serendipity: I have had fortunate encounters of late, the type you least expect to find, not in my quest.
I'm setting out on an adventure to discover exciting and interesting new developments, ideas, activities and all that inspires curiosity.
With the help of Manufactured Serendipitymy quest for the unknown will be less gruesome and and a lot more technical.
Stay tuned, later!
Prayer Mix
1 week ago
1 comments:
A paradox lies close to the heart of scientific discovery. If you know just what you are looking for, finding it can hardly count as a discovery, since it was fully anticipated. But if, on the other hand, you have no notion of what you are looking for, you cannot know when you have found it, and discovery, as such, is out of the question. In the philosophy of science, these extremes map onto the purist forms of deductivism and inductivism: In the former, the outcome is supposed to be logically contained in the premises you start with; in the latter, you are recommended to start with no expectations whatsoever and see what turns up.
As in so many things, the ideal position is widely supposed to reside somewhere in between these two impossible-to-realize extremes. You want to have a good enough idea of what you are looking for to be surprised when you find something else of value, and you want to be ignorant enough of your end point that you can entertain alternative outcomes. Scientific discovery should, therefore, have an accidental aspect, but not too much of one. Serendipity is a word that expresses a position something like that.
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