Both Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics, and Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science intrigue me.
An adaptation of the introduction to Faust in Copenhagen is provided by the author, Gino Segre, laying out his creative use of a play by the central physicists on Goethe's Faust as the organizational framework of the book. I'm definitely intrigued by the group dynamics - especially since the blogger linked to above agrees with another reviewer's diss of Bohr's actual contribution to the field. A New York Times review summarizes how the silly play upon "Faust, who in the legend sells his soul for universal knowledge... [became] in retrospect...profound." Another review in The Sunday Times blasts Segre's effort to link artistry and science with the lives of their progenitors is "where art and science differ. For understanding their work, Joyce’s and de Chirico’s lives matter. Pauli’s is irrelevant."
It seems I should read Faust first.
Regarding Uncertainty, The Economist review says the title is wrong because much more is covered than the Uncertainty Principle (a personal favorite). [Why? Because it articulates in the hard sciences what is known about language (see Burke, Billig, for starters): "the uncertainty principle posited that in many physical measurements, one can extract one bit of information only at the price of losing another."]
The Scientific American review (linked above) mentions something quite interesting: "Niels Bohr agreed with the basic premises of [Heisenberg's] startling insights but saw the need to 'make sense of the new quantum physics without throwing overboard the hard-won successes of the previous era.'" This is interesting in light of the debate about Bohr's contribution, as well as the critique of "logical inclusiveness" that Kuhn deconstructs as "closely associated with early logical positivism" (98): "[T]he view of science-as-cumulation is [closely] entangled with a dominant epistemology that takes knowledge to be a construction placed directly upon raw sense data by the mind" (96). Another reviewer explains that Uncertainty "illustrates the collaborative nature of science, especially of physics, and how major discoveries are usually the result of contributions over time by many individuals, with one or two leading figures providing the key insights that bring clarity to a particular issue." This is the same point emphasized by John Gribbin in The Scientists (see entry: The Middle is Always Light). This reviewer (Hugh Ruppersburg) continues, describing how author David Lindley places Einstein in the category designated by others to Bohr, as "the conservative elder doubter who believes that classical physics — its ability to predict with utter precision how the world must operate — must not be undermined by a theory holding that at a certain level there is no precision or certainty." From this angle, "it is Bohr who finally provides the vocabulary through which the world has come to understand the principle" - a direct counter to the critique that Bohr's contribution has no contemporary standing. At the same time, Ruppersburg seems to agree (in a parallel fashion, not directly) with the critic (cited above) of linking scientists' lives and work: "He [Lindley] also argues that the popularity of modern cultural, philosophical, and literary theories that depend on the notion of uncertainty, randomness, and unpredictability really have no real connection to Heisenberg’s principle, other than the fact that it helped popularize the notion of uncertainty in the 20th century. Heisenberg provided a metaphor for these theorists, nothing more." (I may beg to differ on this, but am not yet prepared to argue why.)
I am struck by the use of "soul" in the title of both works. Coincidentally (?), I was just contemplating the word in other writing this morning, suggesting it is too ambiguous because of its range of meanings (27 Google offerings). One of the articulations of soul that resonates with me is from the science fiction series, Alvin the Maker, which puts the forces of Making and Unmaking at the core of life. The physicists who worked on physics were aware of the double-edged sword of the knowledge they sought to uncover; it is interesting that the dialectical (?) tension between epistemology and ontology is invoked to characterize early physicists' search for knowledge.
[Two earlier blog references to Kuhn: Holding Form and Inside/Outside.]
More (selections from Reflexivity) on Burke: Definition of Human, Creation Myth, and On Hope and Despair.
pair networks has a refugee special that sounds like me!
2mhost also includes the option of a domain transfer, which is appealing.
Nexcess provides a detailed tutorial, that might be helpful once I get everything actually transferred (by someone besides me!)
AQHost has video tutorials and a website builder (which might only work with PCs, not Macs?)
