Christopher D
--iginal Message -----
From: Michael Smith
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 9:55 PM
Subject: Re: [tips] Philosophical differences?
Yes, as I already mentioned, I believe the eastern mindset (I am
primarily thinking of places like Chin
--- Original Message -----
From: Michael Smith
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 9:55 PM
Subject: Re: [tips] Philosophical differences?
Yes, as I already mentioned, I believe the eastern mindset (I am
primarily thinking of places like China, Japan, Korea, but not necessarily
limited to these) will quite readily accept the science, but see it as limited
and not capable of explaining everything (as in my example of probability
theory being unable to explain why a particular pattern of heads and tails
shows up at a particular time).
--- On Fri, 9/12/08, Christopher D. Green <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I hardly think that the "faith-based" mindset is any more "Eastern"
than "Western." Although some of us in the ivory towers came (falsely) to
believe that there had been some seismic shift in the bases of popular thought
in perhaps the last half of the 20th century, anyone who was paying the least
attention to general elections was forcibly shaken out of this delusion from
about 1994 to the present day.
By the same token, the Japanese (which would appear to be "East")
never seemed to have any trouble appreciating the value of science and
(especially) technology, which is precisely why it was so easily and brutally
walk over most of eastern Asia during (what we called) World War II.
And, of course, during the early Middle Ages, the Arab world was much
more amenable to the "scientific" mindset (broadly speaking) than was Wester
Europe. India was far ahead of all the world in mathematical research at that
time as well (What we call "Arabic" numerals were actually Indian in origin.)
In short, the "scientific" mindset doesn't seem to be geographical.
It appears to be a small minority of people, potentially anywhere at any time.
The question is whether that minority happens to be "in" or "out" of political
power at a particular moment.
Chris
I find it interesting that Chris uses the term "appreciate" and when
I used the same term,Allen asked me to clarify what I mean by that same
term.This makes me believe that the British dude is probably more of a
scientific purist than we are on this side of the Atlantic. Although I can
concur with the notion of a scientific mindset,I am not sure of the
parameters.Chris states that it is only a minority in all geographic areas who
could be thus labelled,the characteristics of this scientific minority are not
ddescribed.
I suspect that he is confining this to the educated or more
specifically those who subscribe and are engaged in enterprises with,of
course,references.It would seem to me that we should be focused on the
commonality of the majority within and across cultures such as reiigious
beliefs,cultural beliefs,and appeals to common sense .Faith based behavior is
scientific in so far as it specifies acceptable behavior
responses to specific stimuli even though the stimuli may be in the
cognitive domain.
A response is a response is a response.I suspect if the alleged
numbers subscribing to a scientific mindset it would not be
,ironically,scientifically significant.
The lessons we should learn from Japan is that technological
innovations can co-exist with a traditional cultural outlook.Japanese culture
can be described as one where there is an interplay of right and left brain
consciousness-the artistic as well as as the technological.As a matter of
fact,there is not an abundance of original
scientific thinking in Japan.What the Japanese are good at is the
sustenance blending of artistic design within Westernized engineering domain.In
other words
lots of their product ideas originated in the West.However their
design is more like an artistic technological finesse.
If Japanese products appear o be more reliable,it is
probably because American products are "planned obsolescence" devices-made to
breakdown and expire.I suspect technological products from the Pacific rim are
made to last longer.
Another difference between the Eastern and Western mindsets
is that in
the West the scientific mindset seems to be "context independent"
whereas
the East the scientific mindset is "context depemdent".
But I do agree with Chris that there has been and there are scattered
scientific
communities throughout the planet.And I suspect more will be on the
bandwagon
where mandatory education is legislated by all governments and this
is where the West has an advantage.
Btw,people talk about "political correctness".Is the expression
"scientific correctness"
not too far away?Please note that my birth island of St.Lucia in the
Caribbean has had two nobel laureates ir Arthur Lewis for Economics and Derek
Walcott for Literature. V.S Naipaul from Guyana has been hailed for his mastery
of the English language in his novels.And let us not forget Zing Yang Kuo a
great Asian theoretical
ethologist.
Michael Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida
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