Hay has been desperately looking for a brass curtain rod after several flimsy metal ones failed. The description I had to follow, if I saw one on my travels, was 170cm unextended and 300cm extended.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with Mony Python and the Take Your Pick sketch, but we thought it would be a novel idea to create an Henri Bergeson Curtain Pole Company. Henri Bergson famously resisted the reduction of psychological phenonema to physical states and insisted there was no point of contact between the extended and the unextended - i.e. mind is independent of brain.
Bergson also argued that processes of immediate experience and intuition are more significant than abstract rationalism and science for understanding reality.
I doubt this. On Tuesday my intuition told me that the sourdough starter, which has been languishing untouched in the fridge for over 6 months, was well and truly dead. To test this theory I decanted some two thirds of it, along with some nasty looking mould, and rejuvenated it with some wholemeal flour and warm water. I left it standing yesterday and, hey presto, it's now as alive and active as ever.
Rational thought, on the other hand, would have told me that sourdough starter, if kept in a fridge - and especially if kept in the freezer - is almost indestructible. And indeed it is.
Intuition can and does have a role in science - as the spark of an idea. However, it is the scientific method that proves the theory and refines the idea. The spark, when it works, is caused by billions of neurons firing, weighing up alternatives and making possibly billions of small decisions that we're not even consciously aware of.
Superforecasters are renowned for using what is thought to be intuition, but an analysis of them shows it's not an ex nihilo flash of inspiration, more an ability to analyse and weigh the evidence from many sources dispassionately, without allowing bias to cloud judgement. The less the bias, the better the forecast. Brexiteers take heed.
I doubt this. On Tuesday my intuition told me that the sourdough starter, which has been languishing untouched in the fridge for over 6 months, was well and truly dead. To test this theory I decanted some two thirds of it, along with some nasty looking mould, and rejuvenated it with some wholemeal flour and warm water. I left it standing yesterday and, hey presto, it's now as alive and active as ever.
Rational thought, on the other hand, would have told me that sourdough starter, if kept in a fridge - and especially if kept in the freezer - is almost indestructible. And indeed it is.
Intuition can and does have a role in science - as the spark of an idea. However, it is the scientific method that proves the theory and refines the idea. The spark, when it works, is caused by billions of neurons firing, weighing up alternatives and making possibly billions of small decisions that we're not even consciously aware of.
Superforecasters are renowned for using what is thought to be intuition, but an analysis of them shows it's not an ex nihilo flash of inspiration, more an ability to analyse and weigh the evidence from many sources dispassionately, without allowing bias to cloud judgement. The less the bias, the better the forecast. Brexiteers take heed.
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