LivingDot includes consulting; something I've been seeking for awhile.
]]>Letterman's Bushisms are also enjoyed by my dad; an almost nightly routine.
Did you hear about the "classic" American inventor John Kanzius, who invented something he wasn't even looking for? This newsreel appears as fake as one can imagine and yet...could Saltwater into fire be possible? Meanwhile, he has applied for a patent for a cancer treatment.
I suppose stranger things are possible....
]]>I missed the deadline to submit my own paper at the International Studies Association (political science). Darn. How close is my dissertation topic to the field of international relations? Wikipedia says it is "both an academic and public policy field, and can be either positive or normative." Given the choice of positivistic science or normative science, I definitely lean to the latter in the sense that I think whatever gets put into policy becomes normative (so we better be clear on what we want the norms to be!)
The ISA conference "Call for Papers" is broader, opening up the paradigmatic range to include "empirical and normative, conservative and liberal, systemic and individual, activist and academic, material and ideational, positivist and post-positivist." Sounds good, actually! I wonder which way the biases tend to lean, in terms of representation among these quite disparate views?) The goal of the 2008 conference is to "Bridge Multiple Divides...by creating dialogue and integrative research between scholars from different communities and viewpoints." Gee, if they really do it, that would be cool. To the extent they "fail" or "succeed," I may have another opportunity for interaction and reflection such as DUO provided?
I'll have to scope them out some more, perhaps after they begin to post papers. Did I also miss the poster deadline? They maintain an online archive (requires membership).
Preregistration ENDS November 30.
Something to think about!
"In Hawaiian," Keanu told me, "we say "a hui hou" which is 'until next time.'"
I told her I was labile (which I always think of as the opposite of volatile) and disoganized. "You're changing," she said. "Sometimes we don't recognize ourselves."
We got onto the topic of our first meeting, and how that led to my so symbolically transparent (!) tattoo.
She gave me a series of "in-and-outs" - to two fingers on my left hand! Ouch! - explaining "the short, quick ones pack a lot of punch!" We were trying to stabilize me around the ambition/love intertwinement-thang I've got going on. "For whatever reason," I told her, "I've got a lot ambition. I have to channel it along the paths that are available." "Don't you mean you have a lot of love?" she asked. I paused before replying, "I think they are the same thing." She sat for a minute before speaking softly, "Of course."
]]>(I used to be "prepared"; uh oh, gotta get my act together, even better than before!)
]]>“… we must be careful about what we mean by ‘property,’ lest we fall into the traps English colonists have set for us” (1983:58). William Cronen carefully delineates the difference between ownership and sovereignity, detailing how “most English colonists displayed a remarkable indifference to what the Indians themselves thought about the matter [of property]” (58). “The struggle was over two ways of living and using the seasons of the year, and it expressed itself in how two peoples conceived of property, wealth, and boundaries on the landscape” (emphasis added, 53).
“Few Europeans, “ Cronen explains, “were willing to recognize that the ways Indians inhabited New England ecosystems were as legitimate as the ways Europeans intended to inhabit them”(57).
“The ecological relationships the English sought to reproduce in New England were no less cyclical than those of the Indians; they were only simpler and more concentrated” (53).
The Indians cultivated “a way of life to match the patchwork of the landscape” (53). The patchwork evolved through ecological succession over 12,500 years, aided prior to the arrival of colonists by “selective Indian burning [which] promoted the mosaic quality of New England ecosystems…promot[ing] …the ‘edge effect’ … creat[ing] ideal habitats for a host of wildlife species” (51). When Indians hunted, “they were harvesting a foodstuff they had consciously been instrumental in creating” (51).
“Liebig’s Law [of the Minimum] states that biological populations are limited not by the total annual resources available to them but by the minimum amount that can be found at the scarcest time of the year” (41). (See Haemig, Laws of Population Ecology.) New England Indians (typical hunter-gatherers divided by supplemental agriculture in the south and none in the north) developed their lifestyle to take advantage of the “periodicity” of the New England ecosystem: “tied to overlapping cycles of light and dark, high and low tides, waxing and waning moons, and especially the long and short days which mean hot and cold seasons” (37).
