From: L-Soft list server at St. John's University (1.8c) To: Ian Pitchford Subject: File: "SCI-CULT LOG9609" Date: Sunday, September 27, 1998 12:24 PM ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 22:06:12 +1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jennifer Tannoch-Bland Subject: Re: Information of interest to subscribers to this forum In-Reply-To: <199608311719.DAA26469@griffin.itc.gu.edu.au> By way of self-introduction, my name is Jenny Tannoch-Bland. My interest is in the history and philosophy of science with the emphasis on history and the focus on the Scottish Enlightenment. Although most of what I read on the list is not directly related to my topic, I am interested also in the feminist critique of scientific objectivity. I like to feel, through the list, in touch with something more recent than the 18th century. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 11:40:04 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "J.D. Cottier" Subject: Introductions In-Reply-To: <199608312045.QAA04094@alcor.concordia.ca> Hi. You asked newer list members to introduce themselves, so I will. My name is Jocelyne Cottier and I am a graduate student in public policy at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I subscribed to this list because I have an on-going interest in science, technology, and culture. I am particularily interested in how science and technology changes our perceptions and understandings, including our understanding of who we are and why we do what we do. I am interested, in other words, in how science changes or alters our world view, culture and attitudes and how they in turn change how we "do" science. If history is anything to go by I will probably be a lurker, but I will join in if I feel I have something worthwhile to contribute. Jocelyne ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 13:38:04 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: elizabeth green Subject: introduction In-Reply-To: <199609011212.HAA29657@obslave.ucs.indiana.edu> I've been sitting quietly on this list, but Jenny Tannoch-Bland's self-introduction encouraged me to find some colleagues here with similar interests. Somewhat like Jenny, I'm studying late-18th and early-19th century history of science. I'm beginning a dissertation on perception theory (mainly English & Scottish) in that period, and I hope to throw a wrinkle into the history of objectivity by showing that an inordinate number of perception theorists (physicists, natural philosophers, physicians, psychologists, etc) had vision problems of some sort or another -- malformed retinas, and other visual abnormalities due to drug use, aging, and disease. So far I've concentrated specifically on John Herschel, and have found that the way he rationalized his vision problems was quite gendered. I'd love to discuss such issues either on the list or privately. Best wishes, Elizabeth =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Elizabeth Green Dept of History & Philosophy of Science Goodbody Hall 130 phone: 812-323-2010 Bloomington, IN 47405 email: ejgreen@indiana.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 22:47:35 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jean-Luc Gautero Subject: Introduction I have just subscribed to Science as Culture mailing list, and answer to the request of Bob Young: >I would appreciate it if those of you have not already done so >would introduce yourself and include something about the reasons for your >interest in the forum. I have subscribed to Science as Culture (the journal) for many years, when its name was not Science as Culture but Radical Science Journal. I was then a student in mathematics, and wanted to have another look, more politic, on what I thought would become my job, scientist or mathematics teacher. But as I wrote my thesis (it was about WKB theory), practising science stopped interesting me. =46ortunately, I also had some literature degrees, and would attend history of science seminars in Nice, so I could get a job as "maitre de conferences" (lecturer, I think) in epistemology, history and philosophy of science in the University of Nice. Reflecting about science still interests me, and it is now my job. So I have subscribed to this list as soon I have found it to better know what are the current discussions about science and society (I also subscribed to a Feyerabend list). One last point, which could interest Bob Young, who is (or was?) interested by Whitehead: I am one member of the french translation team of "Process and Reality". ------------------------------------------------------------ Jean-Luc Gautero - Centre de Recherches d'Histoire des Id=E9es =46acult=E9 des Lettres - Universit=E9 de Nice-Sophia Antipolis 98 Boulevard Edouard Herriot - BP 209 - 06204 Nice Cedex 3 Email: jgautero@hermes.unice.fr ------------------------------------------------------------ ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++ ++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig ++++ ++++ see: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 18:10:12 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Subject: Re: Information of interest to subscribers to this forum > I would appreciate it if those of you have not already done so >would introduce yourself and include something about the reasons for your >interest in the forum. I am a 50 year old recent "eject" from the IBM Corporation, where I worked for 18 years as a computer programmer, but (unsuccessfully) aspired to play a role in shaping the social impact of the technology. During my time at IBM, I undertook and completed an Ed.D. program at Teachers College Columbia University, in interpersonal communication and communication media theory, with a "side trip" into psychoanalytic training (which provided me with my dissertation topic, and first hand experience of the petty-mindedness of some of those who identify themselves as depth analysts of the mind...). My orientation is phenomenological, hermeneutical, and critical/ constructivist, and is perhaps summarized by the dictum: "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good" (<--recurse!). I am interested in the structure of daily life in our present age, which is powerfully shaped by science and technology. To quote from an article by Robert Young, on your WEB site: >...The truth is, as I see it, that all facts are theory-laden, all >theories are value-laden and >all values exist only within an ideology or world view. The official version of >value-neutrality and objectivity which justifies the protected place of >scientists, >technologists, medics and other experts puts them above the battle of >values and >ideologies. But... this is a confidence trick, an elaborate public >relations exercise. The science, technology and medical research that >actually gets >done is the only research there is. What gets funded is decided by >priorities which are >set by funding bodies. Those bodies have members who represent interests. These >days the make-up of those bodies is increasingly people in or connected with >commercial firms.... We need to understand the lived experience of doing science and of being a scientist (computer programmer, technician, etc.), and to understand the "lifeworld" in which we live, which has been pervasively transformed by science and technology. To refer to the above quote, the extent to which scientists *really believe* science is "value neutral", etc. seems to me at least as much cause for concern as that they may pretend it is for strategic purposes. My belief is that a key ingredient in the antidote to the hazards of advanced science and technology does not lie in any romantic "going back", but in going forward to a situation in which scientific and technical (and all daily life) activity is done in a context of universal lifeworld-oriented reflection and consequent self-understanding. This would entail overcoming the specialist's form of life (in which his or her "personal life" is split off from their work), and the replacement of specialists by reflective-practitioners who would integrate their specialist knowledge into their personal and *social* daily life and a disciplined, continually elaborated self-understanding thereof. One expression of this is the ending of Joseph Weizenbaum's book Computer Power and Human Understanding, where he hopes that as the discipline of computer science matures, its practitioners will mature also, and that, whatever they do, they will *think* about it, to try to miminize the possibilities that those who come after them will wish they had not done it. Can one imagine computer programmers' preferred genre of reading changing from sci-fi to social theory (Ellul, Habermas, et al.)? Being currently unemployed, I am *also* interested in finding work that would underwrite my means of subsistence to pursue these issues, for, alas, I am not financially independent, and am therefore not free to apply my energies in a productive way on my own initiative (which surely per se says something about science and culture...). * * * x\ * |"xx * * |==xxx * * * *|""xx"| ...[T]hey came upon a plain... and settled |"""xxx there. And they said to one another... * |=======| "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and |"""""""| * a tower with its top in the heavens, and |"""""""| let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise /\ |=========| we shall be scattered abroad upon the face |""| |"""""""""| of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:2-4) |""| |"""""||""| |||| ----//==\\-------------------------------------------------------- Bradford McCormick, Ed.D. bradmcc@cloud9.net / (914)238-0788 27 Poillon Road, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 08:18:48 +1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jennifer Tannoch-Bland Subject: perception theory In-Reply-To: <199609011839.EAA29663@griffin.itc.gu.edu.au> Elizabeth Green wrote that <>. Although perception theory is not my bag, I am particularly interested in Dugald Stewart, who is usually recognised as the 'brilliant disciple' of Thomas Reid, famous for his perception theory. Now that you mention it Elizabeth, Dugald Stewart had colour blindness. There is a paragraph on it in Vol 10 of <> ed. Sir William Hamilton, 1858, pp. clxiv-clxv. Jenny Tannoch-Bland ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 01:16:47 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: M Bolt Subject: Re: perception theory Elizabeth Green wrote that various interesting people writing on perception theory had vision problems. Jenny Tannoch-Bland mentioned Dugald Stewart as example. John Dalton falls under this category as well. Herschel, in fact, spent some time examining Dalton's vision. Herschel's own vision problems led to his placing some sort of clear jelly on his own eye as a primitive type (and precursor) of contact lenses. Herschel's interest in and adoption of some of Dugald Stewart's views might prove to be an interesting avenue of research with respect to theories of perception. I've done some of the JH-DS broader links, but there's much more to do. DS gave a presentation copy of his Elements to William Herschel in 1792. William in turn gave it to John. Having inspected it, I can prove that John not only read it (marginalia are in his hand) but that he adopted some important ideas (and even "borrowed" from it on at least one occasion). As others seem to be introducing themselves to the list, I will do so as well. I am finishing off (or so I hope) my dissertation at the University of Notre Dame under the direction of Michael Crowe. My thesis examines the intellectual and social resources that went into the production of John Herschel's 1830 Preliminary Discourse. I argue for a rather different (i.e. noninductivist) reading of that work and show how his other writings exemplify my revisionary account. Despite my initial goals, it is nonetheless turning out to be more of the older sort of intellectual history, but of course worthwhile and fascinating nonetheless (to me if not my readers). I have worked on Crowe et al's John Herschel Correspondence Calendar and am planning to do similar volumes on William Herschel and Caroline Herschel. My interests are in intellectual history, broadly construed, with links to the sorts of things that end up on this list (such as the previous posts, I suppose). I am looking forward to hearing from anyone about any Herscheliana that might be of interest. Marvin Bolt ------------------------------------------------------------ E-mail: Marv_Bolt@orbit.adler.uchicago.edu Fax: (312) 322-9909 Assistant Curator Phone: (312) 322-0540 Adler Planetarium 1300 Lake Shore Drive (I am in my Adler office from Chicago, IL 60605 Monday - Thursday, 8:45-4:45.) ------------------------------------------------------------ E-mail: Marvin.P.Bolt.1@nd.edu Fax: (219) 631-4268 History and Philosophy of Science Dept: (219) 631-5015 University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556-5639 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 15:41:52 +1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jennifer Tannoch-Bland Subject: Re: perception theory In-Reply-To: <199609020520.PAA03596@griffin.itc.gu.edu.au> Marvin Bolt wrote that Dugald Stewart gave a copy of his 1792 Elements (that would be vol 1) to William Herschel and that John read it. Since my interest is in Dugald Stewart, I would be interested to know what important ideas John adopted from Stewart, and especially what he borrowed. Jenny Tannoch-Bland Faculty of Humanities Griffith University Brisbane Australia tel 07 3367 3782 Email: J.Tannoch-Bland@hum.gu.edu.au ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 11:41:53 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bjarne Fjeldsenden Subject: Re: introduction My position and interest is basically in cognitive psychology. The more specific area of interest is man-machine. Examples here are technical mobility aids for the blind and aviation and psychology. Flying IFR (relying only on instruments compared with seeing the ground) has a lot in common with blind mobility, where a blind has to rely on "artificial information". There exists e.g. "auditory spectacles" which give consistent information about the surroundings within a range of about 