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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/17/2013 9:53 AM, Kai Frederik
Lorentzen wrote:<br>
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<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif"">>> There simply is no
agreement on how to derive prescriptive, “human values”
statements of the form “this is what we ought to do (or not
do) in the world” from normative statements of the form
“this is the way the world is,” or even “this is the way we
humans are.” The values have to come from authority,
tradition/imitation (culture), intuition, revelation.<<<br>
<br>
<big>But isn't science - in modernity, where "authority",
"tradition", "intuition" and "revelation" have all become
questionable - a kind of nowadays' equivalent to the
pre-modern times' religion? Isn't that where the new
authority does come from? <br>
<br>
Take brain research (especially in the nineties and early
zero-years): In this country there are internationally
famous neurologists who call for the complete abolishment of
criminal law. Why? Well, they have those digital machines
spitting out beautiful pictures of your brain. And on these
pictures they</big></span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif""><big> can even identify the
region where it shines up when you're happy, or sad, or
aggressive. This makes them - I don't know why - think that
human action is determined by neurons to a degree of 100 %.
And so they say: Down with criminal law! Nobody is
responsible for anything he or she does. It's the neurons,
nothing but the neurons, so please give us more money to
find out all about it! Well, of course this is utter
nonsense (consciousness takes place on an emergent level of
operation where the internal brain data are externalized and
- that's where human freedom comes into the game -
reconfigured in a new context), and everybody - you don't
need any college education for this - realizes it. Yet it's
official science, and so even long time law experts among
the politicians felt the need to comment on this.<br>
</big></span></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
Here we have the Big Question to Which There is no Answer. The
scientists DO have a claim: firing neurons DO determine what people
do. Humanists have an equal claim: We DO have free will.<br>
<br>
No one can mesh these two claims--It's another one of those
contradictions or ambiguities Mark likes to talk about and that we
all have to live with.<br>
<br>
P <br>
<blockquote cite="mid:BLU0-SMTP566AC5BF7481382B71648DD0830@phx.gbl"
type="cite">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif""><big> <br>
Being confronted with similar tendencies, Karl Jaspers
coined the term "Wissenschaftsaberglaube" which means ---
superstition in science. Monte, I know that you are not
wissenschaftsabergläubisch, not superstitious with view on
the 'wonders' of science. But the folks from so-called New
Atheism are exactly into this. Richard "selfish gene"
Dawkins is not a scientist in his fight against religion, he
is a cultural warrior, or the anti-pope. This, of course,
has nothing to do with science anymore. Thrown into the
world, always communicating inside (and never ever outside)
of society, we simply have no place from where we could
overlook the universe and judge for sure. So agnosticism -
We cannot really know! - is the only acceptable
epistemological position when it comes to ultimate
questions. To say "science proves there is no god" is not
the tiniest bit more rational than any statement from the
most obscure cult. <br>
<br>
And then science does derive 'values' but these are not
human values yet the (economy-affine) criteria of
transparency, efficiency, and control. And these
criteria,we're entering GR territory, are, when applied to
human beings (and - remember the Dodos? - living beings in
general), not neutral. That's what I was referring to, when
I - borrowing a term from Zygmunt Bauman - spoke of
modernity's <i>war against ambivalence</i>. The best
example for it from the 20th century is Eugenics which was
an <i>international</i> mainstream project. And this is not
over; the Brock Vonds of the world still read their
Lombroso, and handicapped people and their parents ("Why
didn't you get an abortion?") are still treated ugly. <br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics</a>
</big></span><big><br>
</big><br>
<small>"The methods of implementing eugenics varied by country;
however, some of the early 20th century methods were
identifying and classifying individuals and their families,
including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally
disabled, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_women"
title="Promiscuous women" class="mw-redirect">promiscuous
women</a>, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuals"
title="Homosexuals" class="mw-redirect">homosexuals</a> and
entire <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29"
title="Race (classification of human beings)"
class="mw-redirect">racial groups</a> — such as the <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people"
title="Romani people">Roma</a> and <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews" title="Jews">Jews</a>
— as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation or
institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their
sterilization, euthanasia, and in the case of Nazi Germany,
their <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_murder" title="Mass
murder">mass murder</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-7"
class="reference"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-7"><span>[</span>7<span>]</span></a></sup>
The practice of euthanasia was carried out on hospital
patients in the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4" title="Aktion
T4" class="mw-redirect">Aktion T4</a> at such centres as <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartheim_Castle"
title="Hartheim Castle" class="mw-redirect">Hartheim Castle</a>.