I like Cronen’s writing. His goal is big: “to locate a nature which is within rather than without history, for only by so doing can we find human communities which are inside rather than outside nature” (a reference to Thoreau, 15: his journals have been blogged!) The goal of constituting an “ecological approach to history”is cool (and by now well-established, Cronon’s work marks a paradigmatic pivot point). Some of the problems he names presupposed other contemporary dynamics, such as “the development of a world capitalist system … [bringing] more and more people into trade and market relations which lie well beyond the boundaries of their local ecosystem” (14). Not that he was the only one who knew this, but in the way he recognizes and draws out the complexity in terms plain enough for a non-historian, or non-environmental scientist to understand. “In an important sense, a distant world and its inhabitants gradually become part of another people’s ecosystem, so that it is increasingly difficult to know which ecosystem is interacting with which culture. The erasure of boundaries may itself be the most important issue of all” (14).
Get this: “All human groups consciously change their environments to some extent – one might even argue that this, in combination with language, is the crucial trait distinguishing people from other animals – and the best measure of a culture’s ecological stability may well be how successfully its environmental changes maintain its ability to reproduce” (emphasis added, 13). You know I’m making an organizational/institutional parallel! And – this is big Big BIG! – “If we assume a priori that cultures are systems which tend toward ecological stability, we may overlook the evidence from many cultures – even preindustrial ones – that human groups often have significantly unstable interactions with their environment” (italics in original, underlining added, 13). (I have always found instances of instability more instructive, rewarding, interesting, than (repetitive, unquestioned/able, monotonously predictable) stability.) {Can you say "bias"?!!}
Cronen continues: “if we avoid assumptions about environmental equilibrium, the instability of human relations with the environment can be used to explain both cultural and ecological transformations. An ecological history begins by assuming a dynamic and changing relationship between environment and culture, one as apt to produce contradictions as continuities. Moreover, it assumes that the interactions of the two are dialectical. Environment may initially shape the range of choices available to a people at a given moment, but then culture reshapes environment in responding to those choices. The reshaped environment presents a new set of possibilities for cultural reproduction, thus setting up a new cycle of mutual determination. Changes in the way people create and re-create their livelihood must be analyzed in terms of changes not only in their social relations but in their ecological ones as well” (italics in original, bold added, 13).
The climax concept that ecosystems grow to an ideal state of equilibrium where they would remain in perpetuity without the interference of human beings began to weaken sometime prior to Cronen’s writing, as he describes the shift in academic viewpoint where environmental or natural “change was less the result of ‘disturbance’ than of the ordinary processes whereby communities maintained and transformed themselves” (11). I particularly like his underflagged paradigm critique that the “functionalist emphasis on equilibrium and climax had important consequences, for it tended to remove ecological communities from history” (10).
Note: In the preface, Cronen quotes Marshall Sahlins’ description of “interdisciplinary research as ‘the process by which the unknowns of one’s own subject are multiplied by the uncertainties of some other science.’ Like Sahlins, I think the benefits of interdisciplinary work outweigh the dangers, but I share his sense of risk” (xvii). Oye!
Note 2: Another blogger's summary of Changes in the Land: Pacific Views.
]]>I picked up In Praise of Mortality at the campus bookstore a week or two ago. Over the past two days, since attending a funeral service, I've read the introduction by the two translators. They quote from some of his letters, which I find as interesting and inspiring as his poetry.
Rilke writes (to his ex-wife), during the First World War (when he was unable to write poetry for over a decade), of the "inner will for the great changes that would be needed to save the world" (2005:2-3), and of the need to "submit to [his "indescribable"] suffering [rather] than make any concession in the essential" (3).