10 feet, but the information is difficult to interpret. One new innovation is "a talking map" where information from GPS (a satellite navigation system used also in aviation and by boats) are linked to an electronic map. This system can tell a blind on which street corner he is and direction and distance to e.g. nearest subway station. I also teach cross-cultural psychology, and in this context I am most interested in which particular factors influence cognitive structures and also which cultures are better capable of learning and using modern technology. I have mostly been a lurker here but will write when I feel I have something to contribute. Bjarne +-------------------------+--------------------------------+ | Bjarne Fjeldsenden - Associate Professor | +-------------------------+--------------------------------+ | Dept. of Psychology | Phone: + 47 73 59 19 68 | | NTNU | Fax: + 47 73 59 19 20 | | N-7055 Dragvoll NORWAY | bjarne.fjeldsenden@sv.ntnu.no | +-------------------------+--------------------------------+ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 12:37:14 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Ernest Mathijs Subject: Re: Information of interest to subscribers to this forum At 1:14 PM 31/8/96, Robert Maxwell Young wrote: > I would appreciate it if those of you have not already done so >would introduce yourself and include something about the reasons for your >interest in the forum. In answering to Robert Young's request for information: My name is Ernest Mathijs. I am a 28-year old researcher at the Free University of Brussels (Belgium), at the Center Leo Apostel, an interdisciplinary research center. I subscribed to this list a few months ago, when I took this position. Before that I used to be a lecturer at the RITS, Higher institute for audio-visual communication, where I taught film history and film analysis. The main reason for subscribing to this list was an interest in the development and discussion of recent items in science and culture, and especially the link between them. I am currenty working on a PhD dissertation on the role that art criticism played in that discours. My main hypothesis is that art criticism plays (and played) an important role in linking the art of some era to other discourses (for instance scientific), thus making (or trying to make) art relevant. My concentration is on contemporary art and art criticism (especially on interpretation of such artists as Joseph Beuys), but I am also including a genealogical history on the subject (although briefly). The method I am using is a derivation of the works of Kula (on measurement), of Mirowski (on the construction of stages in history) and of Foucault (genealogy). I have been a silent watcher of the list, but the topics mentioned have not gone unnoticed. They surely add to a better understanding of the "making meaning" of the world of science and culture. Ernest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- Ernest Mathijs Interdisciplinary Centre Leo Apostel (CLEA) Free University of Brussels (VUB) Pleinlaan 2 1050 Brussels Belgium tel: ++ 32 2 644 26 77 ++ 32 2 644 07 44 e-mail: emathijs@vnet3.vub.ac.be CLEA-home page: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/CLEA/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 11:39:06 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Sanjay Marwah Subject: Re: Information of interest to subscribers to this forum In-Reply-To: <9609021039.AA29214@osf1.gmu.edu> Hello. My name is Sanjay Marwah. I am pursuing my PhD in Public Policy at George Mason University with an emphasis on science and technology policy. My research and interests include philosophy of social science, philosophy of science, business-government relations, political economy, inequality-crime, and theoretical policy sciences. The science and culture list is interesting for my potential PhD topic in business, government, anc ulture:changing governance in a technological world. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 15:53:44 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory Subject: The Sokal incident rationally considered Date: 02 Sep 96 16:38:59 EDT From: "Alan J. Friedman" <71062.3706@CompuServe.COM> To: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory Subject: Re: The Sokal Matter Mike: Here's my 2 cents worth (wonder where that image came from--price of a stamp in the 1920's?) on "The Sokal Matter." I think the humanities folks are overreacting, and making Dr. Sokal's nasty prank seem more important that it is. Some highly visible scientists are feeling beleaguered, and lashing out at critics everywhere. These attacks take the form of intemperate, ill-mannered, and often irrational attacks on the humanities, social sciences, and historians. The great heat and furor over a modestly critical exhibit, "Science in American Life" at the Smithsonian, is typical. Neither the public nor most scientists care, yet the complaining scientists are somehow pleased that they have caused pain. I think the origins of these attacks lie in a genuine and justified fear of the influence of pseudoscientists (creationism), the anti-science stance of the far right, and the failure of science itself to command federal funds like it used to (the cancellation of the superconducting supercollider). The scientists who are leading these attacks are themselves overly emotional, and generally irrational in their furor. The people they are attacking (academics in the humanities and museum historians) are not real threats; but the scientists do not know how to begin attacking the real dangers to science--the religious right, ultra-conservative politicians, ill-trained teachers, charlatans and pseudoscientists. I just don't see the point in spending much time analyzing pranks like Sokal's. Of course it is easier to create a hoax in the humanities than it is in the "hard" sciences--what's new in that? The angry scientists do not care how the humanities respond; the public is disinterested in the whole matter; and in the meantime the real enemies of rational analysis (in both the humanities and the sciences) keep winning school board elections and seats in Congress. We need to concentrate on the real threats, and stop wasting time trashing each other. Alan ************************************ Alan J. Friedman New York Hall of Science 47-01 111th Street Flushing Meadows Corona Park New York 11368 Phone: (718) 699-0005 ext 316 Fax: (718) 699-1341 E-Mail: 71062.3706@compuserve.com Message prepared 9/2/96, 4:31 PM Michael Gregory Editor, H-NEXA: The Science-Humanities Convergence Forum ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 09:44:45 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Baber Zaheer Subject: Re: The Sokal incident rationally considered In-Reply-To: <199609031401.WAA17838@leonis.nus.sg> On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory wrote: > Date: 02 Sep 96 16:38:59 EDT > From: "Alan J. Friedman" <71062.3706@CompuServe.COM> > To: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory > Subject: Re: The Sokal Matter > > Mike: > > Here's my 2 cents worth (wonder where that image came from--price of a stamp in > the 1920's?) on "The Sokal Matter." > > I think the humanities folks are overreacting, and making Dr. Sokal's nasty > prank seem more important that it is. Some highly visible scientists are > feeling beleaguered, and lashing out at critics everywhere. These attacks take > the form of intemperate, ill-mannered, and often irrational attacks on the > humanities, social sciences, and historians. The great heat and furor over a > modestly critical exhibit, "Science in American Life" at the Smithsonian, is > typical. Neither the public nor most scientists care, yet the complaining > scientists are somehow pleased that they have caused pain. > > I think the origins of these attacks lie in a genuine and justified fear of the > influence of pseudoscientists (creationism), the anti-science stance of the far > right, and the failure of science itself to command federal funds like it used > to (the cancellation of the superconducting supercollider). > > The scientists who are leading these attacks are themselves overly emotional, > and generally irrational in their furor. The people they are attacking > (academics in the humanities and museum historians) are not real threats; but > the scientists do not know how to begin attacking the real dangers to > science--the religious right, ultra-conservative politicians, ill-trained > teachers, charlatans and pseudoscientists. > > I just don't see the point in spending much time analyzing pranks like Sokal's. > Of course it is easier to create a hoax in the humanities than it is in the > "hard" sciences--what's new in that? > > The angry scientists do not care how the humanities respond; the public is > disinterested in the whole matter; and in the meantime the real enemies of "disinterested" does not quite mean what you try to make it mean in this context. > rational analysis (in both the humanities and the sciences) keep winning school > board elections and seats in Congress. We need to concentrate on the real > threats, and stop wasting time trashing each other. > > Alan > ************************************ > Alan J. Friedman > New York Hall of Science > 47-01 111th Street > Flushing Meadows Corona Park > New York 11368 > > Phone: (718) 699-0005 ext 316 > Fax: (718) 699-1341 > E-Mail: 71062.3706@compuserve.com > > Message prepared 9/2/96, 4:31 PM > > > Michael Gregory > Editor, H-NEXA: The Science-Humanities Convergence Forum > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 11:09:02 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bert Mosselmans Subject: History of Mathematics - De Morgan Hello, I'm looking for information on De Morgan's mathematics classes, delivered in University College, London, during ca.1850-1860. Does anyone have information on this subject ? Is there a mailing list on the history of mathematics ? Yours sincerely, Bert Mosselmans. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bert Mosselmans Free University of Brussels CFEC M418 Pleinlaan 2 - 1050 Brussels - Belgium Tel. 0032/2/629.21.20 Fax 0032/2/629.22.82 bmosselm@vnet3.vub.ac.be My homepage : http://cfec.vub.ac.be/cfec/bert.htm VUB's homepage : http://www.vub.ac.be/VUB-home.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 15:09:39 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Stephen Clark Subject: Re: Introductions In-Reply-To: <199608311718.SAA08885@listserv.rl.ac.uk> from "Robert Maxwell Young" at Aug 31, 96 01:14:59 pm I'm professor of philosophy at Liverpool University. My work includes discussion of ethological and biological information relevant to the study of ethics, and the metaphysical foundations of science. I also run a philosophy e-mail list (philos-l@liverpool.ac.uk) and maintain a cluster of webpages: http://www.liv.ac.uk/~srlclark/philos.html. Stephen Clark srlclark@liverpool.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 10:26:52 +0000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jesper Hoffmeyer Subject: Re: Information of interest to subscribers to this forum Bob Young wrote: >I would appreciate it if those of you have not already done so >would introduce yourself and include something about the reasons for your >interest in the forum. Well, I guess 'science as culture' - broadly understood - has been central to my work as a biochemist ever since I read Radical Science Journal in the 70ties. I may have lost some of my political convictions from those days but I am still convinced that scientific understanding is deeply bounded by the horizon of science as culture. And this causes severe myopia in the theoretical approach of modern biology, which is what concerns me at the professional level. Predominant patterns of social and technological use of biological theory reflects (reinforces?) these biases. So my concern is not so much "history of biology" as it is natural history as such and evolutionary theory. I would like to push biological science (as culture) away from its genocentric manners. Biological information should be seen as something very different from physical information (=E1 la Shannon). My own approach concernes the development of a "biosemiotics", i.e. a reframing of biological theory in a semiotic (=3D sign theoretic) context. Shortly stated: Molecules are basic to life, but they are basic because thay are signs, and signs have to be interpreted. Organisms are semiotic creatures. I do not expect many people from this list to take an interest in such intra-scientific matters. And my purpose in subscribing to this list is mainly to keep in touch with the area, and may be pick up some unexpected inspiration. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- University of Copenhagen Institute of Molecular Biology, The Biosemiotics Group Jesper Hoffmeyer tel +45 3532 2032 Solvgade 83 fax +45 3532 2040 DK-1307 Copenhagen K e-mail hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk http://www.molbio.ku.dk/MolBioPages/abk/PersonalPages/Jesper/Hoffmeyer.