What Was the Enlightenment?

                                                                    

                                                                   
 
The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was a philosophical movement that took place primarily in Europe and, later, in North America, during the late 17^thand early 18^thcentury. Its participants thought they were illuminating human intellect and culture after the "dark" Middle Ages. Characteristics of the Enlightenment include the rise of concepts such as reason, liberty and the scientific method. Enlightenment philosophy was skeptical of religion — especially the powerful Catholic Church — monarchies and hereditary aristocracy. Enlightenment philosophy was influential in ushering in the French and American revolutions and constitutions. 

Historians disagree on precisely when the Enlightenment began, though most agree that the Enlightenment's origins are tied to the Scientific Revolution in the 1600s, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Enlightenment culminated in the French Revolution (1789-1799) and was followed by the Romantic period.  

Major figures of the Enlightenment include Voltaire, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Isaac Newton and Thomas Jefferson. 

The Scientific Revolution

"The origins of the philosophical ideas that would lead to the Enlightenment began during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648)," said Susan Abernethy, a Colorado-based historian and writer. "This was a long and bloody conflict fought mostly over religion and caused a great deal of social disruption. Men started to question and criticize the concepts of nationalism and warfare." 
The Age of Exploration, in which Columbus "discovered" the New World, "exposed men to other philosophies and cultures," said Abernethy. "And finally, after centuries of exploitation and abuse by monarchies and the church, regular citizens of Europe were exasperated and began to write and speak up."

"In addition, the ideas of the Renaissance led men to examine the tangible world more closely, which led to greater scientific study," Abernethy said. This movement is known as the Scientific Revolution. 

The Scientific Revolution began with the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentric (sun-centered) universe theory in 1543. The many discoveries of the Scientific Revolution include Johann Kepler's three laws of planetary motion, Galileo Galilei's theories of motion and inertia and Tycho Brahe's new view of the stars and how they work, according to the history department at Indiana University Northwest. The Scientific Revolution ended with Isaac Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation and understanding of a mechanical universe in the late 1600s.

With each new scientific discovery, the accepted Judeo-Christian understanding of the universe changed. Gradually, thinkers embraced the Copernican-Newtonian paradigm. This paradigm holds that while the God created the universe, science defined it, and it is through science that humans can understand it, according to Indiana University Northwest. Intellectuals began to see the universe as possibly infinite and full of motion. This paradigm set the stage for Enlightenment philosophy and the embrace of mankind's rational thoughts. 

Philosophical concepts

"During the Enlightenment, there was more emphasis on scientific methods, secularization of learning, religious tolerance, universal education, individual liberty, reason, progress and the separation of church and state," said Abernethy. Some key Enlightenment concepts are:
Reason: Enlightenment philosophers believed that rational thought could lead to human improvement and was the most legitimate mode of thinking. They saw the ability to reason as the most significant and valuable human capacity, according to PBS. Reason could help humans break free from ignorance and irrationality, and learning to think reasonably could teach humans to act reasonably, as well. Enlightenment philosophers saw reason as having an equalizing effect on humanity, because everyone's thoughts and behavior would be guided by reason. 

Enlightenment intellectuals thought that all human endeavors should aim to increase knowledge and reason, rather than elicit emotional responses. They advocated for universal education and secularized learning, said Abernethy.

Skepticism:Rather than being content with blind faith, Enlightenment thinkers wanted proof that something was true. They tested popular notions with scientifically controlled experiments and personal experience, though skepticism of one's own senses was another factor in Enlightenment thought, and caused complicated philosophical conundrums, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

Enlightenment intellectuals were skeptical of the divine right of kings and monarchies in general, scientific claims about the natural world, the nature of reality and religious doctrine. "Theologians sought to reform their faith during the Enlightenment while maintaining a true faith in God," said Abernethy. The deist movement became popular during the Enlightenment. Deism holds that God exists but does not intervene on Earth. The universe proceeds according to natural, scientifically based laws. Several of America's Founding Fathers were deists, including Thomas Jefferson. 

