Humans and models: converging ‘truths’

Two Models of the Two Truths: Ontological and Phenomenological Approaches

Mipam (‘ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846–1912), an architect of the Nyingma (rnying ma) tradition of Tibet in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, articulates two distinct models of the two truths that are respectively reflected in Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Buddhist traditions. The way he positions these two models sheds light on how levels of description are at play in his integration o...

Lice, Humans, and Microbes

Lice are small, wingless, minor ectoparasites of mammals and birds. More than 540  blood-sucking lice (Phthiraptera: Anoplura) have been described with each host having its own type of louse, suggesting the cospeciation of the lice species with their host. Among these, two lice species from two different genera infest humans: Pediculus humanus and Phthirus pubis (pubic “crab” l...

Natural Principles and Fundamental Truths

REVIEW Microarray truths and consequences

For many, analysis of a microarray experiment starts with a spreadsheet of expression levels. While great attention is duly paid to RNA extraction, preparation and hybridization, relatively little care is devoted to extraction of expression levels from the fluorescent image. By delegating this step to a click of the mouse the exact extraction process is masked and researchers may be unwittingly...

Inaccessible truths and infinite coincidences

It is one of the salient features of an intuitionistic philosophy of mathematics that it denies the possibility that there may be infinite coincidences in mathematics: if a sentence is true, it can only be because there is a finitely expressible reason for it. The same view was expressed from a different standpoint by Hilbert in 1924 when he asserted that in mathematics there is ignorabimus. It...