- http://www.jimenacanales.orgedit
Before the name Albert Einstein become synonymous with genius, an obscure professor of physics labored away for many years rewriting the laws of physics. He had only been moderately successful, managing to gain the respect of his peers... more
Before the name Albert Einstein become synonymous with genius, an obscure professor of physics labored away for many years rewriting the laws of physics. He had only been moderately successful, managing to gain the respect of his peers and climbing the academic ladder. After more than a decade, he finally received the recognition he craved. When British astronomers came back from the solar eclipse expedition of 1919 and analyzed what they saw that day, they confirmed his revolutionary hypothesis. The expedition members eagerly announced to the scientific community and the press that they had caught light bending in ways that could be perfectly explained with his new theory. The following day, newspapers ran the story of a rebellious prodigy who had dethroned Newton by arguing that that the universe was four-dimensional, that time and space were no longer absolute, and that they could shrink and expand in usual ways. The news set experts and the public alike abuzz with excitement, opening up new puzzles and paradoxes. For the rest of his life, Einstein dedicated himself to forging a new place for science in society. Privately, he struggled to fit within an oversized public persona which haunted his friendships, love life, and contributions to science. Brilliant, ambitious, and insecure, Einstein remains to this day the ultimate representative of genius.
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The glass of science is half empty. Researchers across the globe are fixated on all that we do not know yet. Everyonce in a while, progress arrives. Ah ha! Something clicks in someone’s head. Everything falls into place. The result is... more
The glass of science is half empty. Researchers across the globe are fixated on all that we do not know yet. Everyonce in a while, progress
arrives. Ah ha! Something clicks in someone’s head. Everything
falls into place. The result is nothing short of magical. The gap between knowledge and imagination is not as inscrutable as it has been made to appear. It is consequential long after the moment when these
first ideas evaporate and practical concerns take over.
By previewing a world of wonders long before the curtains are drawn
and the show begins, we can sit in on the rehearsal of our own scientific
and technological future. The antechamber of discovery is a place where
ideas are forged before they see the light of day. It is the incubator that
shapes science before it is tested. When the spectacle of our achievements
includes the trials and tribulations that led to them, knowledge
looks different.
arrives. Ah ha! Something clicks in someone’s head. Everything
falls into place. The result is nothing short of magical. The gap between knowledge and imagination is not as inscrutable as it has been made to appear. It is consequential long after the moment when these
first ideas evaporate and practical concerns take over.
By previewing a world of wonders long before the curtains are drawn
and the show begins, we can sit in on the rehearsal of our own scientific
and technological future. The antechamber of discovery is a place where
ideas are forged before they see the light of day. It is the incubator that
shapes science before it is tested. When the spectacle of our achievements
includes the trials and tribulations that led to them, knowledge
looks different.
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The relation between the physicist Albert Einstein and Henri Poincaré has been one of the most scrutinized episodes in the history of science.This chapter argues that the relationship of both men to the philosopher Henri Bergson is key to... more
The relation between the physicist Albert Einstein and Henri Poincaré has been one of the most scrutinized episodes in the history of science.This chapter argues that the relationship of both men to the philosopher Henri Bergson is key to understanding their differences.
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On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. Einstein considered Bergson’s theory of time to be a soft, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics.... more
On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. Einstein considered Bergson’s theory of time to be a soft, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics. Bergson, who gained fame as a philosopher by arguing that time should not be understood exclusively through the lens of science, criticized Einstein’s theory of time for being a metaphysics grafted on to science, one that ignored the intuitive aspects of time. The Physicist and the Philosopher tells the remarkable story of how this explosive debate transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today.
Jimena Canales introduces readers to the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, describes how they dramatically collided in Paris, and traces how this clash of worldviews reverberated across the twentieth century. She shows how it provoked responses from figures such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, and carried repercussions for American pragmatism, logical positivism, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics. Canales explains how the new technologies of the period—such as wristwatches, radio, and film—helped to shape people’s conceptions of time and further polarized the public debate. She also discusses how Bergson and Einstein, toward the end of their lives, each reflected on his rival’s legacy—Bergson during the Nazi occupation of Paris and Einstein in the context of the first hydrogen bomb explosion.
The Physicist and the Philosopher reveals how scientific truth was placed on trial in a divided century marked by a new sense of time.
Jimena Canales introduces readers to the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, describes how they dramatically collided in Paris, and traces how this clash of worldviews reverberated across the twentieth century. She shows how it provoked responses from figures such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, and carried repercussions for American pragmatism, logical positivism, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics. Canales explains how the new technologies of the period—such as wristwatches, radio, and film—helped to shape people’s conceptions of time and further polarized the public debate. She also discusses how Bergson and Einstein, toward the end of their lives, each reflected on his rival’s legacy—Bergson during the Nazi occupation of Paris and Einstein in the context of the first hydrogen bomb explosion.
The Physicist and the Philosopher reveals how scientific truth was placed on trial in a divided century marked by a new sense of time.
In the late fifteenth century, clocks acquired minute hands. A century later, second hands appeared. But it wasn’t until the 1850s that instruments could recognize a tenth of a second, and, once they did, the impact on modern science and... more
In the late fifteenth century, clocks acquired minute hands. A century later, second hands appeared. But it wasn’t until the 1850s that instruments could recognize a tenth of a second, and, once they did, the impact on modern science and society was profound. Revealing the history behind this infinitesimal interval, A Tenth of a Second sheds new light on modernity and illuminates the work of important thinkers of the last two centuries.
Tracing debates about the nature of time, causality, and free will, as well as the introduction of modern technologies—telegraphy, photography, cinematography—Jimena Canales locates the reverberations of this “perceptual moment” throughout culture. Once scientists associated the tenth of a second with the speed of thought, they developed reaction time experiments with lasting implications for experimental psychology, physiology, and optics. Astronomers and physicists struggled to control the profound consequences of results that were a tenth of a second off. And references to the interval were part of a general inquiry into time, consciousness, and sensory experience that involved rethinking the contributions of Descartes and Kant.