Religious tolerance:Though skeptical of religious institutions, many Enlightenment thinkers believed that people should be free to worship as they wished. "The intellectuals of the Enlightenment vigorously sought to restrict the political power of organized religion in an effort to curtail the outbreak of intolerant religious wars," said Abernethy. 

Liberty:The Enlightenment tolerance of religion is related to the movement's emphasis on personal liberty. This concept holds that God and/or nature gave all humans basic rights and humans should be free to act without oppressive restriction. "These philosophers emphasized that government had no authority over an individual's conscience," Abernethy explained. "Individuals had rights, all men were equal and legitimate political power is based on the consent of the people and is obligated to be representative of the people's will."

Progress:The centuries before the Enlightenment were characterized by rapid changes, from the discoveries of the Scientific Revolution to the exploration of the world and the advancement in art technique during the Renaissance. Largely because of this, Enlightenment thinkers believed that the human condition was improving over time. Philosophers like David Hume and Adam Smith, both Scotsmen, tied Enlightenment ideals to politics, economic policies and more, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Empiricism vs. rationalism:Empiricism is associated with British Enlightenment philosophers, including John Locke, George Berkeley and Hume. Empiricists argued that all human knowledge comes through the senses and sensory experiences. Rationalists, who lived primarily in continental Europe, argued that senses were untrustworthy and knowledge came from the mind, through conceiving of or intuiting ideas, according to Loyola University New Orleans.  

Toward the end of the period, philosophers began to consider exactly what they meant by the term "enlightenment." German philosopher Immanuel Kant offered this definition in his essay "What Is Enlightenment?": 

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage [many interpret nonage as "immaturity"]. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance … Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

Major figures

Abernethy discussed the following men who made significant contributions to the Enlightenment:

John Comenius (1592-1670) was a Czech intellectual who espoused universal education and practical instruction. He was instrumental in introducing pictorial textbooks written in the vernacular of the student rather than Latin. He advocated for lifelong learning and the development of logical thinking as opposed to memorization by rote. He wanted education to be given to women and impoverished children.  

The Dutchman Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) was a prodigious intellectual who laid the foundation for international law based on the concept of natural law. He was one of the pioneers in putting forth the idea of a society of states governed not by force and warfare but by laws and mutual agreement to enforce those laws. He also espoused the idea of religious tolerance.

Englishmen who were influential in the Enlightenment include Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704). Hobbes championed absolutism for the sovereign but he believed in the right of the individual and the equality of all men. He stated that political communities should be based on a "social contract" meaning individuals consent either explicitly or tacitly to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler (or to the decision of the majority) in exchange for the protection of their remaining rights. Locke promoted the opposite type of government, which was a representative government.

The French Philosophes (philosophers) took the Enlightenment to new heights. Charles-Louis de Secondat, better known as the Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), developed the work of John Locke and espoused the concept of the separation of power by creating divisions in government. François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), better known asVoltaire, was a prolific writer who used satire and criticism to incite social and political change. He wrote attacks on the Catholic Church and exposed injustices. He promoted the concepts of freedom of religion, freedom of expression and the separation of church and state. His writings were popular and reached many readers.  

Jean-Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778) wrote the book "The Social Contract," in which he championed for a form of government based on small, direct democracy, which openly signifies the will of the population.

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was not as interested in inciting revolution but wanted to collect and disseminate Enlightenment knowledge. He embarked on a mammoth project to create the "Encyclopaedia, or a Systemic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts." Many writers contributed to the 35-volume work, which as edited by Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. The "Encyclopaedia" would incorporate all of the world's knowledge and spread it to other countries all over the world.

David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher who gained fame as an essayist, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He was a highly influential empiricist who argued that humans were a bundle of sensations with no true selves (this is called the Bundle Theory) and that ethics were based on emotion rather than moral principles.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher central to the Enlightenment. He synthesized rationalism and empiricism through his theories about human autonomy and set the stage for later philosophical movements, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Adam Smith (1723-1790), a close friend of Hume, was a Scottish philosopher and economist most famous for his theory of the "invisible hand of the market," according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. His book "The Wealth of Nations" laid the foundation for free market economics. 

