Krimel writes (March 9th):
Even if you look at anthropology the field Pirsig
attacks
most directly you see that Dussenbury, his archetypal
outcast, did get his
degree and did get published. I have a copy of his
dissertation on the
Montana Cree. Also about the time ZMM was published
Castaneda's
pseudo-science was being accepted as the real deal in
anthropological
circles. Even though it turned out to be a hoax, it
did have an impact on
the practice of participant observation in the field.
Jorge: Can't let that pass uncontested because I
admire his work. a)Castaneda was never the darling of
anthropological circles; sort of an outcast
anthropologist really. b) some people have attempted
to present his Don Juan series as an hoax but never
proving it conclusively. c) even if it was a hoax, the
man must have been a genius to imagine all that by
himself. One of the best insights into sorcery (of the
kind practiced by American Indians) ever written.
Krimel: I think in ZMM Pirsig was a bit ahead of the
curve in trying to reconcile
the classic and romantic worldviews. I read this as an
injunction for the
romantics to get over themselves and understand
science as a form of
creativity. It is hard to understand how he fell
behind in Lila.
Jorge: Again agree. Creativity, within tight rules of
the game; that's one of the differences with Art or
Literature where the rules of the game are far less
constraining to the imagination.
Krimel: I do not agree with Jorge that specialization
within a particular discipline
is an antidote for missing what is going on. Rather I
think it contributes
to the problem when experts confine themselves to
narrow fields of study. I
am heartened by what seems to be a growing tendency
toward interdisciplinary
studies such as the collaboration of computer
scientists, psychologists and
philosophers of mind in the cognitive sciences.
Jorge: Don't remember using the word 'antidote' but
nevertheless it reflects what may be considered a sad
situation. Unless you confine yourself to narrow
fields of study you cannot possibly be up to date.
What was once described as a plethora of publications
had nowadays turned into an avalanche, so fields of
study get narrower and narrower. It's not that people
want to super-specialize, you just have no choice
(geniuses excepted). Agree with you in that
interdisciplinary studies, as in cognitive studies,
is a welcome development; problem still remains that
unless interdisciplinary teams are long lasting the
participants have not enough time to develop a common
language.
Krimel: I would add that I think that in the end a
theory of everything is more
likely to come from evolutionary theory and or
information theory, than from
physics. Jorge hints at this in his comments where it
has been shown that
thermodynamics is a special case of information theory
and that information
entropy is identical with thermodynamic entropy.
Jorge: A theory of everything might not come from
Physics but, I think, will have to wait till Physics
develops its Unified Field Theory first. I don't see a
theory of everything anywhere in the horizon given the
exponential increase in scientific research we are
witnessing. Someone, forgot who it was, had an
interesting. half in jest, proposal for accelerating
the advent of a theory of everything. Unfortunately
though, a utopian situation:
declare a moratorium on new experiments and
observations for a couple of years; let scientists
devote their time (keeping their salaries intact of
course) to assess what they've got so far in their
narrow fields and explore inter-connections with other
fields; that way they could realize where the "missing
links" lie and plan crucial experiments to fill the
gaps.
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