I had Pat on the garden path to the Kaliber Yawn space (getting stuck with the fairies at the bottom of the garden with only non-alcoholic beer) - and liked him because he had a better sense of humour than Zarathustra. I remember my first lab coat more or less as Facil describes. There is something of one of Molly's paradoxes with authority in science - the rules are always up for grabs in a perpetual legitimation crisis of a club designed around a 'no rules rule book'.
I rather liked Ludwik Fleck (1896–1961), a Polish-Jewish microbiologist. Fleck claimed that cognition is a collective activity, since it is only possible on the basis of a certain body of knowledge acquired from other people. When people begin to exchange ideas, a thought collective arises, bonded by a specific mood, and as a result of a series of understandings and misunderstandings a peculiar thought style is developed. When a thought style becomes sufficiently sophisticated, the collective divides itself into an esoteric circle (professionals) and an exoteric circle (laymen). A thought style consists of the active elements, which shape ways in which members of the collective see and think about the world, and of the passive elements, the sum of which is perceived as an “objective reality”. What we call “facts”, are social constructs: only what is true to culture is true to nature. This is only the beginning. We couldn't distinguish the merits of evolution and creationism on this basis, or economics from a real science (economists basically suffer from 'physics envy'). Back in the 80's I came across people with laboratories and lab coats 'experimenting' with electrodes placed on human heads to prove left brain right brain hemispheric differences. They attracted a lot of funding, yet were so stupid they considered music a stimulus rather than a complex set of stimuli and could rarely describe any actual brain structure to someone like me who actually diced the things from time to time. Their equivalent today are those who calibrate various brain scanners so badly that they find intelligent activity in dead salmon. Quantum mechanics arises from black body radiation experiments, but we are not that sure quite what such is. Early choices of what clubs we join may have to do with competence. Anyone can bend the knee to the blue and white chequered rabbit, but not many can, say, dissect a rat solar plexus. I no longer possess a lab coat and am thus not a credible scientist. On Friday, 10 October 2014 20:01:43 UTC+1, facilitator wrote: > > Funny you should mention "Diversion". That is exactly what each is. I > look at them as being almost identical in presentation. Both rely on a set > of "Fixed" beliefs. And both are dependent on adherents accepting those > "Beliefs". The priest wears robes and tunics and the scientist escapes > dissent among ranks by wearing the lab coat. Each new theorem postulated > requires a quantum suspension of belief until proven. (Or unproven) > > On Friday, October 10, 2014 7:52:01 AM UTC-4, archytas wrote: >> >> I'm often struck that science versus religion is a diversion. There is >> bad science, there is bad religion. Some 'religion' (economics) pretends >> to be science. Some dreadful power gamers pretend to be religious. >> >> -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
