Eureka!
Clay Shirky writes:
"It comes down ultimately to a question of philosophy. Does the world make sense or do we make sense of the world? If you believe the world makes sense, then anyone who tries to make sense of the world differently than you is presenting you with a situation that needs to be reconciled formally, because if you get it wrong, you're getting it wrong about the real world.
If, on the other hand, you believe that we make sense of the world, if we are, from a bunch of different points of view, applying some kind of sense to the world, then you don't privilege one top level of sense-making over the other. What you do instead is you try to find ways that the individual sense-making can roll up to something which is of value in aggregate, but you do it without an ontological goal. You do it without a goal of explicitly getting to or even closely matching some theoretically perfect view of the world."
http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html
This is a huge distinction. I feel like a light went on. It's not as simple as judgemental vs. not judgemental, top down vs. bottom up, people who talk vs. people who listen, stubborn vs. flexible, reactionary vs. adaptable, or any of the other oppositions I've used in the past to try and get my ontology around something I felt was there. It's not that simple because it has legs. Okay, maybe it is just top down vs. bottom up - here's Henry Gleitman on the subject of top-down vs. bottom-up for perceptual recognition: http://www.wwnorton.co.uk/gleitman/ch6/form.htm
I've been intuitively extending that concept all over the place since I found it. And, even if it doesn't explain (that's too much), this is a nice tidy way of summing up.
Does it make sense to inculcate the idea that we make sense of the world? Is that too much to ask of people, in a cognitive-load sort of way? If so is there any bastardized form that would work? If not is it intellectually more powerful, emotionally more stable (I assume less, actually), ethically reasonable to do so? Because I think in a very loose sense the world is fighting over these two approaches, and I know which world I'd rather live in.
Science does not, qua practice, necessarily involve the approach of us making sense of the world. There's enough stubbornness, hive-mindedness, authoritarianism and small-minded judgemental fucks in science to match with any other field of living, working, enquiry. Just assuming that we are here to make sense of the world and not the other way around does not preclude these things, even. Maybe it minimizes them; maybe it doesn't - there's nothing to stop some jerk from believing he has the best sensical explanation. Is he then still trying to make sense of the world, instead of believing he has discovered its inherent sense? Does it matter? But if that's not the best darn description of the spirit of scientific enquiry after the discovery of relativism, I'll go memorize Revelation and join a cult.
"It comes down ultimately to a question of philosophy. Does the world make sense or do we make sense of the world? If you believe the world makes sense, then anyone who tries to make sense of the world differently than you is presenting you with a situation that needs to be reconciled formally, because if you get it wrong, you're getting it wrong about the real world.
If, on the other hand, you believe that we make sense of the world, if we are, from a bunch of different points of view, applying some kind of sense to the world, then you don't privilege one top level of sense-making over the other. What you do instead is you try to find ways that the individual sense-making can roll up to something which is of value in aggregate, but you do it without an ontological goal. You do it without a goal of explicitly getting to or even closely matching some theoretically perfect view of the world."
http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html
This is a huge distinction. I feel like a light went on. It's not as simple as judgemental vs. not judgemental, top down vs. bottom up, people who talk vs. people who listen, stubborn vs. flexible, reactionary vs. adaptable, or any of the other oppositions I've used in the past to try and get my ontology around something I felt was there. It's not that simple because it has legs. Okay, maybe it is just top down vs. bottom up - here's Henry Gleitman on the subject of top-down vs. bottom-up for perceptual recognition: http://www.wwnorton.co.uk/gleitman/ch6/form.htