Western Science

[Rcfchess at aol.com]

Yes, toast is toast, as science is science; I'm not saying that  everything's 
different...but, for instance - to take a huge example - the  Eastern 
attitude towards matters such as death is quite different; their  understanding and 
philosophy about life as a whole is different. Perception, in  the sensory 
sense - no, I'd suspect not much difference there; but the big  picture...!
 
RF
 
In a message dated 10/04/2005 7:47:39 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
tristero69 at yahoo.com writes:

Yes;  science is science, wherever or whomever does
it....but..." appear to  partake of a non-linear mode
of perception" is crucial - the whole problem,  as I
see it, is that yes certain schools of thought,
perhaps having  their provenance East of the former
Berlin Wall ( to take a somewhat  arbitrary demarcation
line ) have figures of speech, metaphors and  similes
that SEEM....SEEM to be indicating a very different
kind of way  of looking at the world...but...are they
in fact doing so? Do people who  claim to "think" that
"way" get up in the morning to make toast by  "seeing"
reality very much differently than WE Westerners do? I
mean,  picture it; how would such people have evolved
or even aquired such  radically differnt "modes" of
perception, and not get eaten by the Lion, or  be able
to recall where the wheat has been stored for winter?
In  speculative writing - which encompasses all
religious script as far as I'm  concerned - sure you
can use all sorts of mind-bending or  brain-stopping
metaphors; that doesn't mean it reflects a state  of
perception at large...no way....

--- Rcfchess at aol.com  wrote:

> The differences between "Western" and "Eastern"
>  thinking have nothing to do  
> with science. Science is science,  wherever. They
> have to do with philosophical 
>  frameworks  and spiritual outlooks: basically,
> dualism vs. oneness; either-or  
> vs.  holistic. The only way this impinges on
> scientific  outlook is that an 
> individual  - such as a scientist - may also  have an
> individual perspective 
> which is  influenced by  his/her origin or upbringing
> in either tradition; but that 
>  is  outside the bounds of science, which remains the
> same.  
>  
> The only other common ground I can think of  would
> pertain to areas such as  
> in quantum mechanics,  wherein there are apparently
> scientifically proven (or, 
>  at  least, postulated hypothetically) phenomena
> which appear to  partake of a  
> non-linear, non-Euclidean mode of perception,  and
> thus would be more amenable 
> to  understanding in  terms of an "Eastern" way of
> understanding the world 
>  (e.g.,  Heisenberg; the Tao of Physics; the Dancing
> Wu Li  Masters; the Roots of  
> Coincidence [Koestler],  etc.)
>  
> RF
> 




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