These questions do not require a "right" answer, rather they require a
reflexive answer based on each individuals learning, experience and belief,
it provides a rare opportunity to try your sum total against some really
good questions. I am going to answer them from my self - the sum totality
of what I am - no punch's pulled.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
----------
From: Arthur Cordell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: future <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: questions
Date: January 2, 1998 10:10 AM
Good wishes to all on the FW list. If you feel boredom coming on in the
new year, you may wish to ponder some of the questions below.
arthur cordell
The New York Times News Service
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1997
In an On-Line Salon, Scientists Sit Back and Ponder
At his Web site, called Edge, John Brockman, a literary agent for many
scientists and an author himself, tries to achieve what he calls
''electronic discourse at the highest level'' with people of ''the third
culture'' -- scientists and other researchers who, he says, ''are taking
the place of the traditional intellectuals in rendering visible the deeper
meaning of our lives, redefining who and what we are.''
Thomas Lunde
Well, I would certainly challenge the assumptions in this statement.
Perhaps while all these "great" scientists are objectively learning, there
may be many more subjectively learning and who knows, where the greatest
intellectual achievements will come from, a University studying Creation or
the mystic attempting to experience Creation.
To mark the first anniversary of the site (http://www.edge.org), Mr.
Brockman posed a question: ''Simply reading the six million volumes in the
Widener Library does not necessarily lead to a complex and subtle mind,''
he wrote, referring to the Harvard library. ''How to avoid the
anesthesiology of wisdom?'' He answered the question with other questions
-- by inviting participants to submit ''the question you are asking
yourself.'' Here are some of their queries. They and others are now
available at Edge.
Thomas Lunde (Answering his question)
The answer to this question is the learning of good questions, not reading
the answers of others. That is not to say that one should not read
6,000,000 million volumes. It is to acknowledge that 6,000,000
perspectives are too many to deal with and that the process of synthesizing
and elimination only come from having an initial framework against which
you can ask questions of the authors based on your own thoughts and
experiences, the new perspectives may alter your initial hypothesis, this
is called learning. It is questionable (by me) whether there is any
objective truth without a perceiver, and as all humans are unique -
therefore each perceiver is different, all truth's will be different which
negates the idea held in the meaning of the word "truth".
What is the crucial distinction between inanimate matter and an entity
which can act as an ''agent,'' manipulating the world on its own behalf,
and how does that change happen?
PHILIP ANDERSON Physicist and Nobel laureate Princeton University
Thomas Lunde
There is no distinction, therefore this is a false question. Everything is
alive, aware and fulfilling it's own needs in it's own manner and we pay
all existence the highest compliment when we acknowledge it's right to
exist and experience in the manner chosen by it. As all matter is composed
of the "same stuff", there cannot be a dividing line unless one can
determine different stuff, which so far we haven't been able to do,
therefore the same stuff that makes us conscious, i.e. atoms, molecules,
energy, electrons exist in all stuff, one must conclude that all stuff is
alive too but experiencing life in a different way, just as a dolphin or
wolf experience life in a different way than humans.
Is the universe a great mechanism, a great computation, a great symmetry,
a great accident or a great thought?
JOHN D. BARROW Astronomer, University of Sussex
Thomas Lunde
Yes, to all the above, but also a great creative expression, a work of art,
a reflection of God - whatever that may be.
How can we build a new ethics of respect for life that goes beyond
individual survival to include the necessity of death, the preservation of
the environment and our current and developing scientific knowledge?
MARY CATHERINE BATESON Anthropologist, George Mason University
Thomas Lunde
In our schools, we must teach the results of thoughts and actions. Instead
we teach facts about ----? Facts are not knowledge, the are specialist
descriptions of isolated events. Knowledge comes from understanding the
results of thoughts and actions. Children need to see a prison, a meat
packing factory, a funeral home, a disenfranchised people or person, a
child or animal being born, a cancer victim, a capitalist exploiting
children, a landlord living off the protection of property law at the
expense of others whose labour he utilizes for his own profit. Parents
need to be instructed into being parents - we can no longer leave parenting
to dysfunctional adults who came from dysfunctional homes. In three
generations of constantly seeking to improve the sanity, curiosity, realism
and urge to learn, our world will be transformed.
How do we make long-term thinking automatic and common instead of
difficult and rare?
STEWART BRAND ''Whole Earth'' catalogues founder
Thomas Lunde
With great respect to one of my heroes - simple - reward it.
