Yes, and I sent you a brief description of freshman year at Carnegie Tech
in1961-62.
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Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM
On Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 1:24 PM <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Did you guys not get this?____
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Nick Thompson____
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>____
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
<https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>____
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*From:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
*Sent:* Monday, September 19, 2022 2:59 PM
*To:* 'Mike Bybee' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>; 'Eric
Charles' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
*Cc:* 'Jon Zingale' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* RE: Nick's monism kick____
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I think this comes very close to our discussion on operationism. My
response to eric’s challenge on that score was his “quantity” argument, which
he himself disavowed. The attempt to identify a concept by a single operation
or even by operations within a single paradigm is operationism, which I, as a
pragmatist, condemn. However, the sum of all conceivable operations is the
pragmaticist “meaning” of the concept. Now, in disavowing this “Quantitative”
distinction between operationism and pragmatism, Eric seems to be reaching for
some “essence” which is aside from all operations that might flow from adoption
of the concept. I wrote you both about this, and neither has replied. ____
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Now, as to the dialogue. I would be proud of the student by the fact that
she has carried anything from the psycho building to the chemistry building.
Most students go through a complete brainwashing when they pass out into the
quadrangle. Finally, I would be proud of her holding her ground with the lab
tech, even when such heavy artillery is brought to bear on her. ____
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As to the substance, I find the Lab Tech’s response oddly incoherent.
First he appears to ding her for her flat affect. “Look, kid, some
consequences are more… um… consequential than others. Don’t you feel the heat
of that explosion?” On that point, I agree with him. Emotional consequences
are consequences. We could do experiments on them. ____
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But then he seems to be dinging her for not understanding that the dire
consequences arise from molecular events rather than from bad lab technique, as
if they become more consequention when they are understood in atomic terms. As
if their “dangerousness” is attached to their “atomicness”. This argument felt
to me like some sort of creepy essentialism, I and wanted no part of it. I
would have been even more proud of the student if she had responded,
“Respectfully, sir, that makes no sense to me at all. What is truly dangerous
here, what I must be steadfastly warned against, is mixing these two substances
under particular circumstances, or even composing a mixture that might, though
inattention, find itself under those circumstances. True, atomic principles
might help me anticipate dangers with other solutions, but the danger is in the
explosion, not in the atoms. ____
! ____
In my year at Harvard, two of my classmates were thrown out for a chemistry
experiment pursued in their dorm rooms that resulted in an explosion. The
students defended themselves before the Dean (my uncle, as it happened), on the
ground that the two chemicals involved /could not have exploded! /The chemistry
department agreed. Nonetheless, the Dean threw they out, but with a Deanly
wink encouraging application for re-admission in the following year. ____
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Have I answered your question?____
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n____
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Nick Thompson____
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>____
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
<https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>____
__ __
*From:* Mike Bybee <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
*Sent:* Monday, September 19, 2022 1:03 PM
*To:* 'Nicholas Thompson' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>;
'Eric Charles' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
*Cc:* 'Jon Zingale' <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>;
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* RE: Nick's monism kick
*Importance:* High____
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I’ve been waiting for Nick to weigh in on this. ____
Is it about time for the new academic conversation to begin?
____
I think Eric’s imagined a wonderful dialogue here. ____
First, it’s in the context of chemistry, Peirce’s paradigm for
how-to-do-philosophy, so this makes Peirce’s point perfectly. ____
Second, Eric has situated it as a discussion between a lab
tech and a student, not between a chemistry professor and a student. That
makes the whole thing far more poignant—but makes the whole tension between the
Peirce’s levels of discourse so in-your-face as well. ____
Anyway, ____
I’m really curious to see how Nick will address Eric’s
adventitious example, and I don’t want this to get lost in the autumn leaves!
____
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*From:* Nicholas Thompson
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 30, 2022 10:47 AM
*To:* Eric Charles <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
*Cc:* M. D. Bybee <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>; Jon Zingale
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>; [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject:* Re: Nick's monism kick____
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I am at the moment living in a remote colony of rich peoples shacks, Hence
no Internet.____
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But I like the question so well I am forwarding it to the list. I will get
back to you when I do not have to thumb my answer.
N____
Sent from my Dumb Phone____
On Aug 30, 2022, at 11:27 AM, Eric Charles <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:____
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Nick, ____
You have been asking for "an assignment", and I think I finally thought of
a good one for you. (And I think it might spur some interesting discussion, which is why
others are copied here.) ____
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Imagine that you are still teaching at Clark, and that you have been
tentatively including your current monism more and more in some of the classes.
When walking by the Chemistry labs, you recognize the voice of an enthusiastic
student you had last quarter,, and you start to ease drop. The conversation is
as follows:
Lab tech: Be careful with that! If it mixes with the potassium solution, it
can become explosive, we would have to evacuate the building.
Student: What do you mean?
Lab tech: If the potassium mixes with chlorides at the right ratio, then we
are *probably* safe while it is in solution, but if it dries up, it is a
hard-core explosive and it wouldn't take much to level the whole building. We
would have to take that threat seriously, and evacuate the building until I
made the solution safe.
Student: Oh, a predictions about future experiences, I like those!
Lab tech: What? I'm talking about a real danger, and I need you to be
careful so it doesn't happen.
Student: Yes, exactly, you believe that those experiences will follow if
certain experiences happen now.
Lab tech: Huh? No. I'm telling you how the physical atoms work. I mean...
yes... the part about the explosion is something that would happen under
certain circumstances in the future, but the chemical reaction and the damage
it could cause are well known facts. Look, man, if you aren't here to learn how
to be safe with the chemicals, then maybe you should just leave.
Student: Wait, seriously? You aren't some kind of *materialist* are you?!?
You know anything we could talk about are *just* experiences, right? It's
experiences all the way down!
Listening in, you can tell that the student is taking this line based on
your influence, because it sounds like things they were kinda-sorta starting to
grock in your class.
How do you feel hearing that? Proud, worried, confused? Does it sound like
the student was getting the message you intended, or has the intended message
gone awry? Would you have said something similar to the Lab Tech under the same
circumstances? ____
