Here are some graphs that I find useful in visualising some philosophical points.
First are five graphs of bifurcation:
Archive for March, 2008
Philosophical Graphs
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged bifurcation, fractal line, graphs, Koch curve, spiral on March 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Weekly Lesson (7)
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged Hegel, mathematics, Science on March 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Applied mathematics is generally not an immanent science, precisely because it involves the application of pure mathematics to a given material and its determinations as derived from experience.”
-Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, §202 [my emphasis]
The Coming Unemployment Tsunami
Posted in Statistics, tagged economy, unemployment on March 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
People who are interested in the stock market will be familiar with technical analysis of stock charts, the reason this analysis works is the stochastic element in the stock charts-the results of the interaction between a large number of actors-the reason the analysis ultimately fails is that stock indices are not stochastic processes.
Leaving aside the [...]
Weekly Lesson (6)
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged dialectics, Engels, Hegel on March 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“From the history of nature and human society that the laws of dialectics are abstracted. For they are nothing but the most general laws of these two aspects of historical development, as well as of thought itself. And indeed they can be reduced in the main to three:
The law of the transformation of quantity into [...]
Reviewing the Review – Supplement
Posted in Statistics, tagged china, energy, graphs, oil on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Here are more graphs that I have been extracting from BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2007 (available as an MS Excel workbook on the Internet at: http://www.bp.com/statisticalreview).
Graph 10: This graph shows oil production in different parts of the world, which has experienced significant decline. It plots total US production (thousands of barrels per day-right [...]
Reviewing the Review
Posted in Statistics, tagged coal, electricity, energy, graphs, oil on March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Reading BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2007 (available as an MS Excel workbook on the Internet at: http://www.bp.com/statisticalreview), I was forced to convert the raw data into graphs to make any sense of them; this post contains these graphs.The graphs are presented without any conclusions or arguments, just an explanation of the data.
Graph 1: [...]
Weekly Lesson (5)
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged freedom, Hegel, thought on March 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Freedom is just thought itself; he who casts thought aside and speaks of freedom knows not what he is talking of. The unity of thought with itself is freedom, the free will. …It is only as having the power of thinking that the will is free.”
-Hegel’s History of Philosophy, French Philosophy.
The Humility of Uncle Scrooge
Posted in Statistics, tagged debt, Donald Duck, Libertarians, national debt, Ron Paul, Scrooge on March 7, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Fed up with uncle Scrooge’s smugness Donald Duck decides to take his uncle and show him real wealth, so he takes him to the biggest ranch in Texas. The ranch owner starts showing them the almost Herculean dimensions of his ranch, really silly stuff, to the astonishment of Donald Duck and the indifference of uncle [...]
When Gold is Worthless
Posted in History, tagged economy, fiat currency, gold, Machiavelli on March 5, 2008 | 1 Comment »
With the eminent collapse of the fiat currencies system in a hyperinflationary burst, the talk of securing wealth in gold is rising; the qualities of gold, as a store of wealth and a measure of value, are exalted by countless internet sites and economic blogs.
The superiority of gold compared to fiat currency is beyond dispute, [...]
The Story of Europe
Posted in History, tagged decline, Europe on March 5, 2008 | 3 Comments »
European Supremacy
Five Hundred Years – Finished at Last!
Prologue: Germination, ×1 Generation [40 years]
From: 1452-Pope Nicholas V issues the bull Dum Diversas, legitimising the colonial slave trade.
To: 1492-Fall of Granada.
Chapter One: Growth, ×4 G. [160 years]
From: 1492-Discovery of America.
To: 1652-End of Spanish hegemony.
Chapter Two: Glory, ×4 G.
From: 1652-First Anglo-Dutch War.
To: 1812-End of Napoleon’s power.
Chapter Three: Decline, [...]
Weekly Lesson (4)
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged civilization, Greece, Thucydides on March 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Greece…, a small country that developed late at the periphery of an ancient civilized world.”
“The great Athenian achievement was not the empire and its fleeting temporal authority (both rather modest achievements by the standards of the ancient Near East).”
-Thucydides and the Ancient Simplicity, by Gregory Crane [my emphasis].