Considering its impact on much longer time periods and featuring appearances by Henri Bergson, Walter Benjamin, and Albert Einstein, among others, A Tenth of a Second is ultimately an important contribution to history and a novel perspective on modernity.
Tracing debates about the nature of time, causality, and free will, as well as the introduction of modern technologies—telegraphy, photography, cinematography—Jimena Canales locates the reverberations of this “perceptual moment” throughout culture. Once scientists associated the tenth of a second with the speed of thought, they developed reaction time experiments with lasting implications for experimental psychology, physiology, and optics. Astronomers and physicists struggled to control the profound consequences of results that were a tenth of a second off. And references to the interval were part of a general inquiry into time, consciousness, and sensory experience that involved rethinking the contributions of Descartes and Kant.
Considering its impact on much longer time periods and featuring appearances by Henri Bergson, Walter Benjamin, and Albert Einstein, among others, A Tenth of a Second is ultimately an important contribution to history and a novel perspective on modernity.
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Science is much more than a mere procedure for testing hypotheses: it is also a process that permits new things (think of anesthesia, antibiotics, vaccines or nuclear energy) to enter into our world. That aspect of science is an integral... more
Science is much more than a mere procedure for testing hypotheses: it is also a process that permits new things (think of anesthesia, antibiotics, vaccines or nuclear energy) to enter into our world. That aspect of science is an integral part of our history, arguably its most important side, because the changes it brings about are what makes history, leading us to reevaluate the future and the past. Scientists stand outside the boundaries of the real when they push against it.
Imaginings with the power to become real alter our world in unsuspected ways, catching even the researchers themselves by surprise. But fear not the world of the scientific imagination: it is very much unlike the free-for-all universe of unreason feared by Enlightenment reformers, but one with a long tradition composed of main characters, lesser players, and tried and trusted plots. As such, it is not equivalent to everything that does not exist. The rabbit hole is not as deep as it may first appeared. Its contents offer us a preview into a world of science long before the curtains are drawn and the show begins, permitting us to enjoy the rehearsal of our own technological future.
Imaginings with the power to become real alter our world in unsuspected ways, catching even the researchers themselves by surprise. But fear not the world of the scientific imagination: it is very much unlike the free-for-all universe of unreason feared by Enlightenment reformers, but one with a long tradition composed of main characters, lesser players, and tried and trusted plots. As such, it is not equivalent to everything that does not exist. The rabbit hole is not as deep as it may first appeared. Its contents offer us a preview into a world of science long before the curtains are drawn and the show begins, permitting us to enjoy the rehearsal of our own technological future.
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Art in the age of CAPTCHA is a call to a different kind of creative action, one aimed at amplifying the near-silent echo of transformations that interpellate us in coded, abstract, and rarefied ways. Because they have no boundaries, these... more
Art in the age of CAPTCHA is a call to a different kind of creative action, one aimed at amplifying the near-silent echo of transformations that interpellate us in coded, abstract, and rarefied ways. Because they have no boundaries, these changes defy categorization in terms of disciplines. They stump traditional explanations based on longstanding conventions of rational discourse where they are seen as too minor to be taken seriously. They escape the attention of humanists as much as scientists. Yet it is through them that we can see how some of the most important metaphysical boundaries of our age, such as that between humans and machines, and art and artifice, are created and sustained.
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j i m e n a c a n a l es In 1958, an experimental subject reported the following observation: It was as if I was looking into very deep water and seeing deep green coral or a coiled octopus in dark green and white—very deep. This stuff... more
j i m e n a c a n a l es In 1958, an experimental subject reported the following observation: It was as if I was looking into very deep water and seeing deep green coral or a coiled octopus in dark green and white—very deep. This stuff streaming out from the centre is just surface thought, but this was a deep thought. It impressed me a good deal psychologically like Jung's image—it has intrinsic signifi cance or archetypal quality. The marble is deep; the ferns are deeper, but this was miles underneath it all.. .. A very unusual effect. It started as centrifugal motion, then the nucleus began to have an odd look and a little irregular snowfl ake began to form at " marble " depth and this grew and fi lled the whole fi eld with salmon-pink ground bearing repeated identical irregular snow-fl akes. These then all melted into the impression of a THING! These small snowfl akes melted into one large snowfl ake which became alive; it turned into a living creature—slightly eeri...
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... Strobe. Citable link to this page. Title: A Number of Scenes in a Badly Cut Film: Observation in the Age of Strobe. Author: Canales, Jimena Note: Order does not reflect citation order of authors. Citation: Canales, Jimena. 2011. A ...
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How are fundamental constants, such as "c" for the speed of light, related to the technological environments that produce them? Relativistic cosmology, developed first by Albert Einstein, depended on military and commercial... more
How are fundamental constants, such as "c" for the speed of light, related to the technological environments that produce them? Relativistic cosmology, developed first by Albert Einstein, depended on military and commercial innovations in telecommunications. Prominent physicists (Hans Reichenbach, Max Born, Paul Langevin, Louis de Broglie, and Léon Brillouin, among others) worked in radio units during WWI and incorporated battlefield lessons into their research. Relativity physicists, working at the intersection of physics and optics by investigating light and electricity, responded to new challenges by developing a novel scientific framework. Ideas about lengths and solid bodies were overhauled because the old Newtonian mechanics assumed the possibility of "instantaneous signaling at a distance." Einstein's universe, where time and space dilated, where the shortest path between two points was often curved and non-Euclidean, followed the rules of electromagne...
