>
>
> Durant wrote:
>
> > I had no response to my arguments;
> >
> > Science is only a tool and even art would be non-existent without
> > scientific problemsolving.
>
> What is the date on the invention of the modern scientific process? Method?
>
>
The old one was just the same as the modern, even
including the peer review...: observe, make pattern,
make hypothesis, experiment, if it doesn't work make
new hypothesis, if it does work, use it and pass it on.
At what point you think science became your nasty, modern version?
> > It is the social/economical/cultural system that poses and applies/buys science;
>so
> > blame that for any "miscarriages".
>
> No I blame the personality of scientists who believe that science has all the answers
> and everyone else is stupid.
You are well, plain silly than, as there are probably larger
percent of the public - probably even artists!,
than scientists who believe that
science has all the answers.
> I prefer to listen instead to people like Bohm and
> Gell-Mann who seem to understand what it means to be a complex adaptive system,
> dependent upon all of the tools given us by the Creator.
So if we cannot pick it up - like chimpanzees the sticks,
than we shouldn't use it? The problem lies with Eve's
satanic thirst for knowledge??
Intelligence evolved as an efficient survival tool,
it is a "natural" human characteristic to use science,
probably at least as "natural" than to use art.
I have yet to see any good reason to refer to a Creator,
but that is another issue.
Don't use a lot of names, summerise what they said.
I don't except ideas just because a lot of Big Names
said so, it also has to make sense to me. I'll read everything
you say once I retire, until than I just don't have the time...
Especially those perceptual
> tools that are developed prior to conscious thought and that give rise to such.
>
?
> > >The simple fact is that
> > > science has a history with the wolf that makes trusting them tough at times. It
> > > was science as a tool that fascilitated changes in industrial practices for the
> > > better. But it often was the morality of religion that made them use the
> > > science.
> >
> > you mean the economical/social/cultural system
>
> No the spiritual, social, aesthetic, economic system. Science and technology were
>the
> nails but not the thought that conceived of the building.
>
the spiritual is part of the cultural. Every different
culture have a different god, remember. Otherwise here
you just repeated what I said.
> > >As Mike Hollinshead has pointed out on many occasions as he described
> > > the actions of the non-conformist industrialists who were Quaker. Science
> > > wants to take credit for them, but they no more deserve that credit than the
> > > piano does for the pianist.
> >
> > when did science wanted to take credit for the few quakers? Or for
> > anything for that matter; accrediting blame or credit is not part of
> > science, but of the social/cultural establishment. Sorry to be
> > repetitive, but there seems to be a difficulty with getting through...
>
> I think you are mistaking the creative balance that goes on between the material
> sciences and engineering and the cultural sciences like anthropology and the practice
> of excellence as expressed in the arts and the morality that comes from the
> contemplation of Ultimate Concerns. That would be a pretty wobbly table with only
>one
> leg, if I understand you correctly, but you could dance on a table with four legs.
>
There is a creative balance?? I thought we established,
that science is not used properly at the present.
Our argument is about the role of scientists; you say
they are the root of evil, I say they just reflect
their social/economical environment, like everybody else.
They create, like artists do, but their creations
are not used in the best interest of the people,
that happens with art, too.
...
> The U.S., Spain in middle and South America as well as Portugal, and England in
>North
> America. 100 million people at first contact, with a decline of 23 out of every 25
> with no appreciable growth in birth rate until a low was hit in North America of
> 100,000 at the turn of the century. After forced sterilizations were rescended in
>the
> 1970s there has been a bounce back of 1.5 million certified Indian people at present.
>
sorry, you totally lost me here.
> > We would be just an other type of ape without any art if we had no
> > science.
>
> Well, according to that definition we were just a bunch of apes up until the 17th
> century.
So the piramids, the exact forcast of floods, the
chinese, arabs, indians, greeks, romans, arabs etc, etc
had no science?? I repeat, we had science since the appearence
of the first homo sapiens.
Uptil the 17th century science was
monopolised in most places by the religious hierarchy,
as part of their magic, to help to keep people in their
various castes.
But then that evil book-printing was (oops:) invented/
against the wishes of your Creator no doubt...
>But I think we would probably make pretty poor apes, don't you think?
>
I'm crap at climbing trees and looking for fleas, thank you.
> > The only question is how it is managed. The present
> > establishment is obviously not into integrating the various branches
> > and in looking into global solutions.
>
> You must realize that there is no hierarchy, just legs for the table of life.
> Hierarchical thinking is about politics and is doomed to failure because it becomes
>an
> issue of power. For every action there is a reaction.
>
I have this horrid feeling, that you are bs-ing me.
I can't see other possible explanation for the above
statement... sorry.
> > So what you propose we do with the 5 billion + people that are
> > extra to requirement if we adopt the native american way of living?
>
> The Native American way of living is to be responsible, move slowly, have patience,
> hurt no one and remember that we are all related. Everything including the animals
> and plants. The balance is between hurting no one and eating to survive. Solve
> that first.
>
> There is nothing that frightens me more than billions of Western economically
>educated
> Chinese making "things" out of everything that was and is alive.
>
So who is to be the judge of which ancient culture to adopt?
The chinese culture is miles older probably, than the indian.
Which native american culture is your choice? The inka
cities were probably as environmentally destructive as
any chinese ones of the same time. The tribes needed a
waste part of wilderness to survive. Both type of culture
was into hurting animals and neghbouring peoples.
But even if this abstract back to nature thing
were a perfect way of life in every way,
how do you propose we achieve it at present, without
killing of 9/10th of the global population?
> > What's wrong with being an academic? If someone is into biochemistry,
> > they can be friendly with the neighbours... am I confused...
> > I don't think scientists are a different breed, they have as much
> > ground in culture/art as the next person. At the present, like
> > everybody else, they trying to survive, which means serving a
> > profit-hungry, insane, capitalist establishment.
>
> A "profit-hungry, insane, capitalist establishment" based largely on science as the
> only legitimate knowledge. I'm disagreeing with that proposition. I think there are
> four types of knowledge with Science being one of the four.
>
So if capitalism will be spiritual, everything will be fine...
but most capitalists are such good xians, they give
to charity... and look at Saudi Arabia et al - could
anything be more spiritual?
as for the rest... I can't see why would you
want to prove the superiority of art to science,
they are two sides of the same coin of reflecting
back our world. Your argument below sounds most
unconvincing.
Anyway, what is the point if we cannot employ science nor
art in the interest of the wast majority of people
in a crap social/economic system. We have to talk
about power, no wishy-washy getout dreams.
Eva
> > Some o fthem are
> > more couragous than others to fight, to risk family and careers to be
> > whistle-blowers etc., but happens in just the same proportions as to
> > artists, though artist usually have less responsibility on their
> > shoulders, even if a few do feel all the guilt of the world...
>
> Nonsense! That is the attitude of which I speak. How do you arrive at that
> conclusion? How is it that you see Art as being less responsible? I, as an
> artist, am required to know about science, economics, philosophy, history,
> industrialization, etc. to be able to speak of the future with all of you. But if I
> asked you to make the same kind of analysis in art about the creation of the modern
> world, could you do it? Like "perspective" in 15th century Florentine art that
>opened
> the door on modern engineering, or the Artist Leonardo who sat and used artistic
> methods to create practical science, or the development of the brain through the use
> of abstract thought created through the practice of musical instruments, etc. Or
>the
> works of Neuro Musicologists like Paula Washington and David Krahenbuehl.
>(References
> available on request) Would you be able to have this conversation with me?
>
> I gave a musical joke test on another list that was making wild generalizations and
> they said the specificity of the test was unfair. But the test came from the
>musical
> high school students where my daughter attends. The issue here is respect. As long
> as there is a "Messiah profession," then everyone else is unequal and must follow.
> Then the only thing to do is to kill the Buddha. Which is the root IMO of that
>saying
> about "meeting him on the road."
>
> Anyway. I can't talk anymore about this. But I would recommend a little read
>through
> something like Morris Berman's books for the science or Herbert Read so you at least
> realize those cave artists weren't scientists first. Come to think of it, they may
> have been Shamans. They too understood perspective but not geometry. It took
> Brunelleschi and his fellow Florentines to figure that out. Come to think of it.
> That is not a bad image. You might look up the Florentine Camarata. They did a
> little bit of everything and invented modern Italy in the process as well as the
> Operatic form.
>
> Got to go,
>
> REH
>
>
>
>
