To be fair Tom, I actually said "integrative" and I did put it in
scare quotes ;-) I don't intend any bias towards integration of any
particular views or particular forms or means of integration, and ...
... one my blogging projects is "Joining Dots and Weaving Threads" so
I'd absolutely agree that weaving is a good "integrative" metaphor.
Ian
On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 10:58 PM, tom lombardo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello Ian,
>
> I have worked on integrating the two modes of consciousness or expression though to say "integrate" carries with it a cognitive bias toward the abstract/objective. I have used the expression "weave together." Bruce Lloyd, who is on this list serve, has read my writing experiment on this endeavor.
>
> Thanks for the comment -
> Tom
>
> On Jan 28, 2011, at 9:34 AM, Ian Glendinning wrote:
>
>> Interesting exchange.
>> I actually attended the event in London last night (I'll blog about it
>> separately) but the two comments here :
>>
>> "what kind of science are you talking about"
>> and
>> The "polarization" between objective / de-personalised /
>> view-from-nowhere and the subjective / personalised / narrative view
>> ...
>>
>> ... were unsurprisingly the very stalemate that summed up the
>> (therefore limited) discussions.
>> Minds seem closed to any "integrative" view.
>> Ian
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:11 PM, tom lombardo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> Hello Alan,
>>> Very good point. I have thought along some similar lines for many years.
>>> Specifically regarding the "depersonalized" and ostensively objective
>>> methodologies and modes of writing, in both science and philosophy, whereas
>>> our experience in the world and understanding of it clearly has dimensions
>>> of affect, desire/motivation, and personalization. As a science fiction
>>> devotee, I also see the critical importance of the narrative/story as a mode
>>> of human understanding and expression.
>>> Tom
>>> On Jan 28, 2011, at 1:43 AM, Alan Rayner (BU) wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear All,
>>>
>>> Following up on the recent 'Is Science the Only Path' tack (to which my
>>> immediate question might be 'what kind of science are you talking about?'),
>>>
>>> a related question - and one relevant I think to the commitment of members
>>> of this list might be:
>>>
>>> Is your methodology compatible with your aims?
>>>
>>> This is a question any thoughtful enquirer should ask themselves.
>>>
>>> Over ten years ago, as a biological scientist and ecologist, I asked myself
>>> that question. The answer was NO. So, I needed to look for a methodology
>>> that was, so far as I could tell, compatible with my intentions to
>>> understand living systems less partially and more deeply than my methodology
>>> was allowing, and that also coincided with my deepest inbuilt values of
>>> compassion and honesty. I was especially deeply disturbed by the 'clockwork
>>> cults' of 'selfish genism', 'molecular bytology' and 'only numbers count',
>>> that was afflicting the beautiful science of biology, destroying the very
>>> essence of what 'life' means. I did not wish to discard all that had been
>>> learned and can still be learned through an analytical approach, and I had
>>> no inclination to disappear into the mists of 'cloud cuckoo land', but I did
>>> feel the need to incorporate a 'missing dimension' (as it turns out, an
>>> 'infinite dimension').
>>>
>>> Watching and sometimes trying to participate in the discourse on this list
>>> over what are now many years since its inception, I have been struck by what
>>> I now think I recognise as a deep incompatibility between the aims (which
>>> are the same as mine, and influenced by the same values) and the prevailing
>>> methodology. I suspect this incompatibility has impeded the fulfilment of
>>> the group's aims, both internally and in its outreach to the wider world.
>>>
>>> In a nutshell, if the group is to have living values and aims, I think
>>> it needs a living logic: a logic that includes Agape.
>>>
>>>
>>> Warmest
>>>
>>> Alan
>>>
>>>
>
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