There's an App for that Desire

[Joseph Tracy]

Thoughtful writing.  
On Jun 19, 2013, at 5:35 PM, alice wellintown wrote:

> The more powerful a technology, the more it fabricates, re-makes the
> world in the form, in the patterns of what humans Desire. More and
> more, Science is developing technics that don't simply function as a
> means to realizing our Desires, but reconstruct the world in the shape
> of human order, and under human control. So, a common enough trope in
> P's best and recent novels is the mapping of the world, a mapping and
> remapping of the world to fit the rules, the order Desired. The
> frustrations of this project, for example, of mapping the Wedge in M&D
> or the slippery and protean land-sea scape around the Bay off
> Maryland, and so on, Slothrop's sexual conquests...is, often
> humorously so, a critique leveled at enlightened western Man, but more
> specifically at Science and Technic.
> 
> Science is not the study of nature, the discovery of the laws and so
> on, but the project to transform the world with technics, to make it
> conform to orders and to efficiencies that are viewed as virtues from
> a mechanized point of view. Science falls in love with its machines,
> its techniques because Science can handle these truths, solve these
> problems. So, something has happened to Science. Where is the
> discovery? Where is the mystery? These too are essential to Science.
> 
> Now, there may be a few Faradays out there. Ironic, for those who
> watch Lost, that Faraday is Oxford Educated and so on. For the real
> man of Science was brilliant but not educated in this formal manner.
> 
> Most, are not Faradays. Most are funded by big data, big money, big
> business, big university, military industrial complex. Most have
> become, as Norbert Weiner complained, button pushers, technology men.
> 
> If Science has value, and I think it does, and I'm inclined to agree
> with MalignD, P does love Science, who doesn't?, isn't that why we are
> so sad to see it handed off to the new-Science?, it is outside of
> technology.
> 
> So, some have argued that we must keep these seperate if we are to
> have a clean and honest look at the question, consider the ugly and
> yes, the beautiful truth in Science, but can we? Wellto find value in
> Science, and there is, obviously, much value there, we need to look at
> it outside of technic.
> 
> On 6/19/13, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>> "ALL men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the
>> delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness
>> they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of
>> sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not
>> going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything
>> else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know
>> and brings to light many differences between things."
>> 
>> -Aristotle
>>