I was in a clinic a few days ago. There were about thirty people there, some
waiting to pee in bottles, others to have needles pushed into their arms for
blood extraction, still others for whatever reason. The atmosphere in the room
was one of frantic impatience -- hurry up, hurry hurry up! I've got to get
going! I've work to do! etc. I couldn't help but look out of the window at
some enormous trees and think about how different their civilization is from
ours. We have to chop time into little pieces. To them, time is eternal.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Spencer" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, August 28, 2010 12:44 AM
Subject: [Futurework] Re: Comments
>
> Ed wrote:
>
>> Just one more thought and then I'll shut up.
>
> Oh, don't do that.
>
>> I'd say that even theoretical and highly speculative science is not
>> myth because....
>
> I hope I didn't convey the notion that *I* think of science as
> intrinsically a myth structure. Your remark,
>
>> Nevertheless, I'd still make a distinction between myth and science,
>> with science being concerned with the discovery of the true state of
>> things and myth being what is placed on some original perceived
>> truth whether derived scientifically, mystically, or whatever.
>
> leads me to suspect that I did. I fully agree that science, qua
> science, is "concerned with the discovery of the true state of
> things".
>
> What I think is that "Science", in scare quotes with optional
> dingbats, is the name of a myth structure in 20th c. culture that has
> only a tenuous connection to the pursuit of science by scientists or
> to the study of basic (but real, textbook- or journal-level)
> chemistry, physics & biology by anybody who ardently desires to grok
> how the world works.
>
> The relationship between jingoist, razz-matazz, American-
> exceptionalist, TV- or rally-mediated "democracy" and a New England
> town meeting strikes me as similar to that between science and
> "*Science*".
>
> While I'm weak on metaphysics, I'm a little better with epistemology.
> Warren McCulloch's career-defining question,
>
> What is a man, that he may know a number and a number, that he may
> know it?
>
> strikes me as a far better question than many others. [1] Each part is
> qualified, viz. not "What is a man?" with no qualification. His is a
> pair of questions that can be addressed with the scientific method.
>
> McCulloch did, indeed, occupy a long career with those questions,
> without coming to any single, revolutionary and conclusive answer.
> But he didn't wander off into the mysto fogs and tried to dispel the
> mysto fogs where he encountered them.
>
> Keith also seems to have taken me amiss:
>
> KH> It was good to read that religion and science are both myths.
>
> I didn't mean that. "Science" (scare quotes and dingbats again) as it
> is perceived by people who can't grasp the difference between mass
> and weight (let alone the second law of thermodynamics [2]) has
> become a myth structure across western culture.
>
> How do I get at this point?
>
> I venerate large old trees, especially ancient oaks and maples. I
> don't believe that dryads actually exist. I don't believe in some
> non-material entities or etherial substances that inhabit or inform or
> vivify trees. But I behave as if I do believe something akin to all
> that because old oaks and maples move me in a deep way. I feel in
> some sense impoverished because there are no such trees near my house
> but similarly uplifted because there are some on our land that I can
> visit. Nevertheless, I think trees are a matter of living tissue,
> biochemicals, water, soil and weather, not spirits or a deity.
>
> The botany and botanical biochemistry and ecological factors are the
> "true state of things". How I feel about such trees is inside my head
> but valid and no less important to me. And I don't see any conflict or
> contradiction in all of that.
>
>
> - Mike
>
>
> [1] E.g., Is there a god? What is reality? Is there free will? What
> is the meaning of life? (if it isn't 42, that is.)
>
> [2] Wasn't it the 2nd law that C.P. Snow held up as the typical pillar
> of scientific understanding that people on the humanities side of
> the Two Cultures failed to get, equivalent to a scientist saying,
> "Shakespeare who?" It's sad that Schumacher sneers at Snow and
> the 2nd law when he's right about so much. "More education can
> help us only if it produces more wisdom." (SiB, p. 82)
>
> --
> Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
> /V\
> [email protected] /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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