Which cognitive skills develop in any reasonably normal human environment
and which only in specific sociocultural contexts?
JOHN T. BRUER President, James S. McDonnell Foundation
Thomas Lunde
An erroneous question based on false premises. There are no reasonably
normal human beings. The possibility exists for a loving, creative,
balanced human with all his cognitive skills fully developed. We have not
yet created a society that can consistently or predictably create such a
human. That is our challenge and that is the a priori that will determine
the answer to the question.
What is the mathematical essence that distinguishes living from nonliving,
so that we can engineer a transcendence across the current boundaries?
ROD BROOKS Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT
Thomas Lunde
See answer # 1.
Do humans have evolved homicide modules -- evolved psychological mechanisms
specifically dedicated to killing other humans under certain contexts?
DAVID BUSS Psychologist, University of Texas
Thomas Lunde
Yes, I'm sure in our old brain there exist responses to environmental
stimulus that override later neo-cortex development. Some of these
responses can result in killing other humans. The answer is to create
societies that reduce the contexts in which these impulses or instincts are
triggered. So far we have not done that.
How will minds expand, once we understand how the brain makes mind?
WILLIAM H. CALVIN Neurophysiologist, U. of Washington
Thomas Lunde
We will find the brain is a step down and that mind makes the brain. The
question posed assumes that the brain makes the mind - I see it the other
way.
Any musically aware listener will know of music that breaks out of
established forms or syntax to profound effect -- my personal favorites
include Beethoven's ''Eroica Symphony,'' Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde,''
Schoenberg's ''Erwartung,'' Debussy's ''Apres Midi d'un Faune.'' What is
the most that we can ever say objectively about what those composers are
discovering?
PHILIP CAMPBELL Editor, Nature
Thomas Lunde
That our brain operates in such a way that certain (music or other)
stimulus's triggers certain pleasurable response circuts and that these
responses trigger glandular releases that the body perceives as a profound
effect in that it differs from the perceived norm. There is more, the
consciousness perceiving the difference in the body caused by the release
of glandular molecules evaluates those feelings with an emotional name.
Stimulus - triggers circuit to produce glandular chemical release which the
body responds to - similar to a hot or cool sensation on the skin - leading
consciousness to label the sensation in feeling or emotional terms.
(lost the first part of the question) d the human use of biological cues
(and cultural and
linguistic cues) to indicate social identity are parts of our evolutionary
legacy, it makes it that much harder to eradicate ethnocentrism and racism.
Can we do it?
RACHEL CASPARI Anthropologist, University of Michigan
Thomas Lunde
I believe these are learned responses - therefore change the learning that
will change the behavior.
If Gordon Moore was correct in his prediction that the amount of
information storable on semiconductor chips would double every 18 months,
over time is time more or less valuable?
LUYEN CHOU President, Learn Technologies Interactive
Thomas Lunde
I fail to see the relationship between information and time. Each
individual can only process so much stimulus, whether that be the
assimilation of knowledge or the endurance of pain. As each individual is
different the times will vary. Value can only be determined when you know
the criteria an action can be judged against. Define the criteria of value
in a given instance will allow you to evaluate more or less.
What is information and where does it ultimately originate?
PAUL DAVIES Physicist, University of Adelaide, Australia
Thomas Lunde
If there was no ear and a tree fell in the forest, could we say there was a
sound. Information requires a perceiver and it originates in the needs of
the perceiver.
What might a second specimen of the phenomenon that we call life look like?
RICHARD DAWKINS Evolutionary biologist, Oxford
Thomas Lunde
A dinosaur, a whale, a porpoise, a rock, a direction, - primitive societies
believe that everything is alive and aware - how do we know they are not
right?
A crowd can empty a football stadium in minutes, solving what is an
intractable computational problem and exhibiting large-scale adaptive
intelligence in the absence of central direction. Why are decentralized
processes ubiquitous throughout nature and society -- evolution, itself,
is such a process -- and why do people remain so distrustful of them that
they will sacrifice their autonomy and freedom for centralized solutions?
ARTHUR DE VANY Behavioral scientist, University of California at Irvine
Thomas Lunde
You assume because the problem can phrased into a mathematical
computational methodology and that it would be a difficult computation to
make that - that is the only way the problem can be solved. Obviously, by
the nature of your question, in that it in fact happens to be solved
without such a computation must lead us to think that there is another way
the problem can
be framed and solved - as it is. Effectiveness is the measure of truth.