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 21:07:30 +1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Brendan Harkin Subject: Introductions Hi! I'm a 6 month old PhD student in HPS/Social Theory at the University of Melbourne, Australia. I'm thinking about whether 'repetition' (in all of its forms and disguises, including for example, recapitulation in biology, the compulsion to repeat in psychoanalysis, recursion, fractals, Nietzsche's eternal return of the same etc etc etc) is a suitable project to pursue for my research (hmm, re-search). Conversation, pointers, objections et al most welcome Cheers, Brendan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 16:31:59 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Arie Dirkzwager Subject: Semiotic creatures At 10:26 5-09-96 +0000, Jesper Hoffmeyer wrote: ---snip---- >My own approach concernes the development of a "biosemiotics", i.e. a >reframing of biological theory in a semiotic (=3D sign theoretic) context. >Shortly stated: Molecules are basic to life, but they are basic because >thay are signs, and signs have to be interpreted. Organisms are semiotic >creatures. Sounds interesting but also a little bit obscure to me. Could you expand a bit? Doesn't "sign" imply a sender and a reciever of the "sign"? Who is the "sender" in this case and what is the message the sign conveys? (I assume you didn't mean the "message" contained in DNA). Or do you mean by "semiotic" that we see some coherence and "meaning" in what we observe (in biology or in physics or other -social- sciences)? In that case the context is whatever meaning the universe and everything in it has (or what meaning we see in (of) it). Then your concern may be more philosophical about the place of biology in the totality of science and the "meaning" of science in the totality of human activity (culture)? I'm intrigued and puzzled - looking forward for your reaction. Arie Prof.Dr.A.Dirkzwager, Educational Instrumentation Technology, Computers in Education. Huizerweg 62, 1402 AE Bussum, The Netherlands. voice: x31-35-6933258 FAX: x31-35-6930762 E-mail: aried@xs4all.nl {========================================================================} {Imagine a school with children that can read or write, but with teachers} {who cannot, and you have a metaphor of the information age in which we } {live. (Quoted from: Prof. Peter Cochrane) } {========================================================================} When reading the works of an important thinker, look first for the apparent absurdities in the text and ask yourself how a sensible person could have written them." T. S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension (1977). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 10:02:45 -0500 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: richard nash Subject: Re: Information of interest to subscribers to this forum In-Reply-To: <199609050834.DAA05370@obslave.ucs.indiana.edu> > Bob Young wrote: > > >I would appreciate it if those of you have not already done so > >would introduce yourself and include something about the reasons for your > >interest in the forum. > I am an associate professor of English at Indiana University, specializing in eighteenth-century British literature, with a special interest in the convergence of literary and scientific discourse in culture. While those interests tend to be historically located in the eighteenth century, I try to remain open to the persistence of those convergences in contemporary culture, and this and other newsgroups keep me abreast of relevant conversations. The large research project I am currently engaged in focuses on literary and scientific constructions of the figure of the "wild man" (non-human primates, feral children, castaways, etc.) in the eighteenth-century. I would also like to put in a word of advertisement for the Society for Literature and Science, an organization that shares many of the same intellectual concerns as members of this list. The program for the next meeting (Oct. 10-13 in Atlanta) is available on the web at: www.gatech.edu/sls/sls-96 Richard Nash English Indiana University ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 19:26:15 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "M.A.B." Subject: Re: Introductions On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Brendan Harkin wrote: > Hi! I'm a 6 month old PhD student in HPS/Social Theory at the University of > Melbourne, Australia. > > I'm thinking about whether 'repetition' (in all of its forms and disguises, > including for example, recapitulation in biology, the compulsion to repeat > in psychoanalysis, recursion, fractals, Nietzsche's eternal return of the > same etc etc etc) is a suitable project to pursue for my research (hmm, > re-search). > > Conversation, pointers, objections et al most welcome > > Cheers, > > Brendan Brendan, This is a very interesting project, what you're thinking to pursue for your research. I'm working on nonlinear dynamics and I have a paper on chaos and critical theory: http://www.duth.gr/~mboudour/mab/cct.html Could you say something more about Nietzsche's eternal return of the same? Cheers! --Moses http://www.duth.gr/~mboudour/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 16:58:16 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Subject: Re: Introductions Brendan Harkin writes: >I'm thinking about whether 'repetition' (in all of its forms and disguises, >including for example, recapitulation in biology, the compulsion to repeat >in psychoanalysis, recursion, fractals, Nietzsche's eternal return of the >same etc etc etc) is a suitable project to pursue for my research (hmm, >re-search). > >Conversation, pointers, objections et al most welcome Isn't one of the issues here the extent to which repetition occurs and/or can occur? To the extent that an individual or culture does not lose its past, repetition is impossible, since doing the same thing again is *recognized* as, or at least informed by having done it before, and also the *context* is always different. Of course, "in practice" we often find what for all practical purposes can be called repetition, but how much of *this* is an artefact of social structures *designed* to make people do the same thing again and again (e.g., the assembly line worker as opposed to the worker who is responsible for managing the functioning of the assembly line, or the student in a pre-defined course of study)? Might "eternal return of the same", which I think is an unclear notion in Nietzsche, be understood as: the eternal recurrence of self-overcoming, i.e., paradoxically, as the open-ended repetition of the act of reflective appropriation, which, precisely, is *not* repetition but conscious re-new-al? Anent Freud's "repetition compulsion", I propose *it* can be understood in a way which makes the "repetition" part ambiguous: The victim of trauma continues to repeat behavioral patterns which bear witness to, enable him to endure, and, hopefully, will enable him to overcome and get beyond the trauma. The victim continues to beat his head against the wall (<--metaphor) in hopes of breaking through the wall, and being able to get on with his life. (That the behavior, in actuality, may have no prospects of success does not mean it is *intended* to be futile, but rather that the person doesn't have any better idea of something to try.) If you are going to study "repetition", I would encourage you (1) to gain a clear understanding of how personal being-in-the-world (consciousness, etc.) differs from any and all of its *contents* (which include theories of consciousness, etc.), and (2) to vigorously ferret out how much of repetition in persons' experience is due to the way social institutions are organized (either by "tradition" or by "design"), how much is due to limitations imposed on human existence by non-human forces ("nature", etc.).... As such persons as Hannah Arendt, Jacob Bronowski and Donald Winnicott would all urge, each infant who is born is *a new beginning*. A big question is how the newborn's human milieu can nurture instead of ignoring, crushing, manipulating... this potential in the largely self-fulfilling prophesy of making him or her become just another repetition of a pre-given set of specs. You might enjoy reading "The Cheese and the Worms" by Carlo Ginzburg (Johns Hopkins Univ Press). More seriously, Edmund Husserl's "The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology" (Northwestern Univ Press) is IMO *essential* reading here (start with Appendix I: The Vienna Lecture). Personally, I generally find repugnant to do anything over: I feel revulsion at having to do again something I (or anybody else) has already done. On the other hand, "novelty" does not much interest me. What I like best is to engage with something familiar but in a way which reveals something new about it, thus *enriching* instead of just *extending* my experience (recursion instead of reiteration...). Good luck! * * * x\ * |"xx * * |==xxx * * * *|""xx"| ...[T]hey came upon a plain... and settled |"""xxx there. And they said to one another... * |=======| "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and |"""""""| * a tower with its top in the heavens, and |"""""""| let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise /\ |=========| we shall be scattered abroad upon the face |""| |"""""""""| of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:2-4) |""| |"""""||""| |||| ----//==\\-------------------------------------------------------- Bradford McCormick, Ed.D. bradmcc@cloud9.net / (914)238-0788 27 Poillon Road, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 17:08:16 -0400 Reply-To: jungsoul@vgernet.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michelle Christides Organization: Jungian Soultherapy: Healing & Mentoring of the Soul Subject: Re: Semiotic creatures -- a sign to me to introduce myself! Arie Dirkzwager wrote: > > At 10:26 5-09-96 +0000, Jesper Hoffmeyer wrote: > ---snip---- > >My own approach concernes the development of a "biosemiotics", i.e. a > >reframing of biological theory in a semiotic (=3D sign theoretic) context. > >Shortly stated: Molecules are basic to life, but they are basic because > >thay are signs, and signs have to be interpreted. Organisms are semiotic > >creatures. > > Sounds interesting but also a little bit obscure to me. Could you > expand a bit? Doesn't "sign" imply a sender and a reciever of the "sign"? > Who is the "sender" in this case and what is the message the sign conveys? > (I assume you didn't mean the "message" contained in DNA). Or do you mean by > "semiotic" that we see some coherence and "meaning" in what we observe (in > biology or in physics or other -social- sciences)? In that case the context > is whatever meaning the universe and everything in it has (or what meaning > we see in (of) it). Then your concern may be more philosophical about the > place of biology in the totality of science and the "meaning" of science in > the totality of human activity (culture)? I'm intrigued and puzzled - > looking forward for your reaction. > > Arie > > Prof.Dr.A.Dirkzwager, > Educational Instrumentation Technology, > Computers in Education. > Huizerweg 62, > 1402 AE Bussum, > The Netherlands. > voice: x31-35-6933258 > FAX: x31-35-6930762 > E-mail: aried@xs4all.nl > {========================================================================} > {Imagine a school with children that can read or write, but with teachers} > {who cannot, and you have a metaphor of the information age in which we } > {live. (Quoted from: Prof. Peter Cochrane) } > {========================================================================} > When reading the works of an important thinker, look first for the > apparent absurdities in the text and ask yourself how a sensible person > could have written them." T. S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension (1977). Well now it's time to introduce myself; I had been "lurking" a few weeks when we were invited by our host to introduce ourselves and our interests, and I have found since the introductions have been taking place that you all interest me! I am a Jungian psychotherapist practicing in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the town that represented the "ideal American small-town" to me when I was growing up in Paris, France (and saw the covers of the American magazine, Saturday Evening Post). My mother was from such a town, but my father was from Constantinople, one of the cosmopolitan, cross-cultural synthesizing cities of this world. This alone would have been enough to make a Jungian of me, but I wanted to be an astronomer. So I returned to my mother's homeland and somehow the interaction of my field of energy within the spirit of the times brought about an interdisciplinary study of Western Civilization in the sciences (introductory courses across-the-board), social sciences (degree in Economics & Political Science) and humanities (degree in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Greek & Latin Literature) during my ten years at the Universities of Michigan & California. I taught another six years at California State & Golden Gate. "Organisms are semiotic creatures," and the response: "Who are the sender and who the receiver?" cut to the heart of Jungian psychology. The "Individuation" of the Psyche is the unfolding according to our genetic encoding as its signs appear in a higher-order of consciousness form we call "symbol." As the Greeks first construed the word, it means to 'build' presumably meaning from 'signs,' or as the theorists, like Janitsch and Lyall Watson, of the Self-Organizing Universe, propose: at each level of complexity the whole is greater than and different from the sum of the individual parts. In a paper I have on my website, I go into this higher order complexity as a cultural phenomenon at this end of our millenium. I would be happy to hear your responses to it from any of you. Science IS our culture, but there is a time-lag between the realizations of those on the frontiers of science and the common understanding of the general population. Accordingly, we are still at about the level of understanding of Physics in the implications of relativity between the two world wars, when it comes to our present-day culture. People are aware that the language of our cultural traditions has lost its meaning. It seems as though we dissipate in consciousness along with the molecular disintegration of the body -- that we have a "one and only lifetime." Yet at the frontier of the Physics of Light is the transmutation of Energy into Matter -- and Energy has neither been created nor destroyed. Much of the cultural conflict in our times is over the questions of life-experience misunderstood, because our interpretative perspective is misunderstood. The disintegration of our traditional culture of the last 2000 years, Judeo-Christianity in the West, is occurring because of Science. Yet, this incomplete understanding is causing a confrontation of "opposites" that has been synthesized on the frontier of Science. Jung has developed a "science" or methodology to perceive the "reality of the Psyche," based on his experience with thousands of patients, as well as upon his vast knowledge of our culture as it evolved over thousands of years. His principal tenet is that the synthesis of opposites takes place in the "transcendant function of the Psyche," which spirals along the horizon of antitheses before making a quantum change in which, again, the whole is greater than and different from the sum of the individual parts. This is what interests me as "Science-as-Culture." Michelle Christides ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 17:18:02 -0400 Reply-To: jungsoul@vgernet.