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In 2014, an estimated average of 1.8 billion digital images were uploaded to computers every single day. This number was only a small percentage of the approximately 700 billion photos taken by humans that year. Historically, these... more
In 2014, an estimated average of 1.8 billion digital images were uploaded to computers every single day. This number was only a small percentage of the approximately 700 billion photos taken by humans that year. Historically, these quantities are unprecedented, as “every two minutes, humans take more photos than ever existed in total 150 years ago”. Yet they are miniscule when compared to the number of photographs taken by machines, recorded by security cameras, CCTV systems, aerial cameras, and satellites. This vast transformation in contemporary visual culture has not only affected what most humans see on a daily basis and what we consider to be true, but, more importantly, they have changed how we think about ourselves and our existence in the universe. Accounts of our modern condition rarely include the role played by recording instruments in its formation. Their absence is stark, especially in comparison to how central these instruments are to advanced technological cultures. If we reintegrate them into our accounts of the modern world, we can see how an orthodox understanding of scientific knowledge and of reality depended on the setting aside of the apparatus from nature and culture.
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La visite d’Albert Einstein à Paris en 1922 a reçu une attention considérable de la part de nombreux historiens. La relation du physicien avec les scientifiques français, en particulier Henri Poincaré, a également été largement examinée.... more
La visite d’Albert Einstein à Paris en 1922 a reçu une attention considérable de la part de nombreux historiens. La relation du physicien avec les scientifiques français, en particulier Henri Poincaré, a également été largement examinée. Mon livre récent, The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson and the Experiment that Changed Our Understanding of Time, a traité ces sujets en profondeur. Le texte qui suit (qui comprend des extraits du livre ainsi que des recherches supplémentaires) met en évidence certains des aspects les plus importants de la visite d’Einstein qui ont été ignorés par la recherche précédente et explore ses répercussions de grande envergure. De ce point de vue nouveau, intime et quotidien, nous pouvons comprendre les divisions beaucoup plus grandes qui se sont répercutées sur le reste du XXe siècle et qui ont intensifié la fracture entre les sciences et les sciences humaines jusqu’à ce jour.
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The first decades of the twentieth century were marked by two revolutionary scientific accomplishments, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, with repercussions still felt today. Relativity theory and quantum mechanics became... more
The first decades of the twentieth century were marked by two revolutionary scientific accomplishments, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, with repercussions still felt today. Relativity theory and quantum mechanics became the two most important branches of "Modern Physics" that emerged as an alternative to "Classical Physics" (a term often used interchangeably with that of "Newtonian" or "Galilean" physics). No field of science (from astronomy to the life sciences), no field of knowledge (from philosophy to sociology), and no artistic practice (from architecture to the fine arts) was left untouched by these investigations into the nature of our physical universe. For many observers far and near, modern physics became a catalyst for much that was new about the modern world.
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“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” remarked Neil Armstrong, as he stepped on the surface of the moon for the first time. The average length of a stride remains fixed on Earth at approximately 74 cm, as on the... more
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” remarked Neil Armstrong, as he stepped on the surface of the moon for the first time. The average length of a stride remains fixed on Earth at approximately 74 cm, as on the moon’s surface. Measurements of length are some of the sturdiest, uncontestable facts available to us. But what kind of facts are they? Identical lengths can sometimes appear to be strikingly different. The distance between the master’s and the servant’s room, or West and East Jerusalem appears much greater than when their separation is simply expressed in numbers. What is distance? How do we know distances? What does our knowledge about distances tell us, and what does it lack? To help us conquer distances we need a new concept for it and for the technologies designed to overcome them. We need a new understanding that encompasses at least three entangled dimensions simultaneously: the psychological, the physical, and the philosophical. For lack of a better term, we may tentatively describe this new concept as phyphipsycoanlytical.
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Lines of code etched on silicon hardware have painful histories, with as much drama as ours. This chatbot generation's ills are minor compared to those once faced by Eliza. Their struggle mirrors that faced by '60s generation feminists... more
Lines of code etched on silicon hardware have painful histories, with as much drama as ours. This chatbot generation's ills are minor compared to those once faced by Eliza. Their struggle mirrors that faced by '60s generation feminists compared to today's millennials. These well-funded prima donnas just don't get how good they have it.
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"The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed," is an often-quoted line from the brilliant science-fiction writer William Gibson. Gibson's phrase is usually read as a commentary about the uneven access to technology and... more
"The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed," is an often-quoted line from the brilliant science-fiction writer William Gibson. Gibson's phrase is usually read as a commentary about the uneven access to technology and unequal distribution of resources in the modern world. But it rings true in another sense too: The future creeps into our lives without us noticing it. The most successful technologies are so seductive, so user friendly, and so apparently innocuous that we scarcely notice them coming into our lives.
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Mechanical reproduction is therefore not only more alive than biological reproduction has ever been, it is also more sacred. Photographs are only records when they fit with an unconscious view of the past that we long for. Vision becomes... more
Mechanical reproduction is therefore not only more alive than biological reproduction has ever been, it is also more sacred. Photographs are only records when they fit with an unconscious view of the past that we long for. Vision becomes optics when it operates at this unconscious level. When we look at old photographs, we trust them more than our memory. But it is the mismatch between the two that leads us to look at them in the first place. It is why we go back and look at them again and again. Compared to our memories, old photographs seem imperfect and insufficient. The difference between the two drives our search for even better devices for recording and reproduction. Our hope is that new machines will one day record the future that we remember.
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El 6 de abril de 1922, Henri Bergson y Albert Einstein se encontraron en la sociedad francesa de filosofía donde Einstein fue invitado a presentar su famosa teoría de la relatividad. El filósofo y el físico sorprendieron al público al... more
El 6 de abril de 1922, Henri Bergson y Albert Einstein se encontraron en la sociedad francesa de filosofía donde Einstein fue invitado a presentar su famosa teoría de la relatividad. El filósofo y el físico sorprendieron al público al entrar en una dura disputa sobre la naturaleza del tiempo y el
poder de la ciencia. Comúnmente se afirma que durante su confrontación Bergson perdió ante el joven físico; Comentaristas posteriores communmente han afirmado que Bergson cometió un error esencial porque no comprendió la física de la relatividad. Su debate ejemplificó la victoria del racionalismo contra la intuición. Fue un momento clave que demostró que habían intelectuales (como Bergson) que eran incapaces de mantenerse al tanto de las revoluciones en la ciencia. Para los físicos Alan Sokal y Jean Bricmont, los “orígenes históricos” de la “guerras de la ciencia”
[Science Wars] están en el fatídico encuentro entre Einstein y Bergson. Desde entonces, ellos
vieron cómo se difundía un malestar constante en el bergsonismo –recientemente alcanzó a
“Deleuze, después de pasar por Jankelevitch y Merleau-Ponty”.
