List,
I would distinguish between science, technology, and technology application. I think, most of what might be called dataism, big data, smart this and smart that, is merely technology and its application.
I guess there are up- and downsides. Blockchain technology may be very helpful for establishing better methods of fair trade, and to bypass banks and middle/wo/men.
About the strong and many downsides of dataism I recommend reading Byung Chul Han and Jaron Lanier.
I just have read a short sci-fi- novel by E.M. Forster: "The Machine Stops", 1909. On the book´s back is a recommendation by Jaron Lanier: I try to translate the from English into German translated text back into English:
"The novel The Machine Stops, published 1909- so centuries before there were the first computers- presumably is the earliest, and probably still today the most striking description of the internet. How E.M. Forster has done this, remains a secret."
Best, Helmut
03. März 2018 um 23:52 Uhr
"Gary Richmond" <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
"Gary Richmond" <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
Gene, list,
You concluded:
EH: The greed, power, and especially crypto-religious reverence for deus-ex-machina goals are not simply external to actually existing science and technology, but are essential features of the system, despite the many admirable individuals within it. That is why actually existing science and technology represent possibly the greatest threat to a sustainable world with humans still a part of it, and why actually existing science and technology must be critically confronted as part of the problem.
I think we may disagree mainly in terms of what we have been emphasizing.
I certainly agree with you that greed, power, and what you call "crypto-religious reverence for deus-ex-machina goals" are threats to our very existence on the earth, but I locate these more within the political-economic 'system' (as I believe Peirce did), while you apparently locate them within the 'system' of "actually existing science and technology." Despite your seeing "admirable individuals" within the scientific-technological 'system', you maintain that greed, power, and "deus-ex-machina goals" are "essential features" of that system. I disagree.
Take climate change, for example. A multi-authored 2016 paper based on a number of independent studies found a 97% consensus that humans are causing global warming. This is entirely consistent with other surveys and studies that I know of. See: Bray, Dennis; Hans von Storch (1999). "Climate Science: An Empirical Example of Postnormal Science(PDF). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 80 (3): 439–455.
In my view the global climate change deniers are not for the most part scientists, but greedy and unethical global corporate magnates and greedy and unethical politicians, typically in cahoots with each other to support policies which, for example, greatly benefit "Big Oil" to the detriment of the development of sustainable energy sources (solar, wind, water, etc.) The power brokers use (and even employ and pay) the 3% of scientists who deny human caused global warming in service to their greed, power, and "crypto-religious reverence for deus-ex-machina goals."
But, again, there are counter-arguments to my view of science and scientists, many of which you employ in your books. Still, I remain unconvinced that it is science that is the essential problem, but rather the misuse of science and technology by the world's power players. That they seemingly hold all (or most) of the strings isn't very promising for our future on the Earth. Whether "many Peirceans" hold this view of science, I have no idea. But some do, and Peirce himself almost certainly did find the essential "wicked problems" to be a consequence of the political-economic system, not science itself. In what I see to be his view, science is not, as you seem to imply, some "blue sky" ideal. Rather science and technology can be seen as part of our human destiny, part of what we humans ought to be doing, part of our aspiration to know the world, ourselves, and the cosmos better. How unfortunate that corporate and political power elites have virtually kidnapped the potential for humane good of science in the interest of their own greed. And how unfortunate that so few can experience Nature in the direct way that even Peirce and Whitman and the generation were still able to. How amazing it has been for me when, far away from my beloved NYC, say in northern Michigan or central Colorado, I've looked up to the sky and been able to see myriad stars!
As an aside notice that the "powers that be," at least in the US, have also undermined public education, stripping many, perhaps most school systems of opportunities for aesthetic education (the arts, music, etc.) and critical thinking (for example, the GOP platform in Texas a few years ago had a clause which stipulated that critical thinking not be taught in the schools), while what one might call an ethical education (which, in my view, builds upon aesthetic education and is facilitated by reflection and discussion around works of art, literature, philosophy--including philosophy of science--and, in my opinion, comparative religion, including in the US, First Nation spirituality) is almost entirely missing from American public education (itself under siege under the present administration).
In addition, some of the most potent media in the USA are owned and operated by those in league with the political-economic powers mentioned above, so that much of the population seems, well, almost brain-washed by the propaganda and "alternative facts" thrown at them every day such that they, for example, often vote against their own best interests. And all this too is, I believe, anticipated in a close reading of certain of Peirce's writings, including those on education, because he saw it well on its way in his own era.
Best,
Gary R
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
718 482-5690
On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 4:12 PM, Eugene Halton <eugene.w.halto...@nd.edu> wrote:
GeneDear Gary R.,Yes, thanks, you understood my critique and likely difference of opinion.
From my point of view your response, like that of many Peirceans, and sci-tech proponents more generally, takes an ideal of what science and technology should be as an excuse to deny their actual complicity in the delusion of limitless development of human-all-too-human purposes that has brought us to the likelihood of an emerging collapse. The greed, power, and especially crypto-religious reverence for deus-ex-machina goals are not simply external to actually existing science and technology, but are essential features of the system, despite the many admirable individuals within it. That is why actually existing science and technology represent possibly the greatest threat to a sustainable world with humans still a part of it, and why actually existing science and technology must be critically confronted as part of the problem.On Sat, Mar 3, 2018 at 1:27 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> wrote:Gene, list,Gary R: "Of course it goes without saying, I'd hope, that the positive results of scientific inquiry, for example, new technologies, may be applied to matters of vital importance (for example, in medicine, etc.)"Actually Gary, the jury is still out on that one. Ask the dying, overpopulated earth.Such is man's glory!You know, of course, that I agree with the underlying sensibility of your comment. All I meant to say in the snippet you quoted, by writing "positive results of scientific inquiry," was that there were definite, concrete, incontrovertible results of such inquiry, not that they were necessarily well applied "to matters of vital importance." All too often they haven't been, or there have been unforeseen negative, even tragic results of their application (think gun powder, fossil fuels, etc.)However, in my opinion, the principal cause of "the dying, overpopulated earth" is precisely the misuse of the fruits of science by greedy, power-crazed, unethical, cruel, and thoughtless men and institutions. Yet, can I say that some of the advances, say, in my example of medicine, haven't been of value? Well, surely not to many or even most (but, again, that's because of greed, etc.)Still, I'm glad to have been able to in recent years have had both hips replaced, cataract surgery on both eyes allowing me to, for example, read books again after a couple of years of not being able to do so. And, again, there are many other technologies--such as those associated with computation--which, again, can be well or badly used. But the science and technology are, in my estimation, at least less the root cause than the greed and power grabbing. From reading your books I have a sense that you wouldn't agree with this last stated opinion.In short, in my estimation the "wicked problems" of the world are less a matter of the advance of science (theory) and its fruits, such as technology, and more the lack of humane and ethical conduct (practice) by too many men (being yet the tiniest fraction of a percentage of the world population) and the corrupt institutions they've put in place and over which they have almost unlimited control.Best,Gary
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