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michelle Christides Organization: Jungian Soultherapy: Healing & Mentoring of the Soul Subject: My URL got left behind! Hello again, thanks to Prof. Boudourakis for his response to mine re: Democritus University's interesting website, which I recommend to all. Mikhail Gorbachev asked in 1986, why intellectuals are not doing more to help this rebirth of our culture in the tribulation of its present dying, therefore, I am always heartened by what I see in your websites. Apparently, my URL is not attaching as I programmed Netscape to do: http://www.vgernet.net/jungsoul/index.html Michelle Christides ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 18:04:15 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Kana Drea Subject: BOARDING PASS FOR STAR TREK(tm) 30 *BOARDING PASS FOR STAR TREK(tm) 30 ONE WEEKEND ON EARTH* http://startrek.msn.com The Star Trek(tm) Universe descends on Huntsville, Alabama on September 7 & 8, Welcoming you to the largest Star Trek Convention ever! Celebrate 30 years of Star Trek and Space Exploration with over 14 Star Trek stars and 6 NASA astronauts. Sponsored by Paramount Pictures(tm) and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. http://startrek.msn.com Audio and video clips Photographs Breaking news Live Chats Be sure to visit the site before the weekend to make sure your system is up to code. Star Trek is a property of Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 11:20:48 +0800 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Baber Zaheer Subject: Re: Introductions In-Reply-To: <199609051825.CAA03094@leonis.nus.sg> On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, M.A.B. wrote: > On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Brendan Harkin wrote: > > > Hi! I'm a 6 month old PhD student Wow! That's pretty young... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 18:42:21 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: Re: Information of interest to subscribers to this forum X-To: Jesper Hoffmeyer In-Reply-To: <96Sep4.222717hwt.587491(5)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu> Jesper-you are the person I have been looking for! Would you like to critique my paper, "Plateaus of Consumption: The Biosemiotics of Consumer Fascism"? Do you have a bibliography of biosemiotic writings? I am also very interested in this field. My background is in biochemistry, anthropology and neuroscience. Mark Burch ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I am rhythm. I am the juice of all your religions. I am the slippery foundation of all your scientific laws. I am the pulsation which drives the drumwork of creation. I am eternally self-renewing and you are free to dance in and out of my grasp."--Principia Rhythmystica _____________________________________________________________________________ On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Jesper Hoffmeyer wrote: > Bob Young wrote: > > >I would appreciate it if those of you have not already done so > >would introduce yourself and include something about the reasons for your > >interest in the forum. > > Well, I guess 'science as culture' - broadly understood - has been central > to my work as a biochemist ever since I read Radical Science Journal in the > 70ties. I may have lost some of my political convictions from those days > but I am still convinced that scientific understanding is deeply bounded by > the horizon of science as culture. And this causes severe myopia in the > theoretical approach of modern biology, which is what concerns me at the > professional level. Predominant patterns of social and technological use of > biological theory reflects (reinforces?) these biases. > > So my concern is not so much "history of biology" as it is natural history > as such and evolutionary theory. I would like to push biological science > (as culture) away from its genocentric manners. Biological information > should be seen as something very different from physical information (=E1 la > Shannon). > > My own approach concernes the development of a "biosemiotics", i.e. a > reframing of biological theory in a semiotic (=3D sign theoretic) context. > Shortly stated: Molecules are basic to life, but they are basic because > thay are signs, and signs have to be interpreted. Organisms are semiotic > creatures. > > I do not expect many people from this list to take an interest in such > intra-scientific matters. And my purpose in subscribing to this list is > mainly to keep in touch with the area, and may be pick up some unexpected > inspiration. > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > University of Copenhagen > Institute of Molecular Biology, The Biosemiotics Group > Jesper Hoffmeyer tel +45 3532 2032 > Solvgade 83 fax +45 3532 2040 > DK-1307 Copenhagen K e-mail hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk > http://www.molbio.ku.dk/MolBioPages/abk/PersonalPages/Jesper/Hoffmeyer.html > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 09:59:49 +0100 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Jesper Hoffmeyer Subject: Re. Semiotic creatures On my suggestion that "organisms are semiotic creatures" Arie Dirkzwager write: Sounds interesting but also a little bit obscure to me. Could you >expand a bit? Doesn't "sign" imply a sender and a reciever of the "sign"? >Who is the "sender" in this case and what is the message the sign conveys? >(I assume you didn't mean the "message" contained in DNA). It will probably take more than a few words to make a convincing case for my suggestion. But let me first say, that the semiotics to which I refer is semiotics in the tradition of the American scientist and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). A sign in his conception is a triadic unity of the representamen (i.e. the sign vehicle), the object to which the representamen refers and the interpretant. Thus, e.g. a bacterium moving in a nutrient gradient is capable through its surface receptors to "measure" the gradient and thus decide in which direction it should move. Here the gradient is a sign or representamen (without any obvious sender); the cytoplasmatic organization of the bacterium is the interpretant, and the direction of movement is the object to which the gradient refers (as seen from the point of view of the bacterium). Another way to say this is that the bacterium posses a kind of internal standard, due to its historically appropriated organization, against which it measures cues in its surroundings thereby arriving at decisions as to what to do next. Now, at this point natural scientists generally think that this is just a cumbersome way of explaining something very simple, while researchers from the humanities often object that nothing like interpretation takes place in a bacterium. Now, either both are right or both are wrong (I mean, if something which deserves the word interpretion actually takes place in a bacterium, then the scientists cannot claim that the process is just simple). I have dealt with these problems in several publications. Foremost in a Danish book from 1993 which will appear in english with the title "Signs of Meaning in the Universe" at Indiana Umiversity Press, February 1997 (web site: http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/fall96/hoffmeyer.html). Also several papers (in english) for wich references can be found at my homepage: http://www.molbio.ku.dk/MolBioPages/abk/PersonalPages/Jesper/Hoffmeyer.html. Now to the question of DNA. Yes, I definitely think that DNA should be seen as an assembly of higly organized digitally coded signs. Which implies that they have to be interpreted. And in this case the obvious interpretant is the cyto-structure of the fertilized egg. The egg is the only entity in the world to know how to use the DNA for constructing babies. Also more on this in the above mentioned publications. This whole point of view of course have implications for our evaluation of projects such as the human genome project Arie further asks: >Or do you mean by >"semiotic" that we see some coherence and "meaning" in what we observe (in >biology or in physics or other -social- sciences)? No, this is not what I meant. But of course there is such a semiotic, i.e. a semiotic of the biological science. But this should not be confused with biosemiotics, i.e. the study of the semiotics of life processes. See also the biosemiotics web site: http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/biosem/welcome.html *************************************************************** Jesper Hoffmeyer Institute of Molecular Biology The Biosemiotics Group University of Copenhagen Solvgade 83 DK 1307 Copenhagen K Denmark Tel (45) 3532 2032 Fax (45) 3532 2040 hoffmeyer@mermaid.molbio.ku.dk http://www.molbio.ku.dk/MolBioPages/abk/PersonalPages/Jesper/Hoffmeyer.html *************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 02:23:01 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory Subject: My URL got left behind! (X-Post ) X-To: H-NEXA@H-Net.msu.edu Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 17:18:02 -0400 From: Michelle Christides Organization: Jungian Soultherapy: Healing & Mentoring of the Soul Subject: My URL got left behind! To: Multiple recipients of list SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE Hello again, thanks to Prof. Boudourakis for his response to mine re: Democritus University's interesting website, which I recommend to all. Mikhail Gorbachev asked in 1986, why intellectuals are not doing more to help this rebirth of our culture in the tribulation of its present dying, therefore, I am always heartened by what I see in your websites. Apparently, my URL is not attaching as I programmed Netscape to do: http://www.vgernet.net/jungsoul/index.html Michelle Christides ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 02:25:12 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory Subject: BOARDING PASS FOR STAR TREK(tm) 30 (X-Post SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE ) X-To: H-NEXA@H-Net.msu.edu *BOARDING PASS FOR STAR TREK(tm) 30 ONE WEEKEND ON EARTH* http://startrek.msn.com The Star Trek(tm) Universe descends on Huntsville, Alabama on Sept. 7 & 8 Welcoming you to the largest Star Trek Convention ever! Celebrate 30 years of Star Trek and Space Exploration with over 14 Star Trek stars and 6 NASA astronauts. Sponsored by Paramount Pictures(tm) and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. http://startrek.msn.com Audio and video clips Photographs Breaking news Live Chats Be sure to visit the site before the weekend to make sure your system is up to code. Star Trek is a property of Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 02:26:02 -0700 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: H-NEXA Editor Michael Gregory Subject: Re: Introductions X-To: H-NEXA@H-Net.msu.edu Ed.: Here's where that infant PhD-bound prodigy first appeared. After all, he's "strine" (correct dialect pronuciation of Australian).] On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Brendan Harkin wrote: > Hi! I'm a 6 month old PhD student in HPS/Social Theory at the University of > Melbourne, Australia. > > I'm thinking about whether 'repetition' (in all of its forms and disguises, > including for example, recapitulation in biology, the compulsion to repeat > in psychoanalysis, recursion, fractals, Nietzsche's eternal return of the > same etc etc etc) is a suitable project to pursue for my research (hmm, > re-search). > > Conversation, pointers, objections et al most welcome > > Cheers, > > Brendan Brendan, This is a very interesting project, what you're thinking to pursue for your research. I'm working on nonlinear dynamics and I have a paper on chaos and critical theory: http://www.duth.gr/~mboudour/mab/cct.html Could you say something more about Nietzsche's eternal return of the same? Cheers! --Moses http://www.duth.gr/~mboudour/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:42:03 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Hobson Sherren Subject: Re-petition under stress > On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Brendan Harkin wrote: > I'm thinking about whether 'repetition' (in all of its forms and disguises, > including for example, recapitulation in biology, the compulsion to repeat > in psychoanalysis, recursion, fractals, Nietzsche's eternal return of the > same etc etc etc) is a suitable project to pursue for my research (hmm, > re-search). Whether it's "suitable" or not may depend on institutional factors ... but I hope Brendan will keep us informed of his re-search, re-iterations, re-capitulations, re- whatevers: he certainly induced some interesting re-sponses. I particularly enjoyed reading M.A.B.'s paper on Chaos and Critical Theory ... At the risk of re-peating myself when under stress, I note his use, in the second paragraph, of terms/concepts/metaphors like: range, domain, mapping, (virtual) space: > The common way to distinguish between the "local" and the "global" character of a knowledge or a > theory examines the range of applicability and the domain of methodology involved in the followed > discourse. These types of criteria are pertinent to the organization and articulation of the examined > body of knowledge or theory. In a way, these criteria structure the body of knowledge or theory > through a correspondence or a mapping to an internal configuration in the virtual space of all possible > and contingent theoretical formations. Although analogies, shifts, and other transfers between > separate theories are quite often observed (often at the initial level of the intuitive theoretical > formation), they are generically smoothly appropriated into the internal structure. At least, this is > what happens far from the uprising conditions of scientific revolutions, when the interior coherence of > a theory is maintained by her epistemological autonomy. I hope others will follow up on this, while I dig out my under-grad notes on non-linear and partial