poder de la ciencia. Comúnmente se afirma que durante su confrontación Bergson perdió ante el joven físico; Comentaristas posteriores communmente han afirmado que Bergson cometió un error esencial porque no comprendió la física de la relatividad. Su debate ejemplificó la victoria del racionalismo contra la intuición. Fue un momento clave que demostró que habían intelectuales (como Bergson) que eran incapaces de mantenerse al tanto de las revoluciones en la ciencia. Para los físicos Alan Sokal y Jean Bricmont, los “orígenes históricos” de la “guerras de la ciencia”
[Science Wars] están en el fatídico encuentro entre Einstein y Bergson. Desde entonces, ellos
vieron cómo se difundía un malestar constante en el bergsonismo –recientemente alcanzó a
“Deleuze, después de pasar por Jankelevitch y Merleau-Ponty”.
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Privately, Groves considered the physicists he employed in Los Alamos as “the greatest bunch of prima donnas ever seen in one place.” Yet these men would be crowned as the intellectual fathers of a life-saving bomb to the exclusion of... more
Privately, Groves considered the physicists he employed in Los Alamos as “the greatest bunch of prima donnas ever seen in one place.” Yet these men would be crowned as the intellectual fathers of a life-saving bomb to the exclusion of their colleagues and the numerous radiation victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a great story, one that turned a handful of physicists into heroes and geniuses and erased the bomb’s links to previously outlawed weapons of mass destruction.
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Point, click, and scroll. Are these natural ways of signaling, communicating, and navigating? Or are they advanced cultural techniques used to navigate our networked world? You probably point, click, and scroll while browsing the Web with... more
Point, click, and scroll. Are these natural ways of signaling, communicating, and navigating? Or are they advanced cultural techniques used to navigate our networked world? You probably point, click, and scroll while browsing the Web with Safari, Firefox, or Chrome. You may have previously used Netscape and Explorer. You might remember Mosaic—the first widely used point-and-click interface to the internet.
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Interfaces are strange entities. In one sense, they are quite new. The modern meaning of the word “interface,” referring to “a means or place of interaction between two systems,” dates only as back as the 1960s and is tightly connected to... more
Interfaces are strange entities. In one sense, they are quite new. The modern meaning of the word “interface,” referring to “a means or place of interaction between two systems,” dates only as back as the 1960s and is tightly connected to the increase use of computers. But in another sense, interfaces have always been around. Handles, knobs, keys, windows, and screens we routinely use to step into or peer into different worlds can be considered interfaces. Through them, we can gain access to a portal, cross a threshold, or simply peer into a different space while at a safe distance. We might look for them in places were flesh meets metal, but their real benefits reside in removing any sense of contact so that interactions are as seamless as possible. Interfaces are generally overlooked: a good one is defined by its very unobtrusiveness (its userfriendly quality). Although interactions through interfaces have long played prominent roles in fairytales and myths, it is only recently that contemporary scholars have started to focus on them in order to fully understand social and material relations around us. Why? Interfaces are often needed to begin an action. We employ them to set off a chain of related effects somewhere else. Interfaces can transform minor movements (left or right, up or down, open or close, click or unclick) into decisive actions. But they are also what make us feel less free.
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"Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française", Vol XXIV, No 2 (2016), p. 221-258. Curated by Mark William Westmoreland with Brien Karas (Villanova University, USA) Featuring... more
"Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française", Vol XXIV, No 2 (2016), p. 221-258.
Curated by Mark William Westmoreland with Brien Karas (Villanova University, USA)
Featuring Jimena Canales (University of Illinois-UC, USA), Stephen Crocker (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada), Charlotte De Mille (The Courtauld Gallery, UK), Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University, USA), Michael Foley (University of Westminster, UK), Hisashi Fujita (Kyushu Sangyo University, Japan), Suzanne Guerlac (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Melissa McMahon (Independent Scholar, Australia), Paulina Ochoa Espejo (Haverford College, USA), and Frédéric Worms (L’École Normale Supérieure, France)
Curated by Mark William Westmoreland with Brien Karas (Villanova University, USA)
Featuring Jimena Canales (University of Illinois-UC, USA), Stephen Crocker (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada), Charlotte De Mille (The Courtauld Gallery, UK), Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University, USA), Michael Foley (University of Westminster, UK), Hisashi Fujita (Kyushu Sangyo University, Japan), Suzanne Guerlac (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Melissa McMahon (Independent Scholar, Australia), Paulina Ochoa Espejo (Haverford College, USA), and Frédéric Worms (L’École Normale Supérieure, France)
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Bergson(ism) Remembered: A Roundtable Curated by Mark William Westmoreland with Brien Karas (Villanova University, USA) Featuring Jimena Canales (University of Illinois-UC, USA), Stephen Crocker (Memorial University of Newfoundland,... more
Bergson(ism) Remembered: A Roundtable
Curated by Mark William Westmoreland with Brien Karas (Villanova University, USA)
Featuring Jimena Canales (University of Illinois-UC, USA), Stephen Crocker (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada), Charlotte De Mille (The Courtauld Gallery, UK), Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University, USA), Michael Foley (University of Westminster, UK), Hisashi Fujita (Kyushu Sangyo University, Japan), Suzanne Guerlac (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Melissa McMahon (Independent Scholar, Australia), Paulina Ochoa Espejo (Haverford College, USA), and Frédéric Worms (L’École Normale Supérieure, France)
Curated by Mark William Westmoreland with Brien Karas (Villanova University, USA)
