Luddites revisited 2

[Bekah]

At 7:41 PM -0500 3/20/05, Paul Mackin wrote:
>Everybody knows this isn't the way things ought to be--in the best of
>all possible worlds. It would be nice if not only humanists could talk
>to scientists but that humanist could talk to each other. Really talk,
>and mean something.  Of course the question has been studied into the
>ground.  Ulrich, the protagonist of Musil's The Man Without Qualities
>longs mightily and with a great deal of verbiage  for some kind of
>melding of "Precision" and "Soul" but to little or no avail.


In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which happened to be 
mentioned on another list) Pirsig says:

  "The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There 
isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it's 
right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your 
mind is changed. The test of the machine's always your own mind. 
There isn't any other test."

Understanding the professional tinkerers through humanism.  

The idea that there is an intrinsic beauty about some aspect of 
science has long had its proponents including  Einstein.  Francis 
Crick said about his and Watson's DNA discovery, "But what is really 
overlooked...is the intrinsic beauty of the double helix."

Beauty and String Theory: 
http://motls.blogspot.com/2004/10/beauty-of-string-theory.html

But most scientists *today*  differ and say that they don't see it. 
I have some issues with the concept of beauty in that it generally 
comes down to symmetry and that's measurable.   The humanists may end 
up being assimilated by the science and capitalism crowd.   :( 

I wrote some more stuff about truth and beauty  (symmetry)  but I deleted it. 


Bekah
just my scrambled 2 bits
yes,  I read TRP's  Luddite article,  thought it was absolutely great





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