differential equations and vector spaces, etc. Brendan's reference to the recapitulation theory reminded me of an old interest in an analogy between: a) Patterning, understood as physiotherapy, whereby a child with neural damage (I think) is taught to walk by first being taken through the stages of creeping like a reptile, crawling like a mammal, walking like an ape, then walking cross-patterned. The individual has to go through each stage: missing out on one or more results in pathological development, or no development. Or have I got that badly wrong? not my field ... and ... b) Teaching maths ... and maybe education in general. Do we need to teach things in the "right" historical order?! That is, when we were given Bell's History of Mathematics (I don't have the exact title I'm afraid) or similar to read, before starting the post-grad certificate of education course, were we being required to recapitulate the (mathematical) experience of the species, in a historical sequence, when "patterning" the individual? Or were we to stick to the common sense which follows the "right" (inherent) logical order? And was there a difference? If so, why ... if not, why not ... I don't remember the "right" answer (I don't think there was a left one), but it might have been 42. In any case, surprise surprise, we ended up teaching the "right" assembly line pattern: DO n PAGES OF EXERCISES by tomorrow at 9! and so to ontology / epistemology ... and the social construction of reality. Chaotic thoughts when "the fir is upon me", as one noted critic would say ... But I would recommend that Brendan listen to King Crimson's Indiscipline (from "Discipline") when considering the problems of repetition under stress: "I do remember one thing. It took hours and hours and By the time I was done with it I was so involved I didn't know what to think. I carried it around with me for days and days playing little games like - not looking at it for a whole day and then ... - looking at it to see if I still liked it. I did!" "I repeat myself when under stress I repeat myself when under stress I repeat myself when under stress I The more I look at it The more I like it. I do think it's good! The fact is: No matter how closely I study it No matter how I take it apart No matter how I break it down ... it remains consistent." "I wish you were here to see it!" "I like it!!" ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 15:12:05 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Bert Mosselmans Subject: Nietzsche's eternal return of the same At 16:58 5/9/96, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: >Might "eternal return of the same", which I think is an unclear notion >in Nietzsche, be understood as: the eternal recurrence of self-overcoming, >i.e., paradoxically, as the open-ended repetition of the act of >reflective appropriation, which, precisely, is *not* repetition but >conscious re-new-al? In my view - I am not a specialist - it is indeed a conscious re-new-al, meaning that the free individual, not repressed by abstract structures, re-builds the world from within. It is therefore indeed not repetition, but it is placed in a world in which everything occurs over and over again. It signifies that every individual action is in need of much consideration, since this action will, once done, occur ever and ever again in the circularity of time. Any comments on this ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bert Mosselmans Free University of Brussels CFEC M418 Pleinlaan 2 - 1050 Brussels - Belgium Tel. 0032/2/629.21.20 Fax 0032/2/629.22.82 bmosselm@vnet3.vub.ac.be My homepage : http://cfec.vub.ac.be/cfec/bert.htm VUB's homepage : http://www.vub.ac.be/VUB-home.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 11:29:43 -0400 Reply-To: rsmith@moon.jic.com Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Richard H. Smith, II" Organization: Georgetown University Subject: Re: Introductions I am another of the "lurkers" as well as being another of the "young" PhD students. My name is Dick Smith and I am a Research Administrator at Georgetown University in the areas of genetics, molecular biology, neonatal development, assisted reproductive technologies, immune system development, lung biology, cancer, and developmental neuroscience. I am also a graduate student at Virginia Tech in Science and Technology Studies. My primary field of interest is scientific research policy specifically as regards _ long range future_ science and technology. My thesis topic is how a research funding agent can intelligently differentiate between _speculative_ science and _prospective_ science when the empirical evidence (the "payoff") could be years away. The specific focus area is molecular nanotechnology which I _believe_ will become mainstream in the not-too-distant future. You can find some of my thoughts on the matter in "Molecular Nanotechnology: Research Funding Sources", published in NanoTechnology Magazine June, 1996 Pre-Press Monthly - Volume 2 No. 6 and on the Web at http://planet-hawaii.com/nanozine/nanofund.htm Cheers, Dick Smith ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:35:49 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Books on offer from Process Press Process Press has a small number of copies of some interesting and hard-to-obtain works in the history, philosophy & social studies of science, technology & medicine. They can be supplied by mail order or purchased from our London office. (Prices in British pounds sterling L1.00 = about $1.55) The Visible College: A Collective Biography of British Scientists and Socialists of the 1930s by Gary Werskey. Free Association Books, 1988 Hb L10 Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature by Donna J. Haraway. Free Association Books, 1991. Pb. L15.95 Languages of Nature; Critical Essays on Science and Literature edited by Ludmilla Jordanova. Free Association Books, 1986. Pb L10 Gender and Expertise edited by Maureen McNeil. Free Association Books, 1987. Pb. L10 Wild Desires and Mistaken Identities: Lesbianism and Psychoanalysis by Noreen O'Connor and Joanna Ryan. Virago, 1993. Pb. L12.9 9 Radical Science Essays, edited by Les Levidow. Free Association Books, 1986. Pb L10 Science and the Modern World by Alfred North Whitehead. Free Asssociation Books, 1985. Pb L10 Anti-Racist Science Teaching, edited by Dawn Gill and Les Levidow. Free Association Books, 1987. Pb L10 White Racism: A Psychohistory by Joel Kovel Free Association Books, 1988. Pb. L10 >From Taylorism to Fordism: A Rational Madness by Bernard Doray. Free Association Books, 1988. Pb L10 The Gene Business: Who Should Control Biotechnology? by Edward Yoxen. Free Association Books, 1983. Pb. L5 Commodities: How the World Was Taken to Market by Nick Rowling. Free Association Books, 1987. Pb L10 Behind the Silicon Curtain: The Seductions of Work in a Lonely Era by Dennis Hayes. Free Association Books, 1989. Hb L10 Corporate Killing: Bhopals Will Happen by Tara Jones Free Association Books, 1988. Pb. L10 More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave by Ruth Schwartz Cowan. Free Association Books, 1989 L10 Cyborg Worlds: The Military Information Society edited by Les Levidow and Kevin Robins. Free Association Books, 1989 L10 Science, Technology and the Labour Process: Marxist Studies , Vol. I edited by Les Levidow and Bob Young. CSE Books, 1981. Hb. L10 Science, Technology and the Labour Process: Marxist Studies , Vol. II edited by Les Levidow and Bob Young. CSE Books, 1985. Hb. L10 Technology and Toil in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Documents edited by Maxine Berg. CSE Books, 1979. Pb L10 Making Waves: The Politics of Communications edited by the Radical Science Collective. Free Association Books, 1985. Pb L5 Living Thinkwork: Where Do Labour Processes Come From? by Mike Hales. CSE Books, 1980. Hb. L7.50 Science or Society: The Politics of the Work of Scientists by Mike Hales. Free Association Books, 1986. Pb L5 The Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism by Alfred Sohn-Rethel. CSE Books, 1987. Pb. L7.50 We also have a number of review copies and second hand works in these areas. These can be purchased at substantial savings from the list price. Please ring for an appointment to view these books. Some issues of the Radical Science Journal are also available at bargain prices. Cheques should be in British pounds sterling and made payable to Process Press Ltd. For credit card orders, specify card number, expiry date, name, billing address. Payment in curencies other than sterling is troublesome, so please use credit card. Process Press 'only purity of means can justify the ends' 26 Freegrove Road London N7 9RQ tel 0171 609 0507 fax 0171 609 4837 pp@rmy1.demon.co.uk Information about the current and forthcoming publications of Process Press is at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/process.html Robert M. Young 'You will not complete the task, but you may not give it up.' ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:12:39 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Subject: Re: Nietzsche's eternal return of the same Bert Mosselmans wrote: >At 16:58 5/9/96, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: >>Might "eternal return of the same", which I think is an unclear notion >>in Nietzsche, be understood as: the eternal recurrence of self-overcoming, >>i.e., paradoxically, as the open-ended repetition of the act of >>reflective appropriation, which, precisely, is *not* repetition but >>conscious re-new-al? > >In my view - I am not a specialist - it is indeed a conscious re-new-al, >meaning that the free individual, not repressed by abstract structures, >re-builds the world from within. It is therefore indeed not repetition, >but it is placed in a world in which everything occurs over and over again. >It signifies that every individual action is in need of much >consideration, since this action will, once done, occur ever and ever again >in the circularity of time. Any comments on this ? Surely this is a place to repeat(!) Santayana's oft cited dictum that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. I am not sure how to understand Bert's claim that >every individual action is in need of much >consideration, since this action will, once done, occur ever and ever again >in the circularity of time. Unless, perhaps, he means that a *new* behavior we initiate, if not subjected to further reflection, often becomes a "habit", which is for practical purposes, even if not in a strict logical sense, repetition. Trying to be fair, I think Kierkegaard had something to say about repetition, too, but I have not studied what he wrote, so I leave it to others to follow up on this line of exploration, if it has any merit. * * * x\ * |"xx * * |==xxx * * * *|""xx"| ...[T]hey came upon a plain... and settled |"""xxx there. And they said to one another... * |=======| "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and |"""""""| * a tower with its top in the heavens, and |"""""""| let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise /\ |=========| we shall be scattered abroad upon the face |""| |"""""""""| of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:2-4) |""| |"""""||""| |||| ----//==\\-------------------------------------------------------- Bradford McCormick, Ed.D. bradmcc@cloud9.net / (914)238-0788 27 Poillon Road, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 15:14:54 CDT Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: charlotte borst Subject: Re: Nietzsche's eternal return of the same In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:12:39 -0400 from In a way of introducing myself, I too have been a "lurker" on this listserv. I am a historian of medicine and science by training--I also have worked prior to my doctoral work as a biochemical research tech--so I know the world of laboratory science from both the intellectual and the labor context!! I am now an Assoc Prof of history and an administrator of historical collections here at UAB. My work has centered on understanding the social context of the history of science--I focus on gender as an analytical category. My first book examined the role of gender and ethnicity in the professionalization of obstetrics in the US; I'm now working on a book that analyzes the role of gender (and race--I'm in the Amer south, after all) in the development of academic health centers in the 20th c. I'm interested in many aspects of this evolution-- the gendering of space, of testing , and of scientific knowledge. And how race plays into this as well--American historians find that racial categories harden toward the middle of the 20th c. What I'm struck by on this listserv is how the latest discourse is so gendered--the lone thought, the lone thinker, all individuals-- sounds very much like Carol Gilligan, et al's analysis. any thoughts on this out there???? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 15:42:39 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: re-peat bog X-To: Brendan Harkin In-Reply-To: <96Sep5.010811hwt.587507(10)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu> The writings of James Joyce provide a good case for analysis. "Dubliners" features short stories which 're-volve' around the numb sort of repetition. "Finnegans Wake", on the other hand begins "in media re's" and devolves and revolves around all sorts of echoes, repetitions, layerings, imbrications, and damn what is that loverly word that de-picts the stratification of the ruins of one civilation upon the next, of one memory upon the nexust, und so white? Then there is rhythm, which is repetitious only to the uninitiated. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I am rhythm. I am the juice of all your religions. I am the slippery foundation of all your scientific laws. I am the pulsation which drives the drumwork of creation. I am eternally self-renewing and you are free to dance in and out of my grasp."