The translators, Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, discuss their labor of translating his Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus as "work [that] soon took us where we needed to go, offering ways to dignify our pain for the world and deepen our capacity for gratitude" (5-6). Is it a social metonymy that Rilke's work spoke to them? "Like Rilke during the First World War, we at the beginning of the twenty-first century have felt refuted and weighted with dread as our nation mounts preemptive war and arms itself for domination of the world" (3).
“Rilke invites us to experience what mortality makes possible” (22) by “liv[ing] death at the heart of each moment” (21).
Not a criticism (as if we never vibrate at the pulse of life), rather – Rilke refers to embracing “the onceness of our lives [which] calls us to be more fully present” (19). Practicing such intensive presence can heighten “intuitive awareness of our oneness with nature and the ecological roots of consciousness” (14), preparing us for “a reciprocal transformation. To a real extent, we become each other. It is a sort of resurrection, in which our intrinsic belonging to each other is conscious and complete” (14).
“In the First Elegy, Rilke suggests that our very capacity to let go of attachments has an effect upon the world, allowing more spaciousness for other creatures to enjoy (13-14):
Three parts of the services for a colleague’s husband affected me the most: the sixties protest music before and after the actual ceremony, the spontaneous testimonials, and the missing poem. The description of the poem intrigued me, both for its theme of family resemblance and the imagery invoked about the hand as tool. This sensibility came back to me as I read these lines (II, 25) from Rilke’s first famous work, The Book of Hours:
It seemed to me that the missing poem is evidence of the “courage born of the … acceptance of mortality” (23), which does not shy away from “naming what is doomed to disappear” (23).
Listening to the testimonials, I was reminded of Sam. Combining that with the work of one’s own hands – literally and figuratively: the evidence of one’s use to others, to the Earth, to life. I was also reminded of Alec. And the music. Of all choices! How like “Orpheus, the singing god, who confronted and redeemed the realm of death” (20) through “his refusal to allow it to destroy the basic intention of his life” (8):
My own conflation (!) is between language and action, recognizing in the definition (at least as I originally understood it) a label for the way certain social actions "stand in for" or "represent" or "invoke" or otherwise "call into being" other (larger?) social phenomena. I have conceived of social metonymy as a theoretical construct that names the linkage between microsocial behavior and socio-cultural behavior.
I found some online resources that use the phrase, "social metonymy" (which I think I have not actually searched for, previously. Go figure.)
Impersonal, General, and Social: The Use of Metonymy Versus Passive Voice in Medical Discourse (2007), which "shows that metonymy is another frequent strategy used to create anonymous authors/agents." (Gabriella Rundblad)
A Literature Network Forum on Joyce (07-03-2003, 06:23 AM): "The dinner (just like the Christmas dinner that would later occur in 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man') is a political and social metonymy of Ireland (metonymy because the whole of Irish culture is being symbolized by one portion of its society)." by AbdoRindbo who has since been banned. (!)
The 40th Summer School on 3U Rhetoric and Discourse Analysis by Dr Alejandro Groppo appeared on the google search with social metonymy in quotation marks. I didn't see the term on my quick scan, but obviously there is a high degree correspondence between my conception and the fantastic curriculum laid out here. (I'm jealous I will miss it - this August!) :-/
"A Bio-Critical Sourcebook" of Latin American Writers on Gay and Lesbian Themes (1994): in a review/critique by Julio Ramon Ribeyro on "Reynoso's often frustratingly cliched and stereotyped view of sexual practices as deleterious social metonymy, for liberation within a social context that is displayed as racist, classist, and spiritually-alienated" (357).
Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes in Race, Work, and Desire by Michele Bimbaum (2003): "The white glove that Lincoln wore on his right hand during the ceremony following his second inauguration is a 'precious memento' (154) to Keckley precisely because of the social metonymy of clothing: the glove bears 'the marks of the thousands of hands that grasped the honest hand of Mr. Lincoln on that eventful night' (155)."