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)was an English mathematician and physicist who laid the foundation for classical mechanics and calculus. Newton developed the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which led to improvements in understanding the Copernican heliocentric universe, according to the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
                                                            

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),an American Founding Father, was heavily influenced by Enlightenment philosophy and spent several years in France. He wrote the Declaration of Independence, which stressed Enlightenment ideas such as liberty, fundamental human rights and equality (though not for slaves), according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. 

Enlightenment approach to science

The Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution "saw a vast expansion in our knowledge about the world, and in the accuracy of this knowledge," said UK-based historian and writer Robert Wilde. "Part of this was down to the development of what we would consider modern scientific method," Though others had posited variations on the scientific method, Newton laid the groundwork for method we know today, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

Thanks to increased literacy and the falling cost of books, the means of spreading results of science experiments improved, as did the willingness of thinkers and scientists to discuss them and adopt them, Wilde told Live Science. "I do want to mention the proto-scientists such as Gregory of Tours and other who came before: people had never stopped trying to understand the world, it was just that the successful development of modern science occurred now," he said.

How the Enlightenment changed the world

"It cannot be stressed enough how instrumental the Enlightenment ideas were in changing history and society around the globe," said Abernethy. We still hold many Enlightenment ideals dear. Some of the scientific theories have evolved, but many remain as their Enlightenment authors wrote them. The concepts of liberty, reason and equality influenced early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft [mother of Mary Shelley, author of "Frankenstein"], American abolitionist Frederick Douglass and other seminal leaders.

"The ideas of religious tolerance and the separation of church and state did indeed lead to a reduction in wars due to religious differences," said Abernethy. As the power of the church waned, societies like the Freemasons and the Illuminati gained traction. Literary salons and coffeehouses emerged as new places to socialize and discuss ideas. Education for children became more widespread, and more universities were founded. Literacy rates increased dramatically, and public libraries and museums were introduced. 

"The concepts of the Enlightenment led to many revolutions, which had a tremendous effect on changing history and society," said Abernethy. "In 1688, English Protestants were instrumental in overthrowing the Catholic monarch James II and installing the Protestant monarchs William and Mary. Afterwards, the English Parliament ratified a new Bill of Rights granting more personal freedoms for Englishmen."

The most famous Enlightenment-influenced revolutions were the French and American. 

The American Revolution

"The Founding Fathers adopted many of the ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers in writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights," said Abernethy. They gave less power to the government and more power to the people. She added that they also established universal education in America. 
[Related: What Is Democracy? and What Is Freedom?]

The French Revolution

The French Revolution took the English coup a step further and eliminated monarchy altogether. King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were beheaded and a Republican form of government was established.

"There's a debate about whether the Enlightenment affected society, or whether a society changing through different means affected the Enlightenment," said Wilde. "Either way, the ideas of Enlightenment … influenced a French middle class to want a voice in government. In 1789, [this desire] produced a Third Estate, which broke away from royal rule, and triggered the French Revolution."

Though Enlightenment philosophy emphasized seemingly positive ideals like liberty and tolerance, Wilde noted that it could be taken to extremes. "It's important to stress that the Enlightenment thinkers weren't exactly sticking to the ideals of others … and the extremes of Enlightenment thought, such as a rejection of the church, have been blamed for the terror in the revolution." The brutality of the revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars demonstrate the limits of attempting to remake society along purely rational lines. 

By Jessica Szalay

(The painting above, by John Trumbull, depicts the moment on June 28, 1776, when the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Second Continental Congress. The document incorporated many Enlightenment ideas.) 

With many thanks to Live Science

Picture credit for Sir Isaac Newton:Physics Quest

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Wikipedia Uses Robot Editor To Flush Out Suspicious Changes

                                                                

Wikipedia has used its first “artificially intelligent” editor to flush out suspicious ­alterations made to the online encyclopedia by politicians, companies and powerful people.

The new AI editor has been developed to help Wikipedia’s dwindling ranks of human editors root out suspicious edits among the 500,000 that are made every day.