--Principia Rhythmystica _____________________________________________________________________________ On Thu, 5 Sep 1996, Brendan Harkin wrote: > I'm thinking about whether 'repetition' (in all of its forms and disguises, > including for example, recapitulation in biology, the compulsion to repeat > in psychoanalysis, recursion, fractals, Nietzsche's eternal return of the > same etc etc etc) is a suitable project to pursue for my research (hmm, > re-search). > > Conversation, pointers, objections et al most welcome > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 17:28:04 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: Re: science virus In-Reply-To: <96Sep6.162529hwt.370641(8)@relay2.Hawaii.Edu> I came across an article called "Viruses of the Mind" by Richard Dawkins. He analyses memes and all sorts of mental viruses, including religion. Then he asks the question, "Is Science A Virus?" The answer, since science signs his paychecks, is of course, no. Surprise, surprise! It occurred to me that a successful virus must always be in denial of the fact that it is a virus. It must always believe that it is the real thing. If you can fool yourself, you can fool anybody. Dawkins gave himself away though. Search the following excerpt for the Freudian slip: "4 Is Science a Virus No. Not unless all computer programs are viruses. Good, useful programs spread because people evaluate them, recommend them and pass them on. Computer viruses spread solely because they embody the coded instructions: ``Spread me.'' Scientific ideas, like all memes, are subject to a kind of natural selection, and this might look superficially virus-like. But the selective forces that scrutinize scientific ideas are not arbitrary and capricious. They are exacting, well-honed rules, and they do not favor pointless self-serving behavior. They favor all the virtues laid out in textbooks of standard methodology: testability, evidential support, precision, quantifiability, consistency, intersubjectivity, repeatability, universality, progressiveness, independence of cultural milieu, and so on. Faith spreads despite a total lack of every single one of these virtues. You may find elements of epidemiology in the spread of scientific ideas, but it will be largely descriptive epidemiology. The rapid spread of a good idea through the scientific community may even look like a description of a measles epidemic. But when you examine the underlying reasons you find that they re god ones, satisfying the demanding standards of scientific method. In the history of the spread of fait you will find little else but epidemiology, and causal epidemiology at that. The reason why person A believes one thing and B believes another is simply and solely that A was born on one continent and B on another. Testability, evidential support and the rest aren't even remotely considered. For scientific belief, epidemiology merely comes along afterwards an describes the history o its acceptance. For religious belief, epidemiology is the root cause." >From "Viruses of the Mind" by Richard Dawkins (linked from Biosemiotics home page, http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/biosem/welcome.html) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 11:47:58 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Arie Dirkzwager Subject: Re: science virus At 17:28 6-09-96 -1000, Mark Burch wrote: >I came across an article called "Viruses of the Mind" by Richard Dawkins. >He analyses memes and all sorts of mental viruses, including religion. ------skip----- >the selective forces that >scrutinize scientific ideas are not arbitrary and capricious. They are >exacting, well-honed rules, and they do not favor pointless self-serving >behavior. They favor all the virtues laid out in textbooks of >standard methodology: testability, evidential support, precision, >quantifiability, consistency, intersubjectivity, repeatability, >universality, progressiveness, independence of cultural milieu, and >so on. Faith spreads despite a total lack of every single one of these >virtues. "Virus" is a concept of something (very) harmfull. The most srerious virus is the state of mind that puts all its FAITH (!) *only* is those "virtues laid out in textbooks of standard methodology". It's like returning to the scholastic middle ages where the top most scientific virtues was to conform to the old books of Aristotle (and the bible interpreted in an Aristotelian way). I agree with those "virtues" and value science conforming to these "virtues" highly, but I doubt VERY MUCH is "textbooks of standard methodology" are applicable to judge faith in the one and only eternal (as opposed to "temporary", existing within the restrictions of time) God, the Creator of the universe including our mental abilities, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Mind you: I'm NOT a "creationist" in the fundamentalistic sense, I agree very much with physicists who admit that is makes no sense to talk of "time before the Big Bang": time as such was created at that moment (as far as it makes sense to talk about "that moment": the Big Bang is the ultimate horison of our "time" in the direction of the past. In the direction of the future it is much less clear if such horison exists. I admit that "faith ... lacks every single one of these virtues", just as good (scientific) THOUGHTS lack the virtue of having an tangible materialistic physical existence with wonderful properties as physical form, colour, smell, taste and other beauties. Still thoughts are very substantial and influential in our human social existence: they drive us to actions, bad and good and therefore should be considered very carefully and critically, especially regarding the *faith* they stem from. I don't share Richard Dawkins' complete and only faith in scientific method. My faith includes the belief that we should follow this scientific method in science - but there is more between heaven and earth than science, and that's only in that restricted place "between heaven and earth" we can observe directly;-) Arie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 10:26:49 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Eigil Evert Subject: Re: Books on offer from Process Press for weeks i have been trying to get out of dcience-as-culture. it seems to be impossible. all the time the machine tells me that the list is unknown!!! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 11:42:11 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Sarah W Salter Subject: Re: re-peat bog In-Reply-To: <199609070227.AA01860@world.std.com> On Fri, 6 Sep 1996, Mark Burch wrote: > * * * damn what is that loverly word that de-picts the > stratification of the ruins of one civilation upon the next, of one memory > upon the nexust, und so white? > > * * * You may be thinking of "palimpsest" -- There is a magnificent song by the Chilean exile group Inti-Illimani from the 80's (I think) call "Palimpsesto" - the lyrics develop the layers, as does the music, and are printed in Sp. & in an only-occasionally-transparent (appropriately) Eng. trans. in the cassette liner. The album is also called Palimpsesto. Among other dimensions, the group passionately explores rhythms from differing streams that have fed Latin music. Sarah Salter Salter@world.std.com (Boston) ssalter@gold.interlog.com (Toronto) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 12:26:57 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." Subject: Re: science virus "Language is a virus from outer space" (William S. Burroughs, quoted in a Laurie Anderson song) I am not a scientist (although I do fancy myself a reflective thinker on issues of science and technology as part of the world of human life -- Husserl's "Lebenswelt")...). I do not claim to be an expert on viruses. But I do seem to understand that a virus is an entity which cannot reproduce itself except by incorporating itself into a host living creature, which the virus "infects". I also seem to understand that not all viruses are *bad* for the host organism -- some have no effect on the host at all, and apparently scientists are now using viruses to modify defective genes and actually *cure* people of diseases. So much for my background understanding of viruses. Now, it seems clear to me that *all* symbols and symbol systems are analogous to viruses, in that they cannot survive or reproduce themselves except by "infecting" human beings (the process of "infection" here being understood as: (1) learning, (2) teaching to others, and (3 -- optionally) deploying in practice). Every infant is infected with the ethnic virus of the social group into which he or she is born and raised. This is called "acculturation", "education", "growing up", etc. The analogy works further here, in that the infant does not choose this infection any more than it chooses to get infected with measles, chicken pox, influenza, polio, etc. To what extent is it correct to say that persons live their lives, and to what extent is it correct to say that persons are "lived by" the ethnic virus which has infected them? The consequences of semiotic infection are ubiquitous, and I leave it to the reader's judgment whether such specific symptoms as ritual female genital mutilation and kamikaze male patriotism are good, bad or indifferent.... Is science a virus? On my definition, it is, but that doesn't say whether it is good, bad or indifferent, i.e., what we may wish to *do* about it. Ah! But what I am calling "doing" is really just part of the infection, a reader may object (And as to your objection itself?). It seems that there is a special virus which perhaps first appeared in classical Greece, and may have occurred elsewhere, which I will call "critical reflection". This particular virus has the unique attribute of interfering with the automatic metabolism of all viruses. If you are infected with the Somali ethnic virus, it makes you reflect on whether female genital mutilation is a good thing; if you are infected with the Samurai ethnic virus, it makes you reflect whether dying for the emperor is always a good idea; it also makes you wonder what exactly is happening to you by being infected with itself.... Now, here's an important question: What kind of virus is science (let me say that what I am calling "science" here is what I understand to be the tradition of empirical research from Galileo thru Gallo, etc.)? Is science the special "critical reflection" virus, or is it just another regular ethnic virus which infects people "unwittingly", or is it perhaps a hybrid or transitional formation between the two (or is it something else altogether)? I suspect the answer is not simple. I suspect there are some scientists who reflect on what they are doing in an open-ended way, i.e., who are infected with what I have called the special virus. But I also suspect that most scientists, most of the time, do science in the same unwitting way as a Somali or a samurai do their ethnic virus: perhaps very conscientiously attending to doing "what they're supposed to do" "the right way", but not thinking about whether what they are doing is the kind of thing they ought to be doing. Being lived by *any* smybolic formation seems to me just as dangerous as being lived by any other, because in each such case, what eventuates is not the result of intelligent reflection but of the accidental circumstance that the people are inculcated with this system rather than another (had I been born elsewhere and at another time I would believe in XXX...). Joseph Needham told a very suggestive story about the Chinese reception of the Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century. The Jesuits came to convert the heathens to The True Religion, and cited Gailiean science as one of the fringe benefits of believing in Jesus Christ as the SON OF GOD AND SAVIOR OF THE WORLD. The Chinese, on the other hand, saw Christianity as being just one more religion like the 50 or so they already tolerated in their kindgom, BUT they recognized the Galilean natural science as something genuinely new, namely, as knowledge which was valid for any person who took the effort to learn it, rather than (like Yin and Yang, etc.) a form of opinion which was valid only for those who believed in it. Needham's story leads me to think that what we call "science" is indeed a kind of transitional form between traditional ethnic viruses and the special virus ("open-ended critical reflection"), in that it is critical about *objects*, and even about the process of *forming opinions*, but it is not critical about its own place in the overall network of symbols (the "Lifeworld"). I would like to propose (and to propose that I am not being "original" in this...) that science needs to become "scientific" about itself, i.e., to pervasively integrate open-ended reflection upon itself into itself: that scientists integrate open-ended reflection upon what they are doing in the labortory and outside it into all their doings in the laboratory and outside it. I would suggest that this desideratum also addresses any questions about "the end of science", since this paradigm shift (which makes all things new even those which remain unchanged...) has only begun to occur. No matter what advances occur in particle physics or biochemistry, so long as the researchers do not come to grips with the phenomenological (<-- in Husserl's sense) event of what they are doing, it will at best be like adding more integers to any given set of integers, which process can never even begin to set one off on ascent through the series of *higher infinities*. Another question: Is science intrinsically "naive" (<--Husserl's term) about its place in the horizon of human experience (in extreme cases we find theories which propose to reduce "consciousness" to chemical processes in the world, instead of pursuing the unsurpassable fact that *all* theories are objects *of* consciousness, i.e., entities in the world)? Or is this situation a result of specific political conditions, i.e., The Inquisition showing Galileo the instruments of torture and thereby shutting his mouth, so that he would, as most, secretly promulgate new physical theories, but altogether avoid speculations about social as opposed to celestial dynamics and revolutions? * * * x\ * |"xx * * |==xxx * * * *|""xx"| ...