The fact that "decentralized process ubiquitous through out nature and
society" points to another way of solving problems other than the
technological ones we have developed using mathematics. A Whole new era or
exploration invites us to try and find how those solutions happen in the
absence of a mathematical formula. As for people, change is threatening,
therefore security is sought. Centralized solutions promise or imply such
solutions and the gullible believe them. As proof, why does an economy
work?
How on earth does the brain manage its division of labor problem -- that
is, how do the quite specialized bits manage to contribute something useful
when they get ''recruited'' by their neighbors to assist in currently
dominant tasks?
DANIEL C. DENNETT Philosopher, Tufts University
Thomas Lunde
Think of the brain as a re-programmable response mechanism - not all that
much different in function than a computer. Then ask, who or what is the
programmer? A line of code is a specialized bit of labor in a computer
program. It get's recruited to the needs of a higher intelligence to
produce a result. Who or what is the higher intelligence. If we can't find
it in the brain, perhaps it doesn't exist in the brain - perhaps we might
try analyzing toenails, after all, once intelligent humans thought that
thought originated in the heart. You can't find the programmer in the
program -but you can see and analyze the effects of the programmers work in
the program. A good programmer will use certain sub-routines that are used
in many independent circuits, such as fetching the date.
What do collapses of past societies teach us about our own future?
JARED DIAMOND Biologist, University of California at Los Angeles Medical
School
Thomas Lunde
The history is too complex, the records are too thin. Our assumptions are
based on our experience, not on theirs. What made them choose the choices
they did that led to their demise is a needle in a haystack and can never
be found with certainty. Assumptions we might make are dangerous metaphors
that we use to justify a present course of action - they do not guarantee
success or failure - they are random to the problem - we might just as
effectively throw twenty answers in a hat and draw them out - the
percentages of success would be about the same. So what do we do. The
highest quality of information is behavioral - therefore we look around,
access the situation with all our resources and then act congruently in
present time. Past time is way past time and a waste of time. History is
good fiction.
Throughout its history, the scientific community has shown great integrity
in resisting the onslaught of antirationalism. How can it now be persuaded
to show the same integrity in regard to scientism?
DAVID DEUTSCH Physicist, Oxford
Thomas Lunde
That's a nice assumption, but the scientific community has been as
irrational as any other group and the proof is in how often two or more
scientists can look at the same data and come to different conclusions -
therefore one of the two scientists must be irrational or there would be no
dispute. Did cold fusion happen in Utah?
Is psychic phenomenon just wishful thinking and can we ever prove it exists
or doesn't exist using scientific methodology?
JOHN C. DVORAK Columnist for PC Magazine, PC/ Computing and Boardwatch
Thomas Lunde
We haven't discovered everything in the last three hundred years and we
will probably discover other methodologies. A question like this has the
hubris to somehow suggest that the Universe or Creation is so simple that
we have got it figured out. I wonder what an arrogant question like this
thinks mankind is going to spend the next 10 millenniums doing- improving
on the toaster?
What makes a soul? And if machines ever have souls, what will be the
equivalent of psychoactive drugs? Of pain? Of the physical/ emotional high
I get from having a clean office?
ESTHER DYSON President, Adventure Holdings; RELEASE 1.0 newsletter
Thomas Lunde
Don't know! It's like asking who or what made the model of a sperm or an
egg. The question is bigger than our ability at the present time to
answer. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be asked, Zen Masters ask "What is the
sound of one hand clapping." It is a semantic ambiguity that can't be
answered with language - a soul may be another form of ambiguity that can't
be answered within the context of language - perhaps as the sages have said
it can only be experienced. As to your question, "if machines ever have
souls", one might ask, seeing as we can't prove humans have one, how can we
prove that machines don't have one?
What goes on inside the head of a baby?
FREEMAN DYSON Physicist, Institute for Advanced Study
Thomas Lunde
A program is being written by a programmer. A baby is a blackboard drawing
that will eventually be a thing called a human being.
As biological and traditional forms of cultural evolution are superseded by
electronic (or postelectronic) evolution, what will be the differentially
propagating ''units'' and the outcome of the natural selection among them?
PAUL EWALD Biologist, Amherst
Thomas Lunde
What if - first I have to buy your assumptions that one will supersede the
other, perhaps we can co-exist, perhaps we will co-join, perhaps the
luddites will win and we will get rid of them - many answers to a
non-question.