The objective revision evalua­tion service, or ORES, directs human editors to what it detects as “damaging” changes to Wikipedia entries. The human editors can assess­ the amendment and take action, which might involve banning the person who made it.

More than 45 million edits have been processed by ORES, which works in 14 languages.

In October, founder Jimmy Wales said Wikipedia would boost its ranks of volunteer editors to fight back against spin. He said he was “not going to let Wikipedia become a PR platform” as it would be “against all of our values”.

Tens of thousands of volunteers edit Wikipedia, which has more than tripled to 4.5 million pages in the past eight years.

However, over that period, the number of active editors on the English version has fallen from a peak of 55,000 to about 30,000.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the not-for-profit organisation that oversees Wikipedia, is trying to attract new volunteers by making the editing process easier.

The foundation said: “ORES functions like a pair of X-ray specs ... these specs actually work to highlight potentially damaging edits for editors. 

This allows edit­ors to triage them from the torrent of new edits.”

By James Dean

With many thanks to The Australian

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Could You Transfer Your Consciousness To Another Body?

                                                                   

Could someone transfer their consciousness to another body in order to live forever? 

That's the basis behind new film Selfless, but just how scientifically plausible is it? As the latest episode of AsapSCIENCE explains, we're actually closer than you might think. 

To achieve consciousness transfer, you first need to understand exactly what consciousness is, where it exists in the 1.3-kg (3-pound) lump of fatty tissue we call our brains, and how to download it. Scientists have already begun to achieve this, by mapping the specific networks of neurons that fire when we recall specific memories or sense different things. And they've already managed to recreate certain sensations, such as the smell of burnt toast, simply by stimulating specific neuron networks with electricity.

So by learning to translate which neurons code to which memories, we could essentially download memories from the human brain - and scientists have already come close to doing this by finding out how to record people's dreams.

The next step would be to create a map of the 80 billion neurons in the human brain and all the connections between them, known as the 'connectome'. This is something that major research groups are now working on, and if we could achieve it, we could create a computer model that works like a virtual brain, which would allow us to essentially download all our memories onto a machine.

But how about uploading these memories into someone else's brain? Well, we don't want to alarm you, but scientists have found a way to do that too. 

Check out the episode of AsapSCIENCE above to find out how we can already implant false memories into someone's mind. But don't freak out just yet - even if we could download and upload our thoughts, there's a lot more that makes us unique.

By Fiona MacDonald

With many thanks to Science Alert





 

Dyslexia:True Grit Turns ‘Losers’ Into Winners

                                                                      

I’ve often suffered shame. I have a secret that very few people know. I have dyslexia — or rather, a form of it: mild dyscalculia, involving difficulties with time, measurement, maths and spatial reasoning, which affects between 3 per cent and 6 per cent of the population. I often wear my clothes inside out or back to front and wonder why people are laughing at me. Recently I wore an elegant hat with the label sticking out on my forehead. Prancing down the street with people staring, I thought: “I must look fabulous!” 
 
Unlike regular dyslexics, I’m a whiz with reading and words, but when handed bills in shops or restaurants, I stare for too long at the numbers, often sweating in anxiety or frustration. Friends think I am being mean with money. As for spatial awareness, I’m an excellent driver but, sadly, concrete pylons in parking stations and petrol bowsers keep running towards me and headbutting me.

Ironically, despite my (then undiagnosed) disability, I became a finance journalist. I love the corporate world, the excitement, the intrigue, the passion, and never wanted my disability to stop me following my dream.

Some people have noticed my weakness and been cruel. A former accountant humiliated me publicly when he could see I was struggling. “What kind of financial journalist are you?” he demanded. I went red. I wish I’d said: “A good one.” I learned to compensate by getting my interviewees to write numbers down for me (“forgotten my glasses”) and trusted colleagues to crunch the numbers back in the office. This way, in 25 years I’ve never made a numerical error in my articles. I was finally diagnosed recently and I no longer hate myself for “being an idiot”.

So how do people with any disability rise to great heights in any profession, be it in sport, business or the arts, exposing themselves to work or a life that demands extraordinary perfection when they are well behind the pack?

