Philosophy Talk

Blogger's bein' slow today. Dawn's is finally out of the hospital (radiation burns make it impossibly painful for her to swallow much food or drink, but they're healing).

Earlier this morning, I posted the following to Synergeo, which I think is indicative of at least my personal trajectory in semantic space:

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Hi Lou --

We've argued about this before.

I've consistently stated I view Synergetics as a work in philosophy, and yes, it's tainted with physics throughout, and with math, but it's best when we shake those loose and can enjoy our pure prefrequency tautologies, which are not "empty nonsense" once you factor in all the cool hypertoons we're getting. Plus (and, in addition), we do get to enter the world of time/size with our various semi-generalizations, regarding banking and accounting and all that good stuff, i.e. we do get to play in the physical world, even to the point of making some changes in physics now and then (but in no sense is that a priority -- physics is free to spin its unified fields forever and there's no reason to get in front of a moving train waving some sign from the resistance).

So I think what you call my "petulance" is rather your complete misunderstanding of the fact that I'm in a different department all together. Yes, Fuller was anti-hyperspecialization of course, but I pride myself (yes, this is vanity talking) that at least philosophers know that's a problem, whereas physicists, for the most part, have fallen into the same literalist trap as many religious fundamentalists. They think ultimate truth is a set of statements about something physical. That's why we we call them physicists (helps to know Greek -- being patronizing, yes -- helps to know Latin).

So anyway, I'm looking forward to a long-running feud with the physics department over how come we in the philosophy department get to teach synergetics so effectively almost without consulting them it sometimes seems. We're off on some tangent, with our own meaning of "spin" in some remote namespace that's nevertheless quite effective. Our students get good jobs. We don't lack funding.

Kirby

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PS: Lou was actually finding someone else "petulant" and I misunderstood. No matter. I think it's a valuable post anyway, in the sense that I'm marking some turf.

We watched Oliver Stone's Alexander last night. I didn't think he got JFK right either, but it's his job is to make entertaining movies, right? I suppose I was entertained.