Will the ''theory of everything'' be a theory of principles, not particles?
Will it invoke order from above, not below?
KENNETH FORD Retired Director, American Institute of Physics
Thomas Lunde
Consider that a theory of everything may be a change of perception within
human consciousness to a knowing - not a mathematical formula or a set of
principles. Perhaps it will invoke order from within or in alignment with
something outside or perhaps it will perceive the pattern or harmony and
find it's right place. The theory of everything - and this may come as a
great shock - may not be found in a University.
However appropriate it may be for the economy, the ''market model'' is a
grossly inadequate model for the rest of human society. With the decline of
religious conviction and the slow pace of changes in the legal code, how
can we nurture persons and institutions that can resist a purely market
orientation in all spheres of living?
-- HOWARD GARDNER Psychologist, Harvard
If it's not right, it will collapse from it's own imperfect structure.
That's what happens to poor design. It may be happening now - it may
happen in fifty years. As nothing last forever, the only thing we can be
sure of and this may be a big shock to the neo-cons, is that it will
happen. As to resisting, it is an individual matter of using a different
criteria. Instead of the criteria of profit, we could use the criteria of
sustainability or durability or any other individual or combination of
criteria's.
How can we improve our reward system for excellence in filtering,
interpreting and synthesizing the vast body of so-called information with
which we are deluged?
-- Murray Gell-Mann Nobel laureate in physics, Santa Fe Institute
Good question - amplify success, discontinue failure. I have been thinking
about government Acts recently, such as the Labour Act, for instance. There
are three stakeholders - the government - business - people - of which some
are workers and some are consumers. I have been thinking that every Act
should have a series of rotating tribunals to investigate the effect of the
Act on the three stakeholders and periodically - say every month - they
meet to determine whether the needs of the consituentency they are
monitoring are being met within the intent of the Act as defined in the
Preamble. From this should come a report to a government oversight
committee and this committee should make new solutions available to the
Parliament. Every Act should be a solution in progress rather than a fixed
body of law and procedure. Interpreting and synthesizing information is a
matter of summaries that take chaotic information and organize and
categorize it against some criteria - principle - postulated result -
desired goal.
How do intelligent beings learn to adapt successfully on their own to a
rapidly changing world without forgetting what they already know?
STEPHEN GROSSBERG Cognitive scientist, Boston University
Thomas Lunde
Well this is a pretty subjective answer, but we must give up our economic
slavery by moving to a basic universal income for all that is adequate to
supply our individual and family needs of survival and comfort. Without
the fear of livelihood being threatened, we can act from a higher moral
platform other than personal survival. Without the pressure of economics,
we can begin to explore our humanity and rediscover what we have forgotten.
The answer is in our description of ourselves, we are "human beings" and
because of the economic system we have evolved, we are just "human
consumings", the "being" which is what our highest ideal for ourselves and
our race is - is buried at the moment under a false threat - that unless we
shut up and do what we are told, when we are told, we may lose our career,
our income and our place in society.
How can we reconcile our desire for fairness and equity with the brutal
fact that people are not all alike?
JUDITH RICH HARRIS Developmental psychologist
Thomas Lunde
Dysfunctional people exist because they are raised in dysfunctional
societies by dysfunctional parents operating in an economic system that
makes us prioritize survival over saneness. We must realize this is a
generational change not a legislative or philosophic change of viewpoint.
When I grew up in the forties, it was a truism that to "spare the rod,
spoils the child." Now after three generations, just stating it is an
absurdity.
Is there a way to enlarge our separate tribal loyalties, to include all our
fellow humans?
REUBEN HERSH Mathematician
Thomas Lunde
We could learn to value our differences rather than seeking security in our
sameness. Again, I think this is essentially an economic and political
problem that would be eliminated once the profit motive is removed.
Businesses exist to make a profit and the best profits come from shortages.
The best shortages are produced by war and racial hatred is one of the
tools of warmongers.
Why is music such a pleasure?
NICHOLAS HUMPHREY Psychologist, The New School
Thomas Lunde
Because you have a highly developed auditory cognitive faculty. For me it
is colours.
What must a physical system be such that it can act on its own in an
environment?
STUART A. KAUFFMAN Biologist, Santa Fe Institute
Thomas Lunde
Nothing acts alone - not even pure space - therefore your question is a
koan that cannot be answered.