[T]hey came upon a plain... and settled |"""xxx there. And they said to one another... * |=======| "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and |"""""""| * a tower with its top in the heavens, and |"""""""| let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise /\ |=========| we shall be scattered abroad upon the face |""| |"""""""""| of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:2-4) |""| |"""""||""| |||| ----//==\\-------------------------------------------------------- Bradford McCormick, Ed.D. bradmcc@cloud9.net / (914)238-0788 27 Poillon Road, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 12:08:02 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: Re: re-peat bog X-To: Sarah W Salter In-Reply-To: <96Sep7.054131hwt.586781(5)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu> Thank you! Palimpsest is a great word, but it is not the one that was tippling my tongue. You message joggled it out of its hiding place though. The word is SUPERFETATION! Superfetation refers to the way that civilizations layer upon each other, like the nine cities of Troy. Also the way that modernity is layered upon our mythic past. This is one of the major themes of Figgenans Weg. Superfetation also reminds me of feta cheese, something rank and fetid festering in the festooned spittoons of our unconscious. Thanks again, and I will check out "Palimpsesto." Mark Burch ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I am rhythm. I am the juice of all your religions. I am the slippery foundation of all your scientific laws. I am the pulsation which drives the drumwork of creation. I am eternally self-renewing and you are free to dance in and out of my grasp."--Principia Rhythmystica _____________________________________________________________________________ On Sat, 7 Sep 1996, Sarah W Salter wrote: > You may be thinking of "palimpsest" -- There is a magnificent > song by the Chilean exile group Inti-Illimani from the 80's (I think) > call "Palimpsesto" - the lyrics develop the layers, as does the music, > and are printed in Sp. & in an only-occasionally-transparent > (appropriately) Eng. trans. in the cassette liner. The album is also > called Palimpsesto. Among other dimensions, the group passionately > explores rhythms from differing streams that have fed Latin music. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 13:16:28 -1000 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: Re: science/language virus In-Reply-To: <96Sep7.062637hwt.586831(6)@relay1.Hawaii.Edu> Language as a virus is a fascinating idea. There is another fascinating aspect of the topic, and that is the way that viruses and parasites alter the behavior of their hosts in such a way that the life cycle of the virus or parasite is facilitated. There is an article in Scientific American from the 70's that is called "Parasites that alter the behaviour of their hosts." One example is a fluke that spends most of its life inside sheep. Another part of the life cycle is spent inside ants. How to get from the ants to the sheep? While inside the ant, the parasite alters the ants behaviour, making it attracted to light. The ant tends to climb up to the ends of branches on shrubs, where it is more likely to be eaten by a sheep. It has occurred to me that similar observations can be made of viruses, although I haven't seen this published anywhere. The rabies virus makes its host more prone to bite other animals, which spreads the virus. Infection by a rhinovirus gives you a cold, which makes you sneeze, which spreads the virus. One of my Fiendish Ideas is to consider the caffeine molecule as the smallest virus known to science. Caffeine is a methylxanthine very similar in structure to the purine nucleotides. The coffee plant once only inhabited a small peninsula in Arabia. Now it has spread all over the world because of the ability of caffeine to alter human behavior. Coffee gains entry into our metabolism by fooling us into thinking it is giving us energy. This energy is just borrowed from some other time and place, because coffee actually drains your energy. Caffeine binds to the adenosine receptor where is acts as an antagonist. The binding of adenosine to its receptor acts as an "off" switch for the cell, so caffeine disables the "off" switch and enables the cell to be "on." Caffeine not only alters the metabolism of individual organisms, but also the metabolism of the planet. Farmers across the globe stop growing edible crops and switch to coffee because it is more profitable. This disrupts local cultural metabolism. The disruption of global organization by colonialism and mercantilism was driven by coffee, sugar, spices and other commodities. It has been proposed that coffee was partly responsible for the rise of scientific thought in Vienna coffehouses. Terence McKenna has even pointed out that coffee is symbiotic with office culture. Work is another repetition compulsion. Business or "Busy-ness" is another virus that prevents us from the Great Work, the enlightenment of all beings. Mark Burch (written after downing a double cappucino) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I am rhythm. I am the juice of all your religions. I am the slippery foundation of all your scientific laws. I am the pulsation which drives the drumwork of creation. I am eternally self-renewing and you are free to dance in and out of my grasp."--Principia Rhythmystica _____________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 22:14:45 -1000 Reply-To: Mark Burch Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Mark Burch Subject: Re: science virus In-Reply-To: <96Sep6.191042hwt.370753(10)@relay2.Hawaii.Edu> It is interesting how Dawkins applies a double standard to judging the relative viricity of religion and science. Religion is just an epidemic because it does not exhibit testability, evidential support, precision, etc. But these are the values of science, not religion. Dawkins is just trying to pretend like these are universal values that every meme should have. That is ridiculously ethnocentric. One could just as well say that science is an epidemic because it is incapable of producing miracles. This is the frusxtration I feel in trying to discuss science as culture-scientists are in denial that there is a culture or assume that the culture of science is objectively and universally the standard by which other cultures should be judged. In short, science is not a science, it is a religion! We should rename this list Science-As-Cult. And sure as clockwork, I will get flamed by the guardians against heresy. Normie Leavitt, where are you? If you look at the situation objectively without being biased towards either religion and science, religion is the more fit meme. Religion has reproduced itself more successfully in human minds over the last 2000 years. The science meme is a recent introduction and is fading fast. I am a high school science teacher, so I can tell you, the science meme just doesn't compute/compete in young minds. Then there is the study published in JAMA that cancer patients that were prayed for got better. The Guardians Against Heresy will spout the usual litany that it was an improperly controlled experiment blah blah blah. The Freudian slip is in the sentence: "But when you examine the underlying reasons you find that they re god ones..." > Mark Burch > "4 Is Science a Virus > > No. Not unless all computer programs are viruses. Good, useful programs > spread because people evaluate them, recommend them and pass them on. > Computer viruses spread solely because they embody the coded instructions: > ``Spread me.'' Scientific ideas, like all > memes, are subject to a kind of natural selection, and this might look > superficially virus-like. But the selective forces that > scrutinize scientific ideas are not arbitrary and capricious. They are > exacting, well-honed rules, and they do not favor pointless self-serving > behavior. They favor all the virtues laid out in textbooks of > standard methodology: testability, evidential support, precision, > quantifiability, consistency, intersubjectivity, repeatability, > universality, progressiveness, independence of cultural milieu, and > so on. Faith spreads despite a total lack of every single one of these > virtues. > > You may find elements of epidemiology in the spread of scientific ideas, > but it will be largely descriptive epidemiology. The rapid spread of a > good idea through the scientific community may > even look like a description of a measles epidemic. But when you examine > the underlying reasons you find that they re god ones, satisfying the > demanding standards of scientific method. In the history of the spread of > fait you will find little else but epidemiology, and causal epidemiology > at that. The reason why person A believes one thing and B believes another > is simply and solely that A was born on one continent and B on another. > Testability, evidential support and the rest aren't even > remotely considered. For scientific belief, epidemiology merely comes > along afterwards an describes the history o its acceptance. For religious > belief, epidemiology is the root cause." > > >From "Viruses of the Mind" by Richard Dawkins > > (linked from Biosemiotics home > page, http://www.gypsymoth.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/biosem/welcome.html) > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 10:44:02 +0200 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Arie Dirkzwager Subject: Re: science virus This is a very interesting and important thread: I'm looking forward to a good debate on this list! I agree with Mark, but I would add that we should be critically aware of our religions that (unconsciously) steer our actions, and that it is important to search for the True (right) religion, that is to say knowing and loving God the Creator of the universe (including our thinking capabilities) and deriving all our faith (also our "faith" in science) from our faithful relation to this God. I'd like to discuss the role of science in our culture (and our "culture") from this perspective. What do you think about it? Arie At 22:14 7-09-96 -1000, Mark Burch wrote: >It is interesting how Dawkins applies a double standard to judging the >relative viricity of religion and science. Religion is just an epidemic >because it does not exhibit testability, evidential support, precision, >etc. But these are the values of science, not religion. Dawkins is just >trying to pretend like these are universal values that every meme should >have. That is ridiculously ethnocentric. ---snip---- >culture-scientists are in denial that there is a culture or assume that >the culture of science is objectively and universally the standard by >which other cultures should be judged. In short, science is not a science, >it is a religion! We should rename this list Science-As-Cult. >And sure as clockwork, I will get flamed by the guardians against heresy. >Normie Leavitt, where are you? > >If you look at the situation objectively without being biased towards >either religion and science, religion is the more fit meme. Religion has >reproduced itself more successfully in human minds over the last 2000 >years. The science meme is a recent introduction and is fading fast. I am >a high school science teacher, so I can tell you, the science meme just >doesn't compute/compete in young minds. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 08:40:39 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Robert Maxwell Young Subject: Re: How to unsub >for weeks i have been trying to get out of dcience-as-culture. it seems to >be impossible. all the time the machine tells me that the list is >unknown!!! You could easily have written to me and not troubled the whole forum. Bob Young If you wish to unsubscribe, do not write to the list but to listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu with the message unsubscribe science-as-culture. If you write to the list to unsubscribe, you will annoy the subscribers and will not be unsubscribed. __________________________________________ Robert Maxwell Young: robert@rmy1.demon.co.uk 26 Freegrove Rd., London N7 9RQ, Eng. tel.+44 171 607 8306 fax.+44 171 609 4837 Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield. Home page and writings: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/ Process Press publications: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/process_press/index.html 'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.' - Camus ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 13:33:55 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Howard Schwartz Subject: Re: science virus X-To: Mark Burch Mark Burch said: > > If you look at the situation objectively without being biased towards > either religion and science, religion is the more fit meme. Religion has > reproduced itself more successfully in human minds over the last 2000 > years. The science meme is a recent introduction and is fading fast. I am > a high school science teacher, so I can tell you, the science meme just > doesn't compute/compete in young minds. > > Then there is the study published in JAMA that cancer patients that were > prayed for got better. The Guardians Against Heresy will spout the usual > litany that it was an improperly controlled experiment blah blah blah. > All this stuff about how science is a religion is interesting, as usual, but doesn't it lack a certain contextualization? Isn't it necessary to contextualize these ideologies within the fact that we are human beings trying to lead lives? Doesn't our attraction to science or religion rest on our beliefs about how certain practices will affect our lives? Don't beliefs have consequences? Mark, suppose that some charismatic dingus showed up in your community and massively converted people to the belief that such things as fluoridation of the drinking water and immunization of school children are against the will of God. Suppose this movement were at the edge of deinstitutionalizing fluordiation and immunization. Would you oppose this? If so, how? Howard S. Schwartz Schwartz@Oakland.edu http://www.sba.oakland.edu/faculty/Schwartz/Schwartz.htm "Nothing is hidden from the lover of shadows. Mystery remains." -- Anais Nin ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 14:28:21 -0400 Reply-To: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Edward Woodhouse Subject: usable knowledge I'm a political scientist who studies how to improve the steering of technoscience. My books include THE DEMISE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY?: LESSONS FOR DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF TECHNOLOGY (YALE, 1989, with Joseph Morone). I don't mean to offend, but I confess to finding some of the discussions on this listserve a bit precious, overrefined; others start out okay but quickly go astray (in my possibly flawed judgment). I know that appraisals of such matters are subjective, and I wouldn't expect us all to agree, but I'd like to find out if others share my concern. And I want to try to persuade some of you who may initially disagree. To illustrate my claim, I invite you to compare the topics typical of this listserve with a closing passage from the best book I've read on science policy in recent years: "The most obvious place to start (reconstructing science and science policy) is by redressing the preposterous mismatch between the R&D agenda of the North and the development priorities of the South" (Daniel Sarewitz, FRONTIERS OF ILLUSION: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE POLITICS OF PROGRESS, Temple, 1996, p. 195). The book's central question is how research can best serve humanity. A great many side issues appropriately need to be investigated in analyzing such a question; but if one fails to return frequently to an anchoring question like Sarewitz's, the chances of becoming lost in the knowledge sphere are very high. Do you think that many science studies conversations give evidence that the scholars are attempting to develop usable knowledge that would help humans and their organizations steer research better? I offer one simple test: Ask yourself, "Who would do what better if they understood what this author knows?" