Year: 2007

In the discussion on the teachers’ blogs: On “the freedom to engage in pseudoscience”

History of Science & Scholarship2007.04.07
In the discussion on the teachers’ blogs: On “the freedom to engage in pseudoscience”
http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/485ea8790100063v On “the freedom to do pseudoscience” 2006-12-07 07:42:42 Sima Nan said on TOM: “The real intention behind these people’s demand to delete those three characters from the Science Popularization Law is actually that they want to strive for the freedom to falsify things, the freedom to do pseudoscience.” (December 6, 2006, TOM Technology) Sima Nan’s wording is “the freedom to do pseudoscience”; we can change it a bit and make it “the freedom to do pseudoscience” for discussion, because we know that any freedom is also subject to constraints, and there is no freedom of freedom. What Sima Nan said touches on a very crucial question: do the masses…
science philosophy of science Liu Huajie law
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2007年4月7日
Useless Technology? — Reflections on Mumford’s Philosophy of Technology

AI & the Future of Technology2007.04.05
Useless Technology? — Reflections on Mumford’s Philosophy of Technology
Today’s introduction to philosophy of technology class talked about Mumford, and his views are very interesting. Mumford criticized the traditional account of human origins that says “man is the maker of tools,” replacing it with “man is the maker of symbols/meanings.” He upheld an idealist view of human nature, believing that human needs are first and foremost not material but spiritual. He thought that Maslow’s sequence—from the needs of survival, material provision, and food and clothing, all the way up to the needs for safety, aesthetics, and self-actualization—was exactly backwards: humans first have a need for self-actualization, and within any material need there already permeates a prior spiritual need. Mumford…
philosophy culture technology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2007年4月5日
I Got 100 Weilan Coupons…

Life & Notes2007.04.02
I Got 100 Weilan Coupons…
得到Welan coupon 100 copies…… face value 5 yuan Rules of the promotion： 1、Each voucher may be used for only one order. 2、For orders totaling more than 50 yuan, one voucher may be used. 3、The voucher can be directly deducted from the payment amount, but not from shipping or packaging fees; 4、The voucher is valid until May 30, 2007. I’ll post 10 of them here first; anyone who wants to use them, feel free~ 1799678064195453 1799766187828320 1799809110061023 1799817055143048 1799878425678184 1799903896326215 1800100620653568 1800108918035575 1800177376208312 1800268733122426 It’s best to access Welan via the following URL: http://www.welan.com/union/rec.asp?id=11592 That way I can get a little kickback~~ Latest comments Yiwu 2007-04-02 22:17:25 Forget it.
everyday life
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2007年4月2日
Yang Shoujian: “A Critique of Academic Corruption in China,” 1st edition, Tianjin People’s Publishing House, February 2001, 16 yuan

History of Science & Scholarship2007.04.02
Yang Shoujian: “A Critique of Academic Corruption in China,” 1st edition, Tianjin People’s Publishing House, February 2001, 16 yuan
Yang Shoujian: Critique of Academic Corruption in China, Tianjin People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, February 2001, 16 yuan The academic world is by no means an earthly paradise; rather, it is a truly filthy and sordid place, a gathering spot for swindlers, plagiarists, and robbers. I had in fact already been fairly clear-eyed about this, but when I read many of the cases, I was still shocked. Take, for example, Wang Tongyi’s so-called Language Encyclopedia, which has been praised as a collection of jokes and is enough to make one laugh out loud: (Wang Tongyi styled himself the “Dictionary King”; over 10 years he edited 25 dictionaries totaling 170 million…
philosophy book reading China notes
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2007年4月2日
April Fool’s Day…

Life & Notes2007.04.01
April Fool’s Day…
Who can tell a lie that can really shock me? I remember that the mildest but most effective lie people used to tell all the time was: “Your shoelace is untied.” Even if the other person was on full guard, they would usually still look down once. A slightly sleazier but based on the same principle one is “Your zipper is down” (only works on guys). It triggers an instinctive reaction; no matter how alert you are, in general you still can’t help glancing down at it~ Legend has it that some Western TV station once broadcast fake news of a Martian invasion on April Fool’s Day, and the result…
everyday life rumor humor
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2007年4月1日
Planting Trees and Reforesting Is Not as Good as Preserving Wasteland