Are the laws of physics a logical coherent whole, so that with any small
change the entire framework would crumble? Or are there a continuum of
possibilities, only one of which happens to have been selected for our
observed universe?
LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS Physicist, Case Western Reserve University
Thomas Lunde
I think the laws of the physical universe are true for the physical
universe. I'm not sure the physical universe is all of creation and
therefore other laws may exist in such an expanded universe - let's not be
too smug about our small bit of learning. The Aztecs thought they had to
please the Sun God with blood to have good crops and so they killed
thousands so the rest could survive. They were not more unintelligent than
us - they just used a different data base and from that they got their own
truths. Science's current truths may turn out to be as erroneous as the
Aztecs - after all, when Cortez found them they were a civilization rich in
art, culture and governance that had existed longer than our present
Western civilization.
What does technology want?
KEVIN KELLY Executive editor, Wired
Thomas Lunde
This question is based on a presupposition - asking the needs of a class of
beings that have been created by a class of beings for profit. Perhaps
what the slave wants is to replace the master or conversely to serve him
better. The certainty is that new models of technology will be developed to
satisfy the greed of entrepreneurs and it is only a by product of that
greed that
others are served. Would there be technology without greed - for most of
history, the answer seems to be no. Then we might ask is greed good -
Catholics identify it as one of the seven deadly sins, our current
worldview sees wealth as the reason for living and those who have it as
personifications of our highest ideal - pretty warped really.
With the ever-growing dominance of corporate forms of control in everyday
social life, how do we reconcile our notions of personal liberty and
autonomy rooted in Enlightenment political thought?
EDWARD O. LAUMANN Sociologist, University of Chicago
Thomas Lunde
We must realize that corporate dominance is no different except in kind
from the growth of nobility after the dark ages. We can spend 500 years
under the corporate elite, until their abuses create revolt strong enough
to bring about their collapse or we can change and prioritize those ideas
from the enlightenment over profit. Our biggest asset, in this current
time,
seems to be the Internet - we must keep it free and accessible.
For how long can Christianity and Islam survive the recovery of living
organisms from beyond our planet by our species? Can religion exist after
humans have created living entities that reproduce?
RICHARD LEAKEY Paleoanthropologist; former director, Kenya Wildlife Service
Thomas Lunde
Of course. Our current concept of God is from the Agrarian age, full of
their metaphors and truths. We have grown, new truths are open to us - not
to negate God or Creation but to enhance the wonder of it. Christianity
and Islam may pass away, but they are just the organizational aspects of
spirituality. Other organizations are possible or perhaps it will move
from the group to the individual. The one thing that has apparently been
constant is that spirituality has existed in some form in all human
societies and I have every reason to think it will continue - form may
change but the need for spirituality by humans seems to be one of our
criteria.
How can we know when and what we do not know?
SIR JOHN MADDOX Editor emeritus, Nature
Thomas Lunde
When our mind is filled with the belief that we know it all. As long as
their are questions, then we will know that there is something we do not
know. Is it possible to imagine a language or society without questions
within it?
How does the capacity for low mood give a selective advantage?
RANDOLPH NESSE, M.D. Psychiatrist, University of Michigan
Thomas Lunde
What is the behavior a "low mood" generates. The organism creates a "low
mood" because it perceives a benefit to that particular behavior. If the
organism is right, we call it a selective advantage - if it wrong, we call
it bad luck or dysfunctional.
Why are religions still vital?
ELAINE H. PAGELS Professor of religion, Princeton
Thomas Lunde
Religions may not still be vital. Spirituality may be vital but
organizations may not be necessary.
How does the brain represent the meaning of a sentence?
STEVEN PINKER Cognitive scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thomas Lunde
The meaning of the sentence is the result of a series of specialist
subroutines (called words) arranged according to a grammar. It is the
programmer that evaluates the meaning of the sentence - just as in real
life (ha ha) the programmer may write a hundred lines of code to make a
Capital letter. Each of the hundred lines by itself would tell nothing of
the end result of the hundred lines. The fact that meaning is made out of
the sentence implies a programmer that may exist outside the brain and yet
still be connected to the brain.
Is there a happiness gene, and is it dominant?
LOUIS ROSSETTO Co-founder and publisher of Wired
Thomas Lunde
If there is a gene that builds a receptor that produces results that induce
that feeling of pleasure we call happiness, that is as basic as the gene
that makes two lungs or one heart for each human, then the possibility
exists that there is a happiness gene.
