Year: 2007

This Episode’s Music: BWV 51 Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (Rejoice in God)

Life & Notes2007.12.20
This Episode’s Music: BWV 51 Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen (Rejoice in God)
http://www.elizabethparcells.com/Music/In%20Concert/Cantata%2051%20Bach.mp3 Thanks to God, thanks to Miyan, thanks to Senior Brother, hallelujah—I’ve managed to get hold of a whole Bach complete works set~~ Among Bach’s works, cantatas are the most numerous, so if you play the Bach complete works at random, what you hear is almost always cantatas. Although in general I prefer to listen to purely instrumental music, it’s also nice to listen to vocal music from time to time, such as《Civilization IV》’s medieval soundtrack, and Bach’s cantatas~ At first I wanted to post BWV-1, because when I opened the complete works and listened, it was the very first piece that sent a shiver through me. But I couldn’t…
everyday life God etiquette
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2007年12月20日
Lecture 46 of the Keke Forum: Professor Li Ruiquan of Taiwan on the Ethical Distinction Between Reproductive Cloning and Therapeutic Cloning

History of Science & Scholarship2007.12.19
Lecture 46 of the Keke Forum: Professor Li Ruiquan of Taiwan on the Ethical Distinction Between Reproductive Cloning and Therapeutic Cloning
**Lecture 46 of the KeKe Forum: Professor Li Ruiquan of Taiwan on the Ethical Distinction between Reproductive Cloning and Therapeutic Cloning** **Lecture 46 of the Peking University Forum on the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology** **Time:** Wednesday, December 19, 2007, 3:00–5:00 p.m. **Venue:** Meeting Room, First Floor, Department of Philosophy, Peking University (Fourth Courtyard) **Speaker:** Professor Li Ruiquan (Director, Institute of Philosophy, National Central University, Taiwan) **Topic:** The Ethical Distinction between Reproductive Copying and Therapeutic Copying Today’s lecture was quite interesting. I have read some books on bioethical topics like cloned humans before, and what Mr. Li introduced today was not unfamiliar to me. What was somewhat special…
science Confucianism life
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2007年12月19日
Lecture 45 of the Keke Forum: A Casual Discussion of Transnational Research in the History of Science (December 14)

History of Science & Scholarship2007.12.14
Lecture 45 of the Keke Forum: A Casual Discussion of Transnational Research in the History of Science (December 14)
Peking University Forum on the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Lecture 45 Time: Friday, December 14, 2007, 3:00–5:00 p.m. Venue: Academic Lecture Hall, Ke-She Center, Chengze Garden Speaker: Wang Zuoyue, Associate Professor, Department of History, California Institute of Technology Topic: A Casual Discussion of Transnational Studies in the History of Science Professor Wang’s talk was excellent, but it was not able to turn into the “roundtable discussion” he had hoped for, because everyone knew too little about “transnational history of science”; today we were mainly listening to Professor Wang’s introduction. Remarkably, today’s forum did not even have a “commentator.” Only Professor Wu raised a question that was said…
science history of science history Peking University
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2007年12月14日
Words and Fragments, Episode 5

Philosophy & Thought2007.12.14
Words and Fragments, Episode 5
l In response to someone’s question about how to systematically grasp philosophy of technology: “The introduction to philosophy of technology is not difficult in one sense, because its field is so broad that in fact one can find a doorway into it from any side. Rather than, from the very beginning, pursuing a systematic and comprehensive grasp, it is better to try to identify a point of entry, find the clues, and then follow the vine to find the melon; in this way one can go deeper and deeper. You can begin with any issue you care about—whether it is a classic topic in the history of philosophy, or concern…
philosophy Heidegger language intentionality
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2007年12月14日
On “Quantification”

History of Science & Scholarship2007.12.11
On “Quantification”
What is “quantification”? This word is easy to understand, but it is not at all easy to explain just how the modern worldview has been “quantified.” “Quantification” was certainly not invented by modern science; “quality” and “quantity” are indispensable when human beings observe things, or one could say they are a priori—if we do not regard things in terms of qualitative or quantitative relations, then the world can only be a mass of chaos. Human beings always “partition” this world through quality and quantity, so that the world can be understood and described. Natural history, one might say, takes an approach that emphasizes partitioning by “quality.” At first, people may…
philosophy science history of science mathematics
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2007年12月11日
Tsinghua Philosophy of Science and Technology Salon: What Are Environmental Problems? (December 7)