They succeed because they have what Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, author of international bestseller Learned Optimism, calls “grit”. During an interview in Australia a few years ago, he told me there were three types of people: optimists, pessimists and people with determination whose passion outweighed fears, humiliation and failure manifold.

“People with grit don’t give up,” Seligman says.

They ignore pain, setbacks and immediate gratification to get where they want to be.

Grit people are the dogs that never let go. They are people whose arm might be broken on the football field but they put the pain aside and keep going. Studies show grit can be at the root of success because it leads to perseverance, tenacity, resilience and commitment to the long-term objective.

Recently Isley Hermansen, a 12-year-old girl from Queensland with severe dyslexia, made a video and sent it to Virgin boss Richard Branson. 

Branson, who also has dyslexia, praised her “inspiring” story. In her video #likeadyslexic, with pictures of Branson, Hermansen says “one day I’m going to fly like a dyslexic”; “sing like a dyslexic” — John Lennon; make movies like a dyslexic — Steven Spielberg; make discoveries — ­Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking; do business — Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Kerry Packer. She mentions Leonardo da Vinci, Roald Dahl and Jamie Oliver, and quotes NASA as saying it loves hiring dyslexics for their superb problem-solving skills.

The point is that disabilities, be they dyslexia, autism, stroke or no legs like Oscar Pistorius, need not hold you down if you have grit. Indeed Peter Fox, son of Lindsay Fox and executive chairman of Linfox, says his learning disability prompted his success. “Negatives are great positives,” says a man who failed his final school exams but achieved miracles, expanding the Linfox empire a staggering 14 times since taking over nearly 22 years ago to a turnover of $3 billion. And he eventually got a degree from Harvard in 1996.

The trucking magnate says that reading felt like pushing a truck uphill. But he learned to compensate for his weaknesses by playing to his strengths. “I’m great with numbers, I can do them in my head quicker than a calculator.” Not that he gave up on his deficiencies. “You have to keep the mind working, applying yourself: drilling down and down, practising.”

“Use it or lose it,” say renowned neuroscientist Michael M. Merzenich, recently in Sydney for the Mind & Its Potential conference, and psychiatrist Norman Doidge, author of the international bestseller on neuroplasticity The Brain That Changes Itself. They maintain the brain has the capacity to grow, change, rewire itself and develop new talents. When you switch on one area, the whole brain is stimulated to grow. They advocate going back to university, or doing any course, to keep expanding neural pathways.

It’s true. Like Peter Fox, I took myself back to uni and did a masters in the very technical field of video-making, requiring editing suites, camera craft, spatial awareness and lots of buttons. I explained to my tutors that I had a learning disability — and needed to be told and shown things three to four times. They’d laugh and laugh as I battled through, pressing exactly the button they said not to press.

They said I was their most entertaining student ever. But all of them helped me because they said they admired that I never gave up (besides, I always brought them chocolate). I did well and found my brain was better all around.

Associate professor Angela Duckworth, who studied under Seligman and operates The Duckworth Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, has examined the interplay between grit and self-control. “Grit is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort towards very long-term goals. Self-control is the voluntary regulation of … impulses in the presence of momentarily gratifying temptations,” she says.

I’ve interviewed many corporate leaders over the years for my book The New Boy Network on the psychology of success. Many came from war-torn countries, or had been in concentration camps, or came from abusive families. As one man who escaped a prison camp said: “Despite the odds, you just climb over the wall.”

Fox says part of his success was to see what was lacking in himself, then hire people who could do better. He says: “Don’t fight where you can’t win.”

Fox says: “I got through school eventually because I surrounded myself with people who had the abilities I didn’t. I learned by association. I also learned never to give up — true persistence.”

His advice to others with any disability: “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. When you are young and told not to touch the hotplate, what do you do? We are trying to push ourselves to excess and how can that mean not falling over and making mistakes? Make them, don’t be afraid. Why are there rubbers on the back of pencils?”

He says: “Never feel shame. I never did.”

By Ruth Ostrow

With many thanks to The Australia

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