Re: [roeoz] Re: [America2Point0] what is complexity science

[Denis Frith]

Hi all,

This anthropocantric discussion does not even mention the stark reality that is happening in view of the decisions, good and bad, being made by people. That reality is really quite simple even though it is not widely recognised in even scientific circles. Four issues describe this reality. They are:

1. natural forces always govern what happens in operations of all natural and technological materialistic systems. Technological systems do not create materials. They only use them even in innovative processes in manufactured systems.
2. technological systems irreversibly use natural material resources, including those supplying energy, and produce irrevocable wastes that pollute land, sea and air as well as disrupting natutal processes such as climate and marine operations
3. technological systems, like natural systems, continually age due to friction despite the use of materials and energy for their operation and maintenance 
4. The development and operation of technological systesms irreversibly degrades much of the environment, including leading to the extinction of many flora and fauna.

It is to be expected that a significant proportion of society will very slowly wake up to this reality and initiate measures to ease the inevtable powering down for some. The inevitable decline in the services provided by the aging infrastructure will just make the powering down harder. People have become very dependent on comfort, communication and transportation capabilites that are not possibly sustainable.

 

Denis Frith

 

 

Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2016 at 12:51 PM
From: "John Tons john...@gmail.com [roeoz]" <ro...@yahoogroups.com>
To: "ro...@yahoogroups.com" <ro...@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [roeoz] Re: [America2Point0] what is complexity science

 

 

I suppose the real questin is will we get out of the 21st century alive?  I suspect not - neither individually nor a s a species.  Perhaps if ore people read stuff like: Klein, N. (2007). The Shock Doctrine. or Rushkoff, D. (2016). Throwing rocks at the Google Bus.  - read and acted on that information we might get somewhere but I suspect that few will join the dots.  

 

John

 

On 6 December 2016 at 12:13, hugh Hu...@austrop.org.au [roeoz] <ro...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

I don't get you guys..

We have a really MAJOR disrupter on the very near horizon - and we continue  arguing about  angels dancing on the head of a pin .. can you guys wake up - and use your considerable intelligence to coming up with strategies for how we might deal with what is about to be unleashed.. it's not just our precious standard of living - it's the planet..  but hey - it's more fun arguing about the state of Schrodinger's Cat.

Yes?? 

Hey - some of you just might get some status points for doing this ... (evil grin). 

Fat-all good they will be to you in the future!

H



On 6/12/16 11:06 AM, Ethan Nagler wrote:

Lawrence,

 

By political, I mean non-scientific. I'm trying to make the point that the vast majority, but not all, of philosophy is political, including ethics. It is therefore not worth reading because political thought is subjective. I have no interest in reading political thought.

 

To you, what is the difference between non-political philosophy and science?

 

Put slightly differently, I see three very broad categories of thought: political philosophy (almost all philosophy), scientific methodology (e.g., falsifiability), and science (e.g., physics). Is there a 4th category here in your view (i.e., non-political philosophy)? If so, what is it?

 

Ethan

 

 

 

On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 4:41 PM, Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

There is a lot of political philosophy or social philosophy.The book "The Worldly Philosophers" by Heilbroner is a good overview of that area of philosophy. I never had much interest in this area. There is also the subject of ethics, and to be honest the best book that discusses ethics is Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Most stuff written on ethics is just plain boring. Then you have the existentialists, and the best there is Camus --- bar none. Sartre is pretty good, and the existentialist influenced author Dostoevsky weaves this into his writings. Skip the German existentialists, Heidegger et al . Existentialism can have some political overtones to it, and this happened a fair amount with Sartre on the Marxist side and Heidegger on the far right (he gave nods and hat tips to the Nazis). However, not all philosophy is political. I have a hard time seeing much politics in Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

 

I minored in philosophy in undergraduate college, along with two majors and another minor. I did the 5 year plan. A nephew of mine was majoring in mechanical engineering and flipped to philosophy. My brother, a molecular biologist, was livid by this choice. I was more interested in the analytical philosophy of Wright, Russell, Popper etc with logical metaphysics. Some other philosophers are interesting to read a bit on, such as Nietzsche that everybody misunderstands, and maybe even Schopenhauer (with a bit of libation to go along with it). 

 

Social, economic and political philosophy is largely dull. Probably the biggest influence last century as Marx and Engels. If you read their Manifesto of the Communist Party you should find yourself nodding your head in agreement on a lot of stuff. However, Das Kapital is the dullest piece of rot ever written. Then there is the quasi-philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand, who was a sociopathic nutbag. She has had enormous influence in more recent times and may in some ways illustrate the madness the world is turning towards after half of it went into the darkness of Communism. 

 

Philosophy is a funny subject. Without it the world would be dimmer, but there is not a lot you can really do with it.

 

LC

--
Although people make political arguments for the common good, those arguments are really nothing but relative status maximizing in disguise. (See all the environmentalists, e.g., Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Post Carbon, etc.). see http://www.jayhanson.us/why.htm
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Social Science is based on reifications and teleology. see http://tinyurl.com/zxbcbta
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Posted by: John Tons <john...@gmail.com>

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