Sunday, August 15, 2010

Nature is what we call the integrated forces and processes that continually bring a dynamic earth and its astonishing life into existence.

The scientific method is the process that collects, evaluates, and tests ideas for correlation to physical reality. The goal of science is to find the underlying relationships and principles that explain nature: we cannot discover these through our senses alone; we need mathematics to accomplish this.

Mathematics is present in all cultures, from basic counting and quantity awareness to highly advanced theoretical languages. Recent studies have discovered an innate number awareness exists in some animals. The degree to which mathematics is developed by any group may simply depend on need: as a culture become increasingly complex, so do its mathematical requirements. We should be aware that when the application of mathematics is driven by magical notions, the results may or may not correspond to physical reality. To rely on mathematics to create models for social activity, such as is the case in economic theory today, can be disastrous.
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The various functions carried out in our brain can be redundant or poorly integrated. Scientists are becoming aware that the human brain has glitches in communication between resident functions due to our rapid evolution as a species. Magic may be the fundamental and default mode of thought with which we approach reality, but with education, children can learn how nature works, and in fact, rational or scientific thinking must be learned; there are very few human beings for whom mathematics is their native language. Learning to think rationally is necessary in order to be able to distinguish nature from a supernatural dimension that exists solely as a product of the magical mind.