(N.b.: I think my email may be screwed up due to (1) problems with STS
mailing list,
(2) Me changing from Netscape 3 to Netscape 4 email in prep for Y2K on
my computer, (3) ditto #2 on my wife's computer. Sorry.)
Ed Goertzen wrote:
[snip]
> A couple things to keep in mind.
>
> Knowledge is that which can be disproven.
If this is aimed at me (BMcC) -- which I am not
sure is the case --, I would ask for your
notion of "proof". For myself, the *empiricist* notion
of proof is itself something grossly in need
of inquiry (e.g.).
>
> Information is moulding the receptical so that anything poured into it
> (read propaganda) takes on the shape of the receptical.
In-form-ation. The thought comes to my mind: "Facts" are
little information-warfare bullets. I like the idea --
what better camouflage for *values* than to call them "facts"!
>
> Entertainment is "to capture the imagination". Also known as enslaving the
> mind.
I rather think what in our "Society of the Spectacle" (de Bord) is
called "entertainment" does indeed capture the imagination --
and snuff out the prisoner as best it can.... (Maybe we agree
here?)
>
> Enjoy the weekend!
I always try to -- including downloading Netscape 4.7 for my
wife's computer because I received an ominous message the
last time I tried to purchase something online with Netscape
3.04 -- something about security running out when Y2K arrives.
(I'd always had it on my own computer, along with Internet
Explorer, Opera, HotJava, SeaMonkey, etc. and so forth --
I just *liked* Netscape 3.04....)
- - - - - -
Verily! Y1K was nothing -- except that superstitious
people *fantasized* it was something (to the Roman Catholic
Church's credit, the Church told the people that millennial
anticipations for Y1K were nonsense). But, this time,
some 20+ years after Joseph Weizenbaum wrote about
"incomprehensible computer programs", etc. in his
appositely titled book: _Computer Power and
Human Understanding: From judgment to calculation_, we
have technologically created real millennial dangers.
Many things are strange,
but strangest of all is man...
[the strangest thing of all about whom
is that the only thing he doesn't find at all strange
is *himself*]
(--paraphrase from Heidegger's analysis of
Sophocles's "Ode to Man" in Antigone, in
his _Introduction to Metaphysics_)
I am once again reminded of the computer science
PhDs from prestige universities whose imaginative
horizon is bounded by the latest episode of StarTrek,
and to whom the dictum applies:
Data is not information.
Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not understanding.
And: UNDERSTANDING IS NOT WISDOM.
Is it any wonder postmodernists have
rejected the idea of "progress"?
>
> Ed G.
> ================
>
> Peace and goodwill
[snip]
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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