Culture & Public Commentary2007.03.31
Planting Trees and Reforesting Is Not as Good as Preserving Wasteland
At the time of Arbor Day, I had finished listening to the Keke Forum and was about to write this piece, but after jotting down a title, for some reason I put it aside and forgot about it… A while ago I saw a news item about a “barren mountain painted green” incident, saying that somewhere they had smeared an entire barren mountain with paint and counted that as greening; it really was laughable. Later I heard that this was all because of “feng shui.” Actually, if one really planted trees out of feng shui concerns, that would instead be a very good thing! I think if you rummaged through…
culture China tradition environment
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2007年3月31日
Reposted from the Department Version: Should a World-Class University Prioritize Academic Research or Teaching?

History of Science & Scholarship2007.03.27
Reposted from the Department Version: Should a World-Class University Prioritize Academic Research or Teaching?
… March 30 18:00—18:50 Pro: School of Mathematics and Statistics — To build a world-class university, academic research should come first Con: Philosophy — To build a world-class university, education and teaching should come first ______________________________________________________________________________ … … … Sender: EPR (Jingzhong), Group: Philo Title: Re: Schedule for the semifinals (please pin this) (reposted) Station: Peking University Weiming BBS (Tuesday, March 27, 2007 15:21:52), internal message Of course a university should prioritize education; the people in a university are called “professors” and “lecturers,” so if they neither teach nor lecture, what are they for? But then one doesn’t know what the administrators in a university are for; it seems as…
philosophy scholarship education intellectuals
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2007年3月27日
The Classic 28-Inch Bicycle

Life & Notes2007.03.25
The Classic 28-Inch Bicycle
Since the start of the semester I have been in a no-bike state: the battered old28 was finally stolen away (the lock had broken and I had ignored it all along, until at last it could not get through the year-end after all…), and if I wanted to buy a brand-new old28, I would need to make an appointment more than two weeks in advance—because that old-fashioned model is no longer produced in large numbers. This model is old-fashioned to the extreme: seehttp://www.cnforever.com/zjyj/i_5_09.htm In May 1962, in order to better meet the performance requirements for load-carrying, and to produce bicycles for the broad masses of peasant friends that met their…
everyday life culture technology
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2007年3月25日
Form Is Emptiness, Emptiness Is Form (Old Post)

Philosophy & Thought2007.03.24
Form Is Emptiness, Emptiness Is Form (Old Post)
This article was a small paper for Teacher Shangzhou’s “Selected Readings in Buddhist Original Texts” course back then, but I felt it was written awkwardly and in a complete mess, and I was too embarrassed to post it on my blog at the time. However, looking at it now, since my blog already has plenty of lousy text, one more piece of that sort hardly matters. I had originally been quite interested in Buddhism and Buddhist studies. Besides being deeply impressed by the philosophical depth of Primitive Buddhism (atheistic Buddhism), I was also rather interested in Tibetan esoteric Buddhism. Back then I found a number of audio recordings of…
book reading notes Buddhism
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2007年3月24日
I am the man who will become the Pirate King!

Life & Notes2007.03.24
I am the man who will become the Pirate King!
I Am the Man Who Is Going to Become the Pirate King! The One Piece anime has already reached episode 300. I only started watching it over this winter break, and I watched the more than 200 previous episodes and several theatrical films in one go. Of course, it is a very good anime. The first 200-odd episodes are the most exciting, especially the first few dozen. And like other very long anime series, the further it goes, the more the plot begins to feel drawn out, and the tension of the story lessens and less. This is probably due to the interference of commercialization. But I am still full…
philosophy freedom autobiography pursuit
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2007年3月24日