</small>
<p><small>Eugenics became an academic discipline at many
colleges and universities, and received funding from many
sources.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-8"><span>[</span>8<span>]</span></a></sup>
Three <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Eugenics_Conference"
title="International Eugenics Conference">International
Eugenics Conferences</a> presented a global venue for
eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and
1932 in New York. Eugenic policies were first implemented in
the early 1900s in the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States"
title="United States">United States</a>.<sup
id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-9"><span>[</span>9<span>]</span></a></sup>
Later, in the 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization"
title="Compulsory sterilization">sterilizing</a> certain
mental patients was implemented in a variety of other
countries, including <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium"
title="Belgium">Belgium</a>,<sup id="cite_ref-10"
class="reference"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-10"><span>[</span>10<span>]</span></a></sup>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil" title="Brazil">Brazil</a>,<sup
id="cite_ref-11" class="reference"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-11"><span>[</span>11<span>]</span></a></sup>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada" title="Canada">Canada</a>,<sup
id="cite_ref-12" class="reference"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-12"><span>[</span>12<span>]</span></a></sup>
and <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden" title="Sweden">Sweden</a>,<sup
id="cite_ref-wsws_13-0" class="reference"><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-wsws-13"><span>[</span>13<span>]</span></a></sup>
among others. The scientific reputation of eugenics started
to decline in the 1930s, a time when <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%BCdin"
title="Ernst Rüdin">Ernst Rüdin</a> used eugenics as a
justification for the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_policy_of_Nazi_Germany"
title="Racial policy of Nazi Germany">racial policies</a>
of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany"
title="Nazi Germany">Nazi Germany</a>, and when proponents
of eugenics among scientists and thinkers prompted a
backlash in the public. Nevertheless, in Sweden the eugenics
program continued until 1975.<sup id="cite_ref-wsws_13-1"
class="reference"><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-wsws-13"><span>[</span>13<span>]"</span></a></sup></small></p>
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif""><br>
</span>On 17.06.2013 04:42, Monte Davis wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif"">KFL >Ain't modern
science - and I'm talking here about hard, or, as Paul
Mackin puts it, "real science" - a self-referential
functional system completely unreachable for something as
old-fashioned as values of the "real, important human"
kind?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif"">Two angles of vision on
this: one is via the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem">is-ought
problem</a> or <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact-value_distinction">fact-value
distinction</a>. That came up in philosophy and ethics
independent of (in fact, long before before) discussions
of science and values. There simply is no agreement on how
to derive prescriptive, “human values” statements of the
form “this is what we ought to do (or not do) in the
world” from normative statements of the form “this is
the way the world is,” or even “this is the way we humans
are.” The values have to come from authority,
tradition/imitation (culture), intuition, revelation. They
are not to be found in facts, or in the principles we come
up with to organize and distill our understanding of
facts. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif"">NB that this applies to *<b>all</b>*
knowledge – but in my experience, scientists live more
comfortably with that, and are readier to acknowledge it,
than others. That may appear bloodless and “value-free;”
it isn’t. They’re every bit as likely to care, think and
feel strongly about “what we ought to do (or not do) in
the world;” but to the extent they’re honest scientists,
they’re actually less likely to claim that “the facts”
dictate this or that ethical (i.e. value-loaded) choice
than others are. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif"">Second angle: Many aspects
of scientific method and protocol “exclude human values”
as <i>prophylaxis</i> against letting the researcher’s
preferences (conscious or unconscious) distort the choice
of what data to collect and how to interpret it. As you
know well, much of statistics serves that purpose: we
don’t trust our “feelings” about what’s an adequate sample
size, or how far from the null hypothesis the results need