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 16:40:31 -0400 Reply-To: jungsoul@vgernet.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michelle Christides Organization: Jungian Soultherapy: Healing & Mentoring of the Soul Subject: Re: usable knowledge Edward Woodhouse wrote: > > I'm a political scientist who studies how to improve the steering of > technoscience. > My books include THE DEMISE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY?: LESSONS FOR DEMOCRATIC > CONTROL OF TECHNOLOGY (YALE, 1989, with Joseph Morone). > > I don't mean to offend, but I confess to finding some of the discussions on > this listserve a bit precious, overrefined; others start out okay but > quickly go astray (in my possibly flawed judgment). I know that appraisals > of such matters are subjective, and I wouldn't expect us all to agree, but > I'd like to find out if others share my concern. And I want to try to > persuade some of you who may initially disagree. > > To illustrate my claim, I invite you to compare the topics typical of this > listserve with a closing passage from the best book I've read on science > policy in recent years: "The most obvious place to start (reconstructing > science and science policy) is by redressing the preposterous mismatch > between the R&D agenda of the North and the development priorities of the > South" (Daniel Sarewitz, FRONTIERS OF ILLUSION: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE > POLITICS OF PROGRESS, Temple, 1996, p. 195). The book's central question is > how research can best serve humanity. A great many side issues > appropriately need to be investigated in analyzing such a question; but if > one fails to return frequently to an anchoring question like Sarewitz's, the > chances of becoming lost in the knowledge sphere are very high. > > Do you think that many science studies conversations give evidence that the > scholars are attempting to develop usable knowledge that would help humans > and their organizations steer research better? I offer one simple test: Ask > yourself, "Who would do what better if they understood what this author knows?" Hear! Hear! This is the criterion, "useable knowledge." I find myself listening to the news, watching a film, reading, always with the question in the back of my mind: "How long do we have? How long can we go on living culturally as though we had not seriously thrown the biosphere out of equilibrium, as though culturally, the underlying web-of-life upon which we live, were not unraveling due to our cultural depredations?" As Einstein said about his theory of relativity: "Everything has changed, save our modes of thinking; and thus do we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." Michelle Christides http://www.vgernet.net/jungsoul/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 19:50:27 -0400 Reply-To: jungsoul@vgernet.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michelle Christides Organization: Jungian Soultherapy: Healing & Mentoring of the Soul Subject: Science and/or Religion I'm going to enter the fray by doing what Jungians do, which is "synthesize the opposites at a quantum of higher level complexity with respect to the self-organizing Universe. :>) "The whole is greater than and different from the sum of the individual parts," is the dictum that theorists of the Self-Organizing Universe have used to explain why, to cite Lyall Watson, Lifetide: The Biology of the Unconscious: . . . polarity is basic to all processes in the universe, which is balanced between centrifugal forces throwing everything to the cosmic winds, and cohesive forces such as gravity, holding parts down in definite, albeit dynamic relation to one another. In biological terms, the equivalent of gravity is the life field, elan vital, soul substance, call it what you will, which brings the parts into meaningful relationship with one another. . . . an important idea . . . is that collections of cells, or groups of organisms, can fit together into a functional whole, which responds unconsciously and collectively to certain stimuli, and demonstrates properties unknown to any of the separate components. The whole is greater than, and very different from, the sum of its parts. [Simon & Schuster, 1979, p. 285] In a more recent book, The Physics of Immortality, [Anchor Books, 1994] Frank Tipler wrote: (p. xi) What happens is that intelligent life, in order to survive, must use the chaos in the physical laws to force the evolution of the universe into one of a very restricted number of possible futures. Its very survival requires life to impose order on the universe. Taking biology into account allows us to do the physics of the far future. In some 120 pages of calculations, he goes on to assert the Intelligence of the Universe. In Medieval Western philosophy, the *language* of which has atrophied in the mind raised in the scientific culture, the world-view was that the human species was at the nodal point in its consciousness "between angels & beasts" (we are speaking of more than animals here, but of a sub-animal consciousness called *evil*) brought about by the meeting of "Ascending Matter" and "Descending Spirit." Science would call the former "Evolution"; there is no analogue, but perhaps for Tipler's equations, for "Descending Spirit." At least, we could say that if we refuse to interpret the meaning of E = mc2. "Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light," is the formula for the transition between energy and matter that takes place at the threshold -- of what? The threshold of the Big Bang, of life, of death --- between the two universes of Spirit and Matter. "Spirit" is another of those medieval words -- we say consciousness today. And "traditional" academic programs in Psychology (less than a century old) frown upon the investigation into consciousness, at the same time that they use the name: "study-thought of the soul," "Psyche + Logos." RELIGIO-RELICTARE means "to tie together," what? The INNER WORLD of Consciousness with the OUTER WORLD of Matter. SCIO-SCIERE means "to know" in the factual sense of "savoir" in French, hence in the EXTRAverted (turned outward) sense. MEANING comes from the VALUE component to LIFE: whether an ACTION results in the suffering or the healing and energizing of LIFE is the POWER of the PRESENT -- an eternal moment, which cleaves past and future. We are in the NOW what we have become. We may BE what we have learned if we can respond from the INNER BEING which is ETERNAL ENERGY THAT HAS NEITHER BEEN CREATED NOR DESTROYED. This Energy is the Intelligence of the Universe growing into Matter in Life-forms, and crystallizing into Matter in the nuclear fusion of stars, which condense the planets, Einstein's equation, which, as he said, "has changed all save our modes of thinking and thus do we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." The subjective or INTROverted [inward-turned] conscious human-being (it does take a certain level of complexity!) will become aware of the DNA encodings in one's consciousness in the symbolic meaning and language of thoughts that come into one's neo-cortex after filtering through the whole sensory organism which carries it around. This in fact is the "Incarnation of the Sons and Daughters of God & Goddess, the Energy and Matter of the Intelligent & Creative Universes (Two of them.)" Shall I quit while I'm ahead? As I thought about whether to write this on SCIENCE-AS-CULTURE, it occurred to me that I had seen it in your recent introductions. I therefore, beg your indulgence for the length of this posting: I have taken some excerpts of the last week of self-introductions that pertain to what I am saying here, perhaps those of you whom I've quoted may understand the convergences. May I also say that I have put a twenty-page paper on my website, which I delivered in a talk to the Unitarian Church (some of the congregation of which had been ruffled by the use of the word "God" previously by the Church when they offered a social protest as a congregation)! Michelle Christides http://www.vgernet.net/jungsoul/index.html On 5th Sept. in my self-introduction, I wrote in part: Science IS our culture, but there is a time-lag between the realizations of those on the frontiers of science and the common understanding of the general population. Accordingly, we are still at about the level of understanding of Physics in the implications of relativity between the two world wars, when it comes to our present-day culture. People are aware that the language of our cultural traditions has lost its meaning. It seems as though we dissipate in consciousness along with the molecular disintegration of the body -- that we have a "one and only lifetime." In reply to Mark Burch's introduction of the topic "Science a virus?" in reaction to Dawkins' Viruses of the Mind, re: "for religious belief, epedemiology is a root cause." Arie Dirkzwager wrote on 8th Sept.: I agree with Mark, but I would add that we should be critically aware of our religions that (unconsciously) steer our actions, and that it is important to search for the True (right) religion, that is to say knowing and loving God the Creator of the universe (including our thinking capabilities) and deriving all our faith (also our "faith" in science) from our faithful relation to this God. I'd like to discuss the role of science in our culture (and our "culture") from this perspective. Howard Schwartz added his response to Mark's posting: All this stuff about how science is a religion is interesting, as usual, but doesn't it lack a certain contextualization? Isn't it necessary to contextualize these ideologies within the fact that we are human beings trying to lead lives? Doesn't our attraction to science or religion rest on our beliefs about how certain practices will affect our lives? Don't beliefs have consequences? Gene Moser a recipient of H-NEXA, cross transmitted by Michael Gregory, responded to Mark: Mark Burch wrote >>>>>Religion has reproduced itself more successfully in human minds over the last 2000 years. My only fault with this statement is the "2000 years". It is closer to 20000 and probably much more than that. There are, after all, many more religions than Christianity. I do agree that one should not judge religion by the standards of science or science by the standards of religion. This is also true of cultures. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 19:54:14 -0400 Reply-To: jungsoul@vgernet.net Sender: Sci-Cult Science-as-Culture From: Michelle Christides Organization: Jungian Soultherapy: Healing & Mentoring of the Soul Subject: Science and/or Religion On Sept. 1st, Brad McCormick wrote in part of his self-introduction: My belief is that a key ingredient in the antidote to the hazards of advanced science and technology does not lie in any romantic "going back", but in going forward to a situation in which scientific and technical (and all daily life) activity is done in a context of universal lifeworld-oriented reflection and consequent self-understanding. This would entail overcoming the specialist's form of life (in which his or her "personal life" is split off from their work), and the replacement of specialists by reflective-practitioners who would integrate their specialist knowledge into their personal and *social* daily life and a disciplined, continually elaborated self-understanding thereof. On 2nd Sept. Bjarne Fjeldsensen wrote in part of his self-introduction: My position and interest is basically in cognitive psychology. The more specific area of interest is man-machine. Examples here are technical mobility aids for the blind and aviation and psychology. Flying IFR (relying only on instruments compared with seeing the ground) has a lot in common with blind mobility, where a blind has to rely on "artificial information". There exists e.g. "auditory spectacles" which give consistent information about the surroundings . . . On 4th Sept., Stephen Clark wrote in part of his self-introduction: My work includes discussion of ethological and biological information relevant to the study of ethics, and the metaphysical foundations of science. On 5th Sept., Jesper Hoffmeyer wrote in part of his self-introduction: . . . scientific understanding is deeply bounded by the horizon of science as culture. And this causes severe myopia in the theoretical approach of modern biology, which is what concerns me at the professional level. Predominant patterns of social and technological use of biological theory reflects (reinforces?) these biases. So my concern is not so much "history of biology" as it is natural history as such and evolutionary theor