An archived (2006) edition of Film Matters on "Kurosawa, the Emperor of Cinema" by Brian McAsey from BeatRoute Magazine: "His oeuvre, besides screenplays, soundtracks, and production work, includes 32 films he wrote and directed. From nascent director, making propaganda film to film impresario and samurai culture revivalist and master of piquant social metonymy, Kurosawa’s resume is impressive."
From Creative Loafing Atlanta, Wakeful darkness: In search of duende at the Bienal de Flamenco in Sevilla, by Cliff Bostock (09.23.2000): "The commercial success of flamenco has influenced it in disconcerting ways. It originated as noncommercial and spontaneous performances in which there was a subtle and mainly male dance with the gypsy's pena negra ("black pain"). A series of stylized gestures developed over time -- including the zapateado (heel tapping) -- but these gestures, functioning as a kind of social metonymy, were nevertheless intimate and spontaneously expressed."
Only nine returns from a Google search, and two of them were mine:
One is nonsensical (too contextual to be apprehended): "Now, you know me and my penchant for social metonymy. I was just imagining all of a person's free radicals spinning harmoniously in the same direction (the state of being at peace with oneself?) and attracting someone else who's free radicals are also spinning harmoniously in the opposite direction. At least more, rather then less, of time spent together. Wouldn't this provide a different basis of attraction than pheromones? (Some are used in pest control.) Perhaps there is a correlation between electron spin and the production of pheromones?" (February 01, 2006)
More clearly (!), Powers of Ten: "I saw this short video on the powers of ten when I interpreted a science class some years back for upper elementary school students (possibly fifth-graders). I find it a useful metaphor for this notion of social metonymy that I keep trying to articulate as a means of linking the microsocial with the macrosocial and vice-versa." (March 26, 2006)
]]>Now, TITLE I : MEMBERS, PARLIAMENT BODIES AND POLITICAL GROUPS; CHAPTER 3 : BODIES AND DUTIES
Rule 22 : Duties of the Bureau
"8. The Bureau shall be the authority responsible for authorising meetings of committees away from the usual places of work, hearings and study and fact-finding journeys by rapporteurs.
Where such meetings are authorised, the language arrangements shall be determined on the basis of the official languages used and requested by the members and substitutes of the committee concerned."
TITLE VI : SESSIONS
CHAPTER 3 : GENERAL RULES FOR THE CONDUCT OF SITTINGS
1. All documents of Parliament shall be drawn up in the official languages.
2. All Members shall have the right to speak in Parliament in the official language of their choice. Speeches delivered in one of the official languages shall be simultaneously interpreted into the other official languages and into any other language the Bureau may consider necessary.
3. Interpretation shall be provided in committee and delegation meetings from and into the official languages used and requested by the members and substitutes of that committee or delegation.
4. At committee and delegation meetings away from the usual places of work interpretation shall be provided from and into the languages of those members who have confirmed that they will attend the meeting. These arrangements may exceptionally be made more flexible where the members of the committee or delegation so agree. In the event of disagreement, the Bureau shall decide.
Where it has been established after the result of a vote has been announced that there are discrepancies between different language versions, the President shall decide whether the result announced is valid pursuant to Rule 164(5). If he declares the result valid, he shall decide which version is to be regarded as having been adopted. However, the original version cannot be taken as the official text as a general rule, since a situation may arise in which all the other languages differ from the original text.
TITLE VI : SESSIONS
CHAPTER 3 : GENERAL RULES FOR THE CONDUCT OF SITTINGS
Rule 139 : Transitional arrangement
1. During a transitional period extending until the end of the sixth parliamentary term, derogations from the provisions of Rule 138 shall be permissible if and to the extent that, despite adequate precautions, interpreters or translators for an official language are not available in sufficient numbers.
2. The Bureau, on a proposal from the Secretary-General, shall ascertain with respect to each of the official languages concerned whether the conditions set out in paragraph 1 are fulfilled, and shall review its decision at six-monthly intervals on the basis of a progress report from the Secretary-General. The Bureau shall adopt the necessary implementing rules.