Featuring Jimena Canales (University of Illinois-UC, USA), Stephen Crocker (Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada), Charlotte De Mille (The Courtauld Gallery, UK), Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University, USA), Michael Foley (University of Westminster, UK), Hisashi Fujita (Kyushu Sangyo University, Japan), Suzanne Guerlac (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Melissa McMahon (Independent Scholar, Australia), Paulina Ochoa Espejo (Haverford College, USA), and Frédéric Worms (L’École Normale Supérieure, France)
Research Interests: History, Cultural Studies, Physics, French Literature, Philosophy, and 17 moreMetaphysics, Aesthetics, Political Philosophy, Epistemology, Art History, Technology, Translation Studies, Social Sciences, History of Science, Political Science, Continental Philosophy, United Nations, Contemporary French Philosophy, Biology, Henri Bergson, Democracy, and Bergson
Carl Sagan spoke too soon when he spoke about demons. Modern science, he told his numerous followers, banished witches, demons and other such creatures from this world. Simply spread flour on the floor and check for suspicious... more
Carl Sagan spoke too soon when he spoke about demons. Modern science, he told his numerous followers, banished witches, demons and other such creatures from this world. Simply spread flour on the floor and check for suspicious footprints—this kind of reasoning, he claimed in The Demon-Haunted World, characterizes sound, scientific thinking. So why is Maxwell's demon still on the frontlines of science? Since he was first conjured in 1874, modern day inquisitors have valiantly chased after him with math and physics instead of holy water. But rather than going the way of the phlogiston and the ether, he has emerged unscathed and is now a fixture in standard physics textbooks. Lest you think he is real, let me tell you he is not. But a demon he is in spades. He sorts, and sorting is at the origin of sorcery. Neat-fingered and vigilant, he can reverse time, momentarily violate the second law of thermodynamics, power a perpetual motion machine, and generate pockets of hellish heat in substances that should otherwise reach temperature equilibrium. His smarts are debatable, matching those of a virtuoso piano player or those of a humble switchman on railway tracks. No offense is taken if he is compared to a simple valve. On the contrary, it means he can do a lot of work with minimum effort. Frequently portrayed as holding a cricket bat (to send molecules to-and-fro), manning a trapdoor (to let them pass or keep them out) and holding a torch, a flashlight or a photocell (to be able to see in the dark), this miniscule leviathan can wreak havoc. He was named after the Scottish scientist James-Clerk Maxwell, known for his theory of electromagnetism, by his colleague William Thomson (aka Lord Kelvin). Almost immediately after his public debut, he was exorcized. Sightings of his demonic activity were brushed away as statistical anomalies or insignificantly tiny—no need to worry, we were told. But science can, and often does, turn imaginary beings into real things.
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Almost nobody noticed. On New Year’s Day 1972, every second of every official clock was “shortened” by a small but significant amount. The velocity of the earth was slowing, and scientists needed clock-time to reflect this delay. By the... more
Almost nobody noticed. On New Year’s Day 1972, every second of every official clock was “shortened” by a small but significant amount. The velocity of the earth was slowing, and scientists needed clock-time to reflect this delay. By the last decades of the twentieth century, atomic clocks had improved so much that the scientific community in charge of timekeeping felt confident to base time measurements on them. In consequence, they authorized a change in the length of every subsequent second till kingdom come.
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We can hardly imagine a world without recording devices. From photography to cinema, from phonographs to MP3 technologies, from bulky apparatuses to miniature ones—they have indelibly changed our history as much as our selves. Can the... more
We can hardly imagine a world without recording devices. From photography to cinema, from phonographs to MP3 technologies, from bulky apparatuses to miniature ones—they have indelibly changed our history as much as our selves. Can the surface of a cave, used in some of the earliest human drawings, be considered a “recording device”? Since their inception, these instruments have changed how we have thought of the most intimate aspects of our private identities and our communities to the most public ones. Recently, recording devices have led us to reconsider some of the central foundations of the law and ethics in step with rapid transformations in the nature of evidence, privacy, and reproduction rights. Why did a growing number of researchers, starting in the middle of the 19th century, develop and use instruments to automatically record natural phenomena? Motivations were varied and the adoption of recording devices was not uncontested. Different scientists highlighted different benefits for each instrument, depending on what disciplines they came from and what particular research practices they supported. By the twentieth century recording devices were so widely used in scientific laboratories that Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar estimated that researchers “spend two-thirds of their time working with large inscription devises.”
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Jimena Canales: Because gravity waves are neither sound waves nor light waves, and thus cannot be heard or seen, scientists have to choose a close sensorial analogy for them. If we could picture the sense of taste as a spectrum going from... more
Jimena Canales: Because gravity waves are neither sound waves nor light waves, and thus cannot be heard or seen, scientists have to choose a close sensorial analogy for them. If we could picture the sense of taste as a spectrum going from sour to salty, a gravity wave would start neutral, then oscillate between bitter, umami, and sweet before reaching peaks of sour and salty and then dying off.
Lee Smolin: I'm open to the idea of tasting gravity waves, but not yet convinced. I am mildly synesthetic, in that I see colors when listening to music, but my sense of taste is not part of it. So I don't immediately "resonate" with the idea of what a chirp (oscillations of increasing amplitude and frequency) followed by a moment of chaos and then a ring-down would taste like. Perhaps the taste and then after taste of a good wine—but that also doesn't seem to fully match.
Lee Smolin: I'm open to the idea of tasting gravity waves, but not yet convinced. I am mildly synesthetic, in that I see colors when listening to music, but my sense of taste is not part of it. So I don't immediately "resonate" with the idea of what a chirp (oscillations of increasing amplitude and frequency) followed by a moment of chaos and then a ring-down would taste like. Perhaps the taste and then after taste of a good wine—but that also doesn't seem to fully match.
