Paul Feyerabend
-
Defending philosophy of science
From Carl Bergstrom’s Twitter thread about a new book called How Irrationality Created Modern Science, by Michael Strevens: The Iron Rule from the book is, in Bergstrom’s retelling, “no use of philosophical reasoning in the mode of Aristotle; no leveraging theological or scriptural understanding in the mode of Descartes. Formal scientific arguments must be sterilised,… Continue reading
-
Good luck with your Maggi
You know when you’re cooking a packet of Maggi noodles in a saucepan, and you haven’t used enough water or don’t move the stuff soon enough from the pan to a plate once it’s done cooking, and you’re basically left with a hot lump of maida stuck to the bottom? That’s 2020. When you cook… Continue reading
-
The real story of ‘The Old Guard’
Spoiler alert: Don’t read this post if you intend to watch The Old Guard but haven’t done so yet. The Old Guard, an action film starring Charlize Theron among others, released on Netflix on July 10. In a scene in the film, Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) delivers two undying men to the CEO of a pharmaceutical… Continue reading
-
The rationalists’ eclipse
The annular solar eclipse over South India on December 26 provided sufficient cause for casual and/or inchoate rationalism to make a rare public appearance – rarer than the average person who had decided to stay indoors for the duration of the event thanks to superstitious beliefs. Scientists and science communicators organised or participated in public… Continue reading
-
The calculus of creative discipline
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building. World-building is dull. World-building literalises the urge to invent. World-building gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). World-building numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it… Continue reading
classical mechanics, creative discipline, critical points, Dan Shechtman, differential calculus, EPR paradox, fantasy fiction, Imre Lakatos, JK Rowling, Karl Popper, literary criticism, M John Harrison, Malazan Book of the Fallen, mathematical analysis, nerdism, Niels Bohr, Paul Feyerabend, Philosophy of Science, quasicrystals, replication crisis, smooth functions, Steven Erikson, Thomas Kuhn, Viriconium, world-building -
The alleged politicisation of science
“Don’t politicise X” has become the defence of choice for a class of scientists and public intellectuals in India whose class and caste privilege utterly blinds them to various inequities in the practice of science – as privilege is wont to do – and who labour with the presumption that these inequities, should they miraculously… Continue reading
-
Some thoughts on the Mack/Dorigo Twitter exchange, and Zivkovic, Feyerabend, etc.
Aspirants flock to role models. The ‘underlying human’ must not jeopardise their conversation by being a dick. Continue reading
-
Can science and philosophy mix constructively?
Quantum mechanics can sometimes be very hard to understand, so much so that even thinking about it becomes difficult. This could be because its foundations lay in the action-centric depiction of reality that slowly rejected its origins and assumed a thought-centric one garb. In his 1925 paper on the topic, physicist Werner Heisenberg used only observable quantities… Continue reading
-
Can science and philosophy mix constructively?
Quantum mechanics can sometimes be very hard to understand, so much so that even thinking about it becomes difficult. This could be because its foundations lay in the action-centric depiction of reality that slowly rejected its origins and assumed a thought-centric one garb. In his 1925 paper on the topic, physicist Werner Heisenberg used only observable quantities… Continue reading
About Me
I’m a science editor and writer in India, interested in high-energy and condensed-matter physics, research misconduct, pseudoscience, science’s relationship with society, epic fantasy, open source/access/knowledge systems, H.R. Giger’s art, Goundamani’s comedy, Factorio, and most things that require a lot of time to get the hang of.