Continuing the discussion about "tampering with nature" that began between
John Woods and David Frampton...
David Frampton writes:
>I see eye to eye with Dave over his point that "The contexts of our
>experience are too complex for us to ever know them in detail. The best
>we can do is try to understand them as deeply as we can, stay aware that
>our ignorance is vaster than we will ever know, and build in safeguards
>for the errors we will inevitably make", and I agree with him that there's
>plentiful evidence of humans being "incredibly arrogant in our steadfast
>insistence that we have the resources to understand the true nature of
>things". What I would disagree with, however, is that something called
>'the true nature of things' is a viable notion for humans even to pose as
>a hypothesis, let alone believe they have an inkling of. The
>understandings on which I base that view are derived from people like
>Maturana, Varela, von Glaserfeld and von Foerster, and are 'radically
>constructivist' in their orientation.
I'm working from a position of ignorance, but I think I agree with this.
My view is that there is a true nature of things. It may be fluid and
dynamic, and mostly hidden from the human eye, but it's there regardless
(and sometimes in response to) our awareness of it. The fact that I don't
experience it doesn't negate its existence. My point about ignorance was
that we can never know it, and we should operate from an attitude that
respects the power of our ignorance. This view is informed by reading the
Tao Te Ching and the question that's forever (well, sometimes) in my mind
as I grope through life: "Is this the Way?"
>On a second point, Dave said: "human culture is NOT the result of
>engineering. It's the result of millions of blind experiments conducted
>over time. . . . I'll just fly two kites in relation to that: (1) there are
>countless instances of heroic and humble efforts throughout the centuries
>at culture building (building the notion of 'human', if you like) using
>the best available knowledge at the time to 'maximally predict the
>consequences': (2) "human culture is NOT the result of engineering" -
>okay, but engineering IS the result of human culture: how did it get
>there?.
Agreed. Re (1): However heroic or humble our efforts may be, they are
still mostly blind, and I base this on the foregoing discussion of
ignorance and the impossibility of knowing the true nature of things in
all its depth. We certainly do use the best available technology, but I'd
argue that because of our ingrained perceptual limitations, no matter what
the technology is, the results will always be incomplete. We do the best
we can within our limitations. Re (2): Human culture in some respects
might be the result of deliberate change (engineering), and engineering is
certainly the result of human culture. But I think the point I was
clumsily trying to make is simply that culture is such a complex thing
that we can never know the full impacts of our attempts to change it. It
looks like I spoke too categorically.
This has been a good discussion. I'm not used to people respecting my
belief that there is great power in ignorance.
Dave
-- David E. Birren Phone: (608)267-2442 Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources Fax: (608)267-3579 Bureau of Management & Budget E-mail: birred@dnr.state.wi.us"Our future is to be food - Wisdom's gift - for what comes after us." -- Saadi (Neil Douglas-Klotz)