one form of energy. For a compound object, the mass of the composite is not just the sum of the masses of the constituents but the sum of their energies, including kinetic, potential, and mass energy. The equation E=mc2 shows how to convert between energy units and mass units.

Speed of Light

Ever since Einstein proposed his special theory of relativity in 1905, physicists have accepted as fundamental principle that the speed of light -- 300 million metres per second -- is a constant and that nothing has, or can, travel faster. Recent theories of the origin of the universe -- the "Big Bang"- suggest that very early in the universe's development, its edges were farther apart than light, moving at a constant speed, could possibly have travelled in that time. To explain this, scientists have focused on strange, unknown and as-yet-undiscovered forms of matter that produce gravity that repulses objects. Moffat's theory - that the speed of light at the beginning of time was much faster than it is now - provides an answer to some of these cosmology problems. His theory could also help explain astronomers' discovery last year that the universe's expansion is accelerating. Moffat's paper, co-authored with former U of T researcher Michael Clayton, appeared in a recent edition of the journal Physics Letters.

Planck length

Planck length


 
NERO wearing the Adidog shirt
 
Join Shaping Tomorrow - Anticipate The Future