to be to establish significance at what confidence level,
because there’s a long, sorry history of bad science done
without statistical care. We’re all too prone to see what
we want to see and stop looking as soon as it’s
“confirmed” to our satisfaction. And a scientist taking
precautions against that, like (say) a journalist
following her own profession’s protocols to cover a story
as completely and objectively as possible, is likely –
again – to look cold-bloodedly methodical and “value-free”
to a more passionate or pre-committed observer. Again, I
disagree: I think the scientists are just as likely as
anyone else to cherish and to and act on “human values” …
they’re just more concerned than others to doubt, test,
and be clear about what they know (and don’t know) before
deciding what to do. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF
1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext">From:</span></b><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext">
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org">owner-pynchon-l@waste.org</a>
[<a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org">mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org</a>]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Kai Frederik Lorentzen<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, June 15, 2013 6:19 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Monte Davis; pynchon -l<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: TRP and Science 2 (was: Science
Plays God)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><br>
On 13.06.2013 00:38, Monte Davis wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
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<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif"">Is it possible that at
the same time he is suspicious and minatory and worried
about science and technology (and he is, like so many
other writers), he is also (like very few others in
literary fiction) really <i>interested<b> </b></i>in
it? Attracted to it? Even fascinated by it? Concerned to
show us some real, important human values that come to
us <i>through</i>, even <i>because of</i>, math and
science and technology?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New
Roman","serif""><br>
How math, science and technology can bring us "real,
important human values", I do not see. I'm not saying this
polemically, and there are certainly good things -
antibiotics have been mentioned - about scientific
modernity. Or, as Jesse says when Walter shows him how to
cook up the shit right: "WOW ... <i>Science</i>!" But
"values"? How? We do not have to come to a consent on
this. But I really would like to hear - and please note
that I'm not Alice - from you a detail or two on the
criticism on science one can doubtlessly find in Pynchon.
The thing is that he's not simply "worried about science
and technology ... like so many other writers"; to Pynchon
the pitfalls of science-based control are a key issue. I
don't find this in, say, Philip Roth or Cormac McCarthy.
It's plausible to say that Pynchon's attitude towards
modern science's war against ambivalence became more
relaxed in the second phase of his work, but in the first
three novels the theme is central, imo. Pointsman makes
his points, Schoenmaker finds his clients. And Dr.
Hilarious can continue his concentration camp experiments
under civil conditions in context of MK Ultra. These
motives - all based in the real history of the 20th
century - do unfold a fundamental criticism regarding
modern science and its lack of values. I'm not discussing
here - though we might come to this - whether the loss of
human values is a necessary product of social
differentiation, as Luhmann ("Modernity has more
advantages <i>and</i> more disadvantages than any other
society before") puts it, or whether this could be avoided
by different forms of political organization. Just that
much: "Keep cool and care!" won't do. That Pynchon is
"attracted" to modern science is certainly right; even
after the successful publication of <i>V</i> he wanted to
complete his scientific education with a math grade from
Berkeley. But, as already said, how to get from Pynchon's
fascination by science to any kind of 'scientific value
generation' to be found in the texts themselves, is not
clear to me. What I find instead, especially in <i>Gravity's
Rainbow</i>, is the tendency to connect the progress of
science to deadly war technology. Not only in the case of
rockets or nuclear weapons, yet regarding modern science
as such. "There has been this strange connection between
the German mind and the rapid flashing of successive
stills to counterfeit movement for at least two centuries
--- since Leibniz, in the process of inventing calculus,
used the same approach to break up the trajectories of
cannonballs through the air" (GR, p. 407). It's not really
"the German mind", it's science ---<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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