3. The temporary special arrangements adopted by the Council on the basis of the Treaties concerning the drafting of legal acts, with the exception of regulations adopted jointly by the European Parliament and the Council, shall apply.
4. On a reasoned recommendation from the Bureau, Parliament may decide at any time to repeal this Rule early or, at the end of the period indicated in paragraph 1, to extend it.
TITLE VI : SESSIONS
CHAPTER 3 : GENERAL RULES FOR THE CONDUCT OF SITTINGS
Rule 143 : List of speakers
2. The President shall call upon Members to speak, ensuring as far as possible that speakers of different political views and using different languages are heard in turn.
TITLE VII : COMMITTEES AND DELEGATIONS
CHAPTER 1 : COMMITTEES - SETTING UP AND POWERS
Rule 176 : Committees of inquiry
7. A committee of inquiry may contact the institutions or persons referred to in Article 3 of the Decision referred to in paragraph 2 with a view to holding a hearing or obtaining documents.
Travel and accommodation expenses of members and officials of Community institutions and bodies shall be borne by the latter. Travel and accommodation expenses of other persons who appear before a committee of inquiry shall be reimbursed by the European Parliament in accordance with the rules governing hearings of experts.
Any person called to give evidence before a committee of inquiry may claim the rights they would enjoy if acting as a witness before a tribunal in their country of origin. They must be informed of these rights before they make a statement to the committee.
With regard to the languages used, a committee of inquiry shall apply the provisions of Rule 138. However, the bureau of the committee:
- may restrict interpretation to the official languages of those who are to take part in the deliberations, if it deems this necessary for reasons of confidentiality,
- shall decide about translation of the documents received in such a way as to ensure that the committee can carry out its deliberations efficiently and rapidly and that the necessary secrecy and confidentiality are respected.
TITLE VIII : PETITIONS
Rule 191 : Right of petition
3. Petitions must be written in one of the official languages of the European Union.
Petitions written in any other language will be considered only where the petitioner has attached a translation or summary drawn up in an official language of the European Union. The translation or summary shall form the basis of Parliament's work. Parliament's correspondence with the petitioner shall employ the official language in which the translation or summary is drawn up.
ANNEX X : Performance of the Ombudsman's duties
A. Decision of the European Parliament on the regulations and general conditions governing the performance of the Ombudsman's duties (1)
B. Decision of the European Ombudsman adopting implementing provisions (2)
15.1 A complaint may be submitted to the Ombudsman in any of the Treaty languages. The Ombudsman is not required to deal with complaints submitted in other languages.
15.2 The language of proceedings conducted by the Ombudsman is one of the Treaty languages; in the case of a complaint, the language in which it is written.
15.3 The Ombudsman determines which documents are to be drawn up in the language of the proceedings.
15.4 Correspondence with the authorities of Member States is conducted in the official language of the state concerned.
15.5 The annual report, special reports and, where possible, other documents published by the Ombudsman are produced in all official languages.
]]>"The term lingua franca comes from an Italian phrase for "Frankish language". The term harkens back to the traditional role of French as the "language of diplomacy". The underlying idea was that no matter what languages two diplomats might speak at home, they could always communicate if both had a command of French. Indeed, at one time it was not unusual for aristocrats and royalty in the courts of eastern Europe to speak French in lieu of the native tongues of their subjects. The term is something of an anachronism. At one time Latin and Greek played this role among scholars. These days, English has assumed the role of the lingua franca in many parts of the world, and is the language of choice for discourse among scientists and aviators."
Brian Foote and Don Roberts, Paper presented at Fifth Conference on Patterns Languages of Programs (PLoP '98)
Brian Foote foote@cs.uiuc.edu
Last Modified: 23 April 2004
What's up with the Lorenz Attractor?! :-)
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