Sunday, December 12, 2010

Stephen Hawking's Radical Philosophy of Science

12/12/10. Psychologist and editor of Skeptic Magazine, Michael Shermer outlines this radical view of science.

Michael Shermer writes:

"Do you think that there is a computer screen sitting in front of you right now?


It would certainly seem so if you are reading these words online, but in fact you are not actually “seeing” the computer screen in front of you. What you see are photons of light bouncing off the screen (and generated by the internal electronics of the screen itself), which pass through the hole in the iris of your eye, through the liquid medium inside your eye, wending their way through the bipolar and ganglion cells to strike the rods and cones at the back of your retina. These photons of light carry just enough energy to bend the molecules inside the rods and cones to change the electrochemical balance inside these cells, causing them to fire, or have what neuroscientists call an “action potential.” ...
http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/michael-shermer/stephen-hawking’s-radical-philosophy-of-science

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