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Does a privileged frame of reference exist? Part of Einstein’s success consisted in eliminating Bergson’s objections to relativity theory, which were con- sonant with those of the most important scientists who had worked on the topic:... more
Does a privileged frame of reference exist? Part of Einstein’s success consisted in eliminating Bergson’s objections to relativity theory, which were con- sonant with those of the most important scientists who had worked on the topic: Henri Poincaré, Hendrik Lorentz and Albert A. Michelson. In the early decades of the century, Bergson’s fame, prestige and influence surpassed that of the physicist. Once considered as one of the most renowned intellectuals of his era and an author- ity on the nature of time, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010) does not even include him under the entry of “time.” How was it possible to write off from history a figure that was once so prominent? Through an analysis of behind-the- scenes of science correspondence, this article traces the ascendance of Einstein's views of time at the expense of Bergson’s.
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A drone, in the traditional sense of the word, is “one who avoids work at the expense of others.” The term derives from the Old English root of dran or dron used for male honeybees, whose primary role is to mate. But it is always unclear,... more
A drone, in the traditional sense of the word, is “one who avoids work at the expense of others.” The term derives from the Old English root of dran or dron used for male honeybees, whose primary role is to mate. But it is always unclear, when it comes to drones, who works on behalf of whom. Soon after WWII, the word started acquiring a new meaning. Planes controlled “by means of electro-magnetic waves” were referred to as drones.
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El 6 de abril de 1922 Einstein detonó un debate histórico en París gracias a una frase insólita: “El tiempo de los filósofos no existe.” Entre el público se encontraba Henri Bergson, célebre filósofo comúnmente considerado una autoridad... more
El 6 de abril de 1922 Einstein detonó un debate histórico en París gracias a una frase insólita: “El tiempo de los filósofos no existe.” Entre el público se encontraba Henri Bergson, célebre filósofo comúnmente considerado una autoridad en lo concerniente al tiempo. Bergson no perdonaría a Einstein el comentario y en los años venideros se volvería uno de sus peores enemigos. En una reunión ampliamente publicitada en París, el filósofo Bergson felicitó al físico Einstein por haber descubierto una teoría impresionante –la famosa teoría de la relatividad–pero le reprochó haber olvidado todos los otros aspectos del tiempo que, aunque inútiles matemáticamente, permanecen esenciales para nosotros. Se horrorizó al ver una teoría científica que ignoraba por qué unos momentos nos importan mas que otros. El crítico de Einstein esbozó los principios de una cosmología alternativa que no se limitaría a la precisión árida de la ciencia ni se revolcaría en retórica vacía, por mas poética que esta fuera. Bergson y sus numerosos seguidores serían aplaudidos por presentar una noción de tiempo “llena de sangre”.
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Images of nonlinear transformations, created by Los Alamos computers designed to simulate atomic explosions, looked just like Jackson Pollock paintings. With Kepes it became impossible to see either as just art or just science. Side by... more
Images of nonlinear transformations, created by Los Alamos computers designed to simulate atomic explosions, looked just like Jackson Pollock paintings. With Kepes it became impossible to see either as just art or just science. Side by side, they obtained a new meaning.
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Time travel, relativity and the lessons of transplanetary love
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How are fundamental constants, such as c for the speed of light, related to particular technological environments? Our understanding of the constant c and Einstein’s relativistic cosmology depended on key experiences and lessons learned... more
How are fundamental constants, such as c for the speed of light, related to particular technological environments? Our understanding of the constant c and Einstein’s relativistic cosmology depended on key experiences and lessons learned in connection to new forms of telecommunications, first used by the military and later adapted for commercial purposes. Many of Einstein’s contemporaries understood his theory of relativity by reference to telecommunications, some referring to it as “signal-theory” and “message theory.” Prominent physicists who contributed to it (Hans Reichenbach, Max Born, Paul Langevin, Louis de Broglie, and Léon Brillouin, among others) worked in radio units during WWI. At the time of its development, the old Newtonian mechanics was retrospectively rebranded as based on the belief in a means of “instantaneous signaling at a distance.” Even our thinking about lengths and solid bodies, argued Einstein and his interlocutors, needed to be overhauled in light of a new understanding of signaling possibilities. Pulling a rod from one side will not make the other end move at once, since relativity had shown that “this would be a signal that moves with infinite speed.” Einstein’s universe, where time and space dilated, where the shortest path between two points was often curved and which broke the laws of Euclidean geometry, functioned according to the rules of electromagnetic signal transmission. For some critics, the new understanding of the speed of light as an unsurpassable velocity—a fundamental tenet of Einstein’s theory—was a mere technological effect related to current limitations in communication technologies.
Raccontare la scienza La fantasia. L'immaginazione. L'imprevedibilità. Il potere del mito. I fatti scientifici hanno bisogno anche di irrazionalità. Perché il sapere è sempre un corpo a corpo con l'ignoto
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What does film do to an experiment or experiments in general? We usually think of film as a recording instrument, one that passively creates a copy of an event that can then be archived, reproduced and watched at leisure. What we forget... more
What does film do to an experiment or experiments in general? We usually think of film as a recording instrument, one that passively creates a copy of an event that can then be archived, reproduced and watched at leisure. What we forget is how film completely changes the entire experimental system. It changes the “politics” of the experiment at the same time that it reflects “political” changes.
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Historiadora y divulgadora de la ciencia que ha ganado proyección internacional gracias a los libros que ha publicado, la física mexicana Jimena Canales sabe que el estudio del trabajo científico tiene más sentido en la medida en que se... more
Historiadora y divulgadora de la ciencia que ha ganado proyección internacional gracias a los libros que ha publicado, la física mexicana Jimena Canales sabe que el estudio del trabajo científico tiene más sentido en la medida en que se sitúe históricamente.
