Oddly enough, I'm finding Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics a good read.
It is NOT simply, as often thought, a rant against string theory, but an
interesting plunge into both the failure of physics to make it's usual progress
over the last 40-50 years and ideas on how to fix it. It has serious interest
in the philosophy of science (Feyerabend, Popper) as well as an interesting
plunge into recent directions in in science.
We're in Fiumicino, the tiny town adjacent to Rome's airport. Should arrive
back in SF late Tuesday. Italy is a wonder and Europe in general fascinating.
---- Owen
I am an iPad, resistance is futile!
On Oct 22, 2010, at 9:28 PM, Tom Carter <[email protected]> wrote:
> Nick -
>
> A place to begin exploring some of these issues might be:
>
> Muddling Through : Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First
> Century, by Mike Fortun and Herbert Bernstein (billed as a "science
> historian" and a "quantum physicist" . . . I have found it to be a good read
> . . .)
>
> Thanks . . .
>
> tom
>
> Amazon: Muddling Through : Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First
> Century
>
>
> On Oct 22, 2010, at 12:14 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
>> So how do we “convince” in pomo scholarship. Bribery? Threats? If not
>> logic, what legitimate inducements to agreement are available?
>> Nick
>>
>> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
>> Genie Giaimo
>> Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 9:57 AM
>> To: [email protected]; James Cordova
>> Cc: James Laird; Vincent Hevern; ForwNThompson; [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: Chomsky Supports Thompson
>>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> Think this is problematic simply because with the introduction of post
>> modernism (and arguably other earlier movements) authors are not always
>> looking for logical conclusions for why people are the way they are. Think
>> about A Clockwork Orange for example. In po-mo form and content sometimes
>> break down and people do things for reasons that seem beyond a logical "oh
>> it was their childhood or x y and z experience that did it"--I really am
>> convinced that we are working within two different frameworks that overlap
>> but in a problematic way because of the difference in outcome that is
>> expected in the two.
>>
>> Genie
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 10:28 AM, James Cordova <[email protected]> wrote:
>> From Skinner's "Science and Human Behavior"
>>
>> "Social stimuli are important to those to whom social reinforcement is
>> important. The salesman, the courtier, the entertainer...-- all are likely
>> to be affected by subtle properties of human behavior, associated with favor
>> or disapproval, which are overlooked by many people. It is significant that
>> the novelist, as a specialist in the description of human behavior, often
>> shows an early history in which social reinforcement has been especially
>> important."
>>
>> And of course Skinner was also a novelist.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> James
>>
>> James V. Cordova, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor
>> Director of Clinical Training
>> Department of Psychology
>> Clark University
>> (508) 793-7268
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: James Laird [mailto:[email protected]]
>> Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 10:07 AM
>> To: [email protected]; 'Vincent Hevern'; ForwNThompson
>> Cc: [email protected]
>> Subject: RE: Chomsky Supports Thompson
>>
>> Vinnie,
>> Nice to see you chiming in.
>> Chomsky doesn't impress me, since he isn't very empirical. Now if it
>> was Skinner, who was both an empiricist and a novelist, that would be
>> impressive. Actually, since Skinner is dead, that would be really, really
>> impressive.
>> Isn't this all about the feeling of knowing and how that differs (or
>> not) from actual knowing? And there is lots of empirical research
>> demonstrating how easy it is to deceive people's feeling of knowing, so that
>> they feel they know something that they clearly don't. and whatever
>> skepticism we might feel about the existential state of "real" knowledge, we
>> can at least agree, I would think, that knowing and feeling of knowing are
>> different.
>> Jim
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Vincent Hevern [mailto:[email protected]]
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 4:49 PM
>> To: ForwNThompson
>> Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]
>> Subject: Chomsky Supports Thompson
>>
>> Just to add to the mix:
>>
>> Noam Chomsky (1988). Language and Problems of Knowledge:
>>
>> "It is quite possible -- overwhelmingly probable one might guess --
>> that we will always learn more about human life and human personality
>> from novels than from scientific psychology."
>>
>> [quoted in Peter Watson (2000). The Modern Mind. New York: Harper
>> Perennial, pp. 755-56]
>>
>> I just read this and had to send it along.
>>
>> Vinny
>> --
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------
>> Vincent W. Hevern, SJ, Ph.D.
>> Professor of Psychology
>> Le Moyne College
>> 1419 Salt Springs Rd.
>> Syracuse, NY 13214 USA
>> [email protected]
>> (315) 445-4342 (Office)
>> (315) 445-4722 (FAX)
>> ----------------------------------------------
>> Web: www.hevern.com
>> Narrative Psychology: www.narrativepsych.com
>> IJDS: www.dialogical.org
>> ----------------------------------------------
>>
>>
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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