I often wonder -- sometimes despair -- whether it will be possible to solve
long-term, global problems (global warming being my current focus) until we
can overcome collective denial, which in turn, may not become conscious
until we grapple with personal myths. I question whether the eventual loss
of half the other species on earth will even be enough to overcome personal
escapism that has gone collective. . . . Perhaps that's not even a
question, but it occupies my mind a lot.
STEPHEN H. SCHNEIDER Climatologist, Stanford
Thomas Lunde
You don't really value car insurance until you have had an accident. The
collective denial present now, is a culture that has not - in recent
history- experienced an accident from this particular threat, therefore the
cost of insurance does not seem warranted. Once the accident becomes self
evident to everybody, then a collective change will happen and everyone
will buy
into whatever constitutes change to prevent or alleviate future accidents.
Do exotic life forms, made of very different materials than those used by
life on earth, occur elsewhere in the universe?
ROBERT SHAPIRO Biochemist, New York University
Thomas Lunde
Perhaps the Creator is not limited to Earth possibilities and chooses to
expand differently in different environments. As we can postulate that
there are many different environments, it is possible that there are many
life forms using different materials than those available to Earth. There
may yet be found life on Mars!
Fundamentally, is the flow of time something real, or might our sense of
time passing be just an illusion that hides the fact that what is real is
only a vast collection of moments?
LEE SMOLIN Physicist, Penn State University
Thomas Lunde
I think if you had stopped your question with a period at "just an
illusion.", then I would answer "yes'. However, your answer limits my
ability to answer.
Why are most individuals and all human societies grossly underachieving
their potentials?
DUNCAN STEEL Author
Thomas Lunde
That's an interesting assumption - should we all be millionaires. I think
everybody is achieving the best they can in the circumstances they are in -
if you want more improvement, change the circumstances.
What was the key factor in the success of Homo sapiens compared with other
human species such as the Neanderthals?
CHRIS STRINGER Research paleoanthropologist, The Natural History Museum,
London
Thomas Lunde
Is this a skill testing question - it sounds like one of those smug
rhetorical questions that someone who knows the "correct" answer poses to
those who don't know the correct answer. Two answers occur, it was luck,
it was part of some grand design. There is no way to know, perhaps
Neanderthals thought humans were ugly and moved away and then the ice age
came.
Why not?
LINDA STONE Director of the Virtual Worlds Group in the Microsoft Advanced
Technology and Research Division
Thomas Lunde
Interesting semantic question. Never ask someone "why" because the
question "Why" causes another to justify the reasons for their actions.
This could be considered negative and the word "not" is another negative.
When you get two negative statements in a sentence, you end up with a
positive. In this case, the answer to your questions is "yes."
A joint question: When posterity looks back on the 20th century from the
perspective of
a hundred years, what will they see as our greatest successes and worst
follies?
PAMELA McCORDUCK Author
JOSEPH TRAUB Computer scientist, Columbia
Thomas Lunde
The concept of the capitalistic system of economics will be considered our
worst folly. (Because it is exploitive) Our concept of universality in
terms of Medicare, education, voting and a host of other rights and
opportunities will be considered our greatest success.
Can we devise a religion for the 21st century and beyond that is plausible
and yet avoids banality -- one that people see the need for? What would it
be like?
COLIN TUDGE Author
Thomas Lunde
We should not have to devise it. If there is a need for it, it should
arise from among us, or be brought to our attention from outside of us.
Religions are not inventions. They are the result of a perspective that
seems true to those who are exposed to it. The religion itself is a human
construct in terms of organization, but in terms of revelation, it is the
truth as explained by its originator and adherents.
Is the phenomenology of modern biology converging on a small number of
basic truths or will it increasingly diverge, becoming so endlessly
complex that no single human mind will be able to encompass it?
ROBERT A. WEINBERG, M.D. Biologist, M.I.T.; Whitehead Institute for
Biomedical Research
Thomas Lunde
I would tend to the complexity answer. However, I would prefer a question
that does not limit my answer to an either/or of your suggested answers.
What do we want from science?
MARGARET WERTHEIM Science writer
Thomas Lunde
John Kenneth Galbraith calls it the Culture of Contentment, read the book
for a more detailed explanation.
Copyright 1997 The New York Times / The New York Times News Service via
Dow Jones & Company
* * * END OF DOCUMENT * * *