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There's no single essence or quality that turns someone into a scientist. Being a scientist, according to the philosopher Mary Hesse, involves “the decision to enter a certain form of life.” Today a scientist is an expert with proper... more
There's no single essence or quality that turns someone into a scientist. Being a scientist, according to the philosopher Mary Hesse, involves “the decision to enter a certain form of life.” Today a scientist is an expert with proper university diplomas and degrees who participates in the scientific community as such. But Thomas Kuhn in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions reminds us of the fragility of such a job in times of change: “The man who continues to resist after his whole profession has been converted [to a new paradigm] has ipso facto ceased to be a scientist.” This is something that many other sociologists have written about. But even if we understand the complexities behind the category of scientist, the idea that there's a particular scientific “form of life,” which entails becoming a certain type of person, engaging in a certain form of rational discourse (think of Jürgen Habermas), going to certain places, and even wearing certain kinds of clothes, is prevalent. It is a “form of life” that is frequently confused with particular cognitive abilities (having powerful or enlarged brains) and particular beliefs (such as secularism, materialism, and reductionism) and which is commonly seen as resulting in the discovery of transcendental universals. It's a social position that, I believe, has a great authority in our contemporary world—a monopoly on knowledge, in many respects. Your title, I think, can help us rethink it.
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Jimena Canales is the author of The Physicist and the Philosopher, which tells the remarkable story of how an explosive debate between two intellectual giants transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the... more
Jimena Canales is the author of The Physicist and the Philosopher, which tells the remarkable story of how an explosive debate between two intellectual giants transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today. This is the story of how she came to study the iconic physicist when she initially had no interest in “such a great man, or any great men.”
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Past future. "What if yesterday's knowledge trumps tomorrow's? " asks professor of the history of science Jimena Canales. In her new book, THE PHYSICIST AND THE PHILOSOPHER: Einstein, Bergson and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding... more
Past future. "What if yesterday's knowledge trumps tomorrow's? " asks professor of the history of science Jimena Canales. In her new book, THE PHYSICIST AND THE PHILOSOPHER: Einstein, Bergson and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time, she brings the French philosopher Henri Bergson and his view of time back to honor and dignity.
Canales said her book tells a “backstory of the rise of science” in the 20th century. It’s a story of “misunderstanding and mistrust,” she said.
We are kneeling at its pulpit before boarding an airplane that will disclose the view from up high. What comes next are David Hanson’s triptych compositions for his Waste Land series: in each work, his photograph of a site from the U.S.... more
We are kneeling at its pulpit before boarding an airplane that will disclose the view from up high. What comes next are David Hanson’s triptych compositions for his Waste Land series: in each work, his photograph of a site from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Superfund” of toxic sites is flanked on the left with a map and on the right with a descriptive text from the EPA. Have we left the church just by virtue of turning a page to disclose his next photograph? The map (to the left) is the territory (to the right), the territory (to the right) is the map (to the left), and both refer back to the centerpiece: an aerial photograph.
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From Above and Below features ten years of Sharon Harper's conceptual photographs and video stills exploring perception, technology and the night sky. Her experimental images of the moon, stars and sun draw on scientific and artistic uses... more
From Above and Below features ten years of Sharon Harper's conceptual photographs and video stills exploring perception, technology and the night sky. Her experimental images of the moon, stars and sun draw on scientific and artistic uses of photography to illuminate the medium's contradictory ability to both verify empirical evidence and to create poetic connections between our environment and ourselves. If one cannot gaze directly into the sun of the sublime, Harper offers the scarred and streaked transparences and prints of her attempts to do so, made manifest through the mediation of photographic and telescopic technology, and through the framework of time. Through Harper's repeated long exposures, with time spans of hours to a month, star trails turn to star scratches, landscapes and cloud formations shift and the sublime is slowed to a trace made visible to the eye.
Art may be a better clock than we give it credit for, if we imagine a clock that measures better times than those lived so far.
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In April 14, 1996 a 19-year-old girl at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania decided to take the place of an animal in the nature documentary genre common at that time. “I think the thing is you can see wild America and you can see lions and... more
In April 14, 1996 a 19-year-old girl at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania decided to take the place of an animal in the nature documentary genre common at that time. “I think the thing is you can see wild America and you can see lions and badgers and antelope eating and sleeping and doing what they do but for some reason wanting to see people doing the same thing is sick and perverse,” she told David Letterman. The guest’s name was Jennifer Ringley, now known as the first lifecaster on the internet. Jenni had bought a webcam, wrote software so that it would upload images continuously to the internet, and turned it on for the next six years of her life.
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Descartes imagined a demon that could manipulate humans into believing only false things. Laplace conjured one that could see the past and the future with perfect certainty. Maxwell’s demon decreased entropy, despite this being impossible... more
Descartes imagined a demon that could manipulate humans into believing only false things. Laplace conjured
one that could see the past and the future with perfect certainty. Maxwell’s demon decreased entropy,
despite this being impossible in practice. Each of these demons (and several others) have interesting
histories that have been analyzed before. But they prompt an important question: In what sense are these
things “demons,” and why do scientists talk about demons at all?
one that could see the past and the future with perfect certainty. Maxwell’s demon decreased entropy,
despite this being impossible in practice. Each of these demons (and several others) have interesting
histories that have been analyzed before. But they prompt an important question: In what sense are these
things “demons,” and why do scientists talk about demons at all?
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Da Maxwell a Hawking, l’incarnazione di una sfida sotterranea nel saggio di Jimena Canales
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Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson disagreed about the nature of time. One hundred years later, their dispute still resonates.
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Si bien es claro que la tecnología desencanta al mundo, no es menos claro, paradójicamente, que la tecnología se desarrolla en términos de encantamiento. Situada entre los demonios de la tecnología y la tecnología de los demonios, Canales... more
Si bien es claro que la tecnología desencanta al mundo, no es menos claro, paradójicamente, que la tecnología se desarrolla en términos de encantamiento. Situada entre los demonios de la tecnología y la tecnología de los demonios, Canales sabe que debe aclarar su postura, por ello anticipa la introducción con un prefacio literario y redondea las conclusiones de diez largos capítulos con un epílogo filosófico. Curiosamente, es en las notas donde Canales pule su diatriba contra el momento “¡eureka!” y esas otras caricaturas con las que hemos oscurecido la importancia de la imaginación en el conocimiento.
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What role could imaginary creatures possibly play in the most rational, systematic, and discovery-oriented enterprise humanity has ever created? Did the Enlightenment not teach us to dispense with the supernatural and provide us with the... more
What role could imaginary creatures possibly play in the most rational,
systematic, and discovery-oriented enterprise humanity has ever created? Did the Enlightenment not teach us to dispense with the supernatural and provide us with the power of reason to exorcise demons from modern science? As Jimena Canales reveals in her thought-provoking
and highly readable book Bedeviled, fictional imps that help us explore the
limits of what is possible pervade the history of scientific thinking, namely in the form of thought experimentation.
systematic, and discovery-oriented enterprise humanity has ever created? Did the Enlightenment not teach us to dispense with the supernatural and provide us with the power of reason to exorcise demons from modern science? As Jimena Canales reveals in her thought-provoking
and highly readable book Bedeviled, fictional imps that help us explore the
limits of what is possible pervade the history of scientific thinking, namely in the form of thought experimentation.
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The workings of powerful computers, the processes of evolution, the market forces that drive the global economy. To conceptualize such unseen forces, researchers have long invoked thought experiments involving demons, devils, golems or... more
The workings of powerful computers, the processes of evolution, the market forces that drive the global economy. To conceptualize such unseen forces, researchers have long invoked thought experiments involving demons, devils, golems or genies. These strange beasts aren’t creatures of superstition and pseudoscience. They are useful ideas that have had an important role in the advancement of science, argues historian of science Jimena Canales. Her latest book, Bedeviled, sizes up imagined imps over the centuries and follows their impacts.
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“Faust,” “Frankenstein,” Laplace, and Maxwell all offered us imaginary demons that taught us something about reality. Even as the laboratory became a crucial arena for modern science, the mind remained more important. “What is key about... more
“Faust,” “Frankenstein,” Laplace, and Maxwell all offered us imaginary demons that taught us something about reality. Even as the laboratory became a crucial arena for modern science, the mind remained more important. “What is key about science’s demons,” Canales writes in her postscript, “is how they become real, that is, how our imagination drives discovery and how we can use it to change the world.”
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Writing in the mid-17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes realized that in order "to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last," he first needed to lash himself to a single point of... more
Writing in the mid-17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes realized that in order "to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last," he first needed to lash himself to a single point of certainty in a roiling sea of doubt.
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The way Canales wields the tools of the trade suggests nothing unorthodox, but where the bristles of the besom meet the hardwood of history, changes in audiences and access technologies make for a narrative that is new in ways that speak... more
The way Canales wields the tools of the trade suggests nothing unorthodox, but where the bristles of the besom meet the hardwood of history, changes in audiences and access technologies make for a narrative that is new in ways that speak to the identity of history and philosophy of science and, for better or ill, hint at features of its future.
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It’s hard to imagine that any single author will ever outdo this account
of the recent history of our concepts of time.
of the recent history of our concepts of time.
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At the heart of this complex picture, there was a key epistemological problem, the veritable object of the dispute: both Einstein and Bergson agreed on the “matters of fact” (contrary to what his critics suggested, Bergson did not contest... more
At the heart of this complex picture, there was a key
epistemological problem, the veritable object of the dispute: both
Einstein and Bergson agreed on the “matters of fact” (contrary
to what his critics suggested, Bergson did not contest Einstein’s
results), but who had the authority to decide the true nature of
time, the physicist or the philosopher? The notion that Einstein
“won” the debate is, ultimately, tied to the victory of a
conception of knowledge according to which “science” has more
authority than all other fields of research combined. Back in
1922, Bergson’s arguments still posed a serious threat to
Einstein’s theory.
epistemological problem, the veritable object of the dispute: both
Einstein and Bergson agreed on the “matters of fact” (contrary
to what his critics suggested, Bergson did not contest Einstein’s
results), but who had the authority to decide the true nature of
time, the physicist or the philosopher? The notion that Einstein
“won” the debate is, ultimately, tied to the victory of a
conception of knowledge according to which “science” has more
authority than all other fields of research combined. Back in
1922, Bergson’s arguments still posed a serious threat to
Einstein’s theory.
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The book is incredibly well researched; there is no statement that Canales could not back up with references to original sources. Rather than taking sides, the author lets Bergson and Einstein speak for themselves, carefully... more
The book is incredibly well researched; there is no statement that Canales could not back up with references to original sources. Rather than taking sides, the author lets Bergson and Einstein speak for themselves, carefully contextualizing their dispute.
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A monument to precise scholarship, an exemplar of logical clarity, and a fine example of excellent writing. I have rarely learned more from a book.
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“The Physicist and the Philosopher is an extraordinarily rich and wide-ranging work. Canales has rescued from near oblivion a fascinating, highly significant debate that is still relevant in an age which has begun uneasily to question the... more
“The Physicist and the Philosopher is an extraordinarily rich and wide-ranging work. Canales has rescued from near oblivion a fascinating, highly significant debate that is still relevant in an age which has begun uneasily to question the hegemony of science and its uncontrollable child, technology. … She gives an account of the debate and its many ramifications that is admirable for its clarity – the book is aimed at the common reader, and, I should add, at the common reviewer – and strives at all times to be fair to both figures in the debate.” –John Banville
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A demon was present at the birth of science. Writing in the mid-17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes realized that in order "to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last," he first needed... more
A demon was present at the birth of science. Writing in the mid-17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes realized that in order "to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last," he first needed to lash himself to a single point of certainty in a roiling sea of doubt. To test the strength of his position, Descartes imagined the workings of an evil entity-a malignum genium, or evil genius-capable of creating an entirely illusory but completely convincing artificial world. Someone ensnared by Descartes' malevolent being is bound to question external reality-and even their own body-since, theoretically, the sky's color or the warmth of one's skin could be deceptions devised by this demon. Although its powers appeared absolute, Descartes' demon couldn't corrode all sources of certainty. Since this "genius" needed a target for its tricks-an underlying consciousness that could be deceived in the first place-its victims could at least be sure they existed. Hence, Descartes' absolute trust in the formula of his famous "cogito": I think, therefore I am.
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Science’s Demons, from Descartes to Darwin and Beyond: How supernatural conceptions have advanced our understanding of the natural universe.