History of Science & Scholarship2007.12.07
Tsinghua Philosophy of Science and Technology Salon: What Are Environmental Problems? (December 7)
Tsinghua Philosophy of Technology Salon: What Is an Environmental Problem? (December 7) Seventieth Session of the Tsinghua University Salon on Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Technology Topic: What Is an Environmental Problem? Speaker: Professor Liu Chuang (Department of Philosophy, University of Florida, USA) Commentator: Dr. Jiang Jinsong (Associate Professor, Institute for Science, Technology and Society, Tsinghua University) Time: Friday, December 7, 2007, 3:00–5:30 p.m. Venue: Xinzhai 335, Tsinghua University There were many people at this salon this time, and the discussion was quite lively. Still, it always felt as though the discussion was extremely chaotic: everyone had his or her own train of thought, and when asking questions there…
science philosophy of science Industrial Revolution Jiang Jinsong
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2007年12月7日
Reflections on Revisiting an Old Piece

Life & Notes2007.12.07
Reflections on Revisiting an Old Piece
Looking back, I can’t help feeling something about those old pieces. Nearly three years ago now (time really does fly), in the discussions on my blog and in the dorm about “the state” (see https://yilinhut.net/2006/01/05/215.html and the several posts before and after it), in retrospect that round of discussion may have seemed like nothing much, but in fact, for my blog and for the development of my thinking, it was a landmark period with far-reaching influence. At that time I was in the process of deciding to take the academic path (there was no fixed day; this “decision” took place over roughly the six months before and after that point),…
tradition autobiography intellectuals state
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2007年12月7日
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed.: Media Ecology

AI & the Future of Technology2007.12.04
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed.: Media Ecology
[U.S.] Lin Wengang, ed., *Media Ecology: Intellectual Development and Multiple Perspectives*, translated by He Daokuan, Peking University Press, October 2007, 45 yuan This is another book in the Media Ecology translation series, a collection of essays on the development of media ecology. The core of the collection consists of several introductions to figures of major significance in the “intellectual development” of media ecology. The first figure is Mumford, the second is Ellul—there are two essays introducing Ellul, the second of which focuses specifically on his theological perspective. The third figure is Innis; the fourth is McLuhan; the fifth is Neil Postman, and here almost all of Postman’s important works are…
book reading media notes McLuhan
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2007年12月4日
This Issue’s Music: One Piece OP, Jungle P

Life & Notes2007.12.03
This Issue’s Music: One Piece OP, Jungle P
http://podcache.cctv.com/published1/2007/11/23/pub1195778342427.mp3 I’ve posted a few installments of classical music, so it’s about time to change things up once in a while too~ Today, all of a sudden, I had an impulse to post something a bit more stimulating—to lift the spirits, and at the same time give people a little scare. But after thinking it over, I still decided to be a bit more peaceful and go with something moderately so—namely the latest OP of *One Piece* (OP means the opening theme song). I think the lyrics are pretty good. Below I’m posting the lyrics translated by the Fengxue subtitle team: Roam the world’s seas, and shout at the top…
everyday life music anime One Piece
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2007年12月3日
In Praise of the Abacus?

History of Science & Scholarship2007.12.03
In Praise of the Abacus?
Among all the extracurricular skills I learned as a child, abacus counting was by far the most meaningful. The “mental abacus arithmetic” we learned was not just operating an abacus; through long-term training, it was a way of “placing the abacus in the mind” and then doing mental calculation with it. After about two years of training between first and third grade in primary school, three times a day—morning, noon, and evening—even if one did not quite reach the level of a few speed-calculation prodigies, one could at least manage, say, to hear several dozen three- or four-digit numbers in succession, compute their sum, and keep up as fast as…
culture science history of science history
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2007年12月3日