Philosophy
Wired Science...
Not everything can be quantified, especially when it comes to matters of the human heart and mind. For decades, psychologists and biologists have tried to represent physical beauty in formula form; but even if some tendencies emerge when hundreds of individual preferences are measured, what any one individual considers beautiful is impossible to predict.
Above is an equation from an unpublished attempt by Israeli computer scientists to design a program capable of quantifying the attractiveness of a face. "Y" is the empirical beauty score; at right, various measurements of how different features in a face compared to a baseline face. The program was brilliantly coded, but it didn't work very well.
- Diotima On Love - Extracts
From Plato?s book; The Symposium (The Drinking Party) Several speakers give a short speech saying what they think love is; and then finally Socrates says what he thinks love is. His speech includes the speech of the mysterious wise woman Diotima who instructs...
- "i'm Just Not Attracted To _(insert Race)_ Women.": Racial Preferences And Dating.
Black Socrates read Jenée Desmond- Harris's excellent article (found here) a year ago and I've just now come up with an answer to the normative question she raises therein: Is there anything wrong with acting on one's racial preferences...
- 4. Theory Important To Philosophy
Why is the theory of evolution so important in doing philosophy? More pointedly, why is the theory of evolution key to understanding why human beings behave the way they do? Focus on evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology when giving your answers....
- The Richard Feynman Series - Beauty
Beauty is one of those tricky concepts to define because although most of us have an intuitive sense of instances of beauty, and can usually recognize it when we see it, we can't come up with an overarching theory about why all the things we consider...
- Geometry In Science And Art
"Science, Art and Geometrical Imagination" by Jean-Pierre Luminet Abstract: From the geocentric, closed world model of Antiquity to the wraparound universe models of relativistic cosmology, the parallel history of space representations in science and...
Philosophy
Can't be done...quantification of human preferences
Wired Science...
The Mathematics of Beauty
Not everything can be quantified, especially when it comes to matters of the human heart and mind. For decades, psychologists and biologists have tried to represent physical beauty in formula form; but even if some tendencies emerge when hundreds of individual preferences are measured, what any one individual considers beautiful is impossible to predict.
Above is an equation from an unpublished attempt by Israeli computer scientists to design a program capable of quantifying the attractiveness of a face. "Y" is the empirical beauty score; at right, various measurements of how different features in a face compared to a baseline face. The program was brilliantly coded, but it didn't work very well.
- Diotima On Love - Extracts
From Plato?s book; The Symposium (The Drinking Party) Several speakers give a short speech saying what they think love is; and then finally Socrates says what he thinks love is. His speech includes the speech of the mysterious wise woman Diotima who instructs...
- "i'm Just Not Attracted To _(insert Race)_ Women.": Racial Preferences And Dating.
Black Socrates read Jenée Desmond- Harris's excellent article (found here) a year ago and I've just now come up with an answer to the normative question she raises therein: Is there anything wrong with acting on one's racial preferences...
- 4. Theory Important To Philosophy
Why is the theory of evolution so important in doing philosophy? More pointedly, why is the theory of evolution key to understanding why human beings behave the way they do? Focus on evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology when giving your answers....
- The Richard Feynman Series - Beauty
Beauty is one of those tricky concepts to define because although most of us have an intuitive sense of instances of beauty, and can usually recognize it when we see it, we can't come up with an overarching theory about why all the things we consider...
- Geometry In Science And Art
"Science, Art and Geometrical Imagination" by Jean-Pierre Luminet Abstract: From the geocentric, closed world model of Antiquity to the wraparound universe models of relativistic cosmology, the parallel history of space representations in science and...