Dear Colleagues - I have been reading the posts in this thread and enjoying the conversation. I started playing with the notion of discipline and came up with these undisciplined playful thoughts which I believe provide an interesting or at least an alternative perspective on the notion of a discipline. A discipline is a tool, a way of organizing ideas that result from scientific inquiry or any other form of scholarly activity and even artistic activity. Now every tool provides both service and disservice. All of the posts so far have dealt with the service of discipline. Here are some thoughts about the possible disservice of discipline. Please take the following with a grain of salt. I believe the notion of a discipline is anti-thetical to scientific inquiry in the sense that it confines ones thinking to the confines of a discipline. One should not be disciplined by a discipline but be free to go beyond the boundaries of that discipline. Note that the root of the word discipline is disciple. If one is to be free to explore new ideas and new phenomena one should not be a disciple of the scientists or thinkers that created a discipline. Now I am not saying that learning a discipline is a bad thing as it provides a solid training and an understanding of how a set of principles describes certain phenomena. It is a model of how a scientific, scholarly or artistic practice can be carried out. As long as one does not become a disciple of one's discipline or disciplines they can be very useful for creating a new discipline or going beyond ones discipline. Perhaps the notion of trans-disciplinary is not such a bad notion if one thinks of trans as beyond.
As to the notion that there are these four super categories of disciplines or great domains of science: Physics, biology, social and the 4th domain which is computing or infomation depending on how one likes to classify thing here are some thoughts. I find these classification schemes and their inter-relations fascinating and useful. But I believe another challenge worthy of consideration is to consider the interaction of the great domains of science with the great domains of the humanities, ethics, the arts. How does we connect the knowledge of the sciences with the wisdom of how to best use that knowledge to benefit humankind. Here are some thoughts I developed before this thread began that might be pertinent to our current discussion. Science can be thought of as organized knowledge given that the etymologically the word science derives from the Latin to know: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/science [edit]. From Old French science, from Latin scientia (“knowledge”), from sciens, the present participle stem of scire (“know”). Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom: The relationship of data, information, knowledge and wisdom “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” – TS Eliot “Where is the meaning we have lost in information?” – RK Logan “• Data are the pure and simple facts without any particular structure or organization, the basic atoms of information, • Information is structured data, which adds meaning to the data and gives it context and significance, • Knowledge is the ability to use information strategically to achieve one's objectives, and • Wisdom is the capacity to choose objectives consistent with one's values and within a larger social context (Logan 2014).” While checking out the etymology of science I encountered the following on http://www.luminousgroup.net/2013/05/on-etymology-of-science.html "“This might be a good time to examine the etymology of the word science, It comes from the Latin scientia, from sciens, which means having knowledge, from the present participle of scire, meaning to know, probably—and here's where it gets exciting—akin to the Sanskrit Chyati, meaning he cuts off, and Latin scindere, to split, cleave." Science operates by cutting off questions of value. And this is why I advocate consideration of the four great domains of science with the great domain of the humanities, the arts and ethics. The greatest challenges facing humanity is not just increasing our store of knowledge through science but also how we choose to deploy our scientific knowledge in the best interest of human kind. So ends my challenge to Moises Nisenbaum and Ken Herold with thanks for stimulating this interesting conversation with kind regards -Bob ______________________ Robert K. Logan Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD http://utoronto.academia.edu/RobertKLogan www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications
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