Key Words

I suppose that most of us have key words and concepts that we think are exceptionally valuable in explaining our current understanding of reality. Our keywords change over time. These keywords, below, have been mine for about a decade. Consider what yours are. Share them with me.

Holon
Fractal
Phi (ratio)
Meme
Spin
Vortex
Folding & DNA folding differentiation

What I am exploring is how each of us has keywords in our concepts of reality. It’s interesting to explore the definitions of the words in order to understand how our understanding develops. A particular aspect of my words is that they are applicable to any scale of observation. I did not plan that to be so.

I want to include links to videos that help to briefly explain some of these things. I want to provide a context for beginning to look at these words and related concepts.

Holon
“Holon” is a word developed by Arthur Koestler, the author of “Janus”.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=holon    all “Holon” on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=arthur+koestler all “Arthur Koestler” on YouTube

Fractal
For the word fractal there are some beautiful videos available and I’m linking to one that will be informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbK92bRW2lQ  Hunting the Hidden Dimension (on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=14&v=ay8OMOsf6AQ    Benoit Mandelbrot at TED 2010
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Benoit+Mandelbrot  all “Mandelbrot” on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fractal            all “Fractal” on YouTube

PHI
For the word PHI there are a variety of videos. And I want to just begin to touch it with these videos the importance of this particular ratio and and what can be found in reality that relates to it. Please just ignore any videos that are poor or twisted.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=golden+mean    Videos of the Golden Mean on YouTube

Meme
This word originated with Richard Dawkins in his book “The Selfish Gene”.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=meme

Spin and Vortex
It’s not too strange if I say everything in reality exists in cycles.  That’s the sense of “spin” that I am referring to.  Likewise, it’s not not hard to perceive the intersection of various spins and how eddys and vortexes are formed.  It’s not uncommon to go for a walk on a breezy day and see the winds forming dust-devils, little vortexes holding leaves, dust, snow, etc. And sometime we see huge cyclones and many other vortex forms.

We make decisions based upon whatever is foremost in our minds.
Perhaps that’s how we make all decisions.
So to make the best decisions we need to have the best and broadest things in our minds.

I will add to this post later.

https://transdialectic.wordpress.com/

Challenging Beliefs

People choose to believe many things: a wide variety of things.
Things that are not compatible with each other.
And then defend them with no evidence.
Most folks are offended when they encounter beliefs which are inconsistent with their own beliefs.
Careful arguments are critical for achieving the things we need to learn.
Not arguments simply between people or about people but arguments about ideas.
We need to examine careful histories.
We need to look closely at textual criticisms.
We need to submit our ideas to scrutiny: careful, careful, scrutiny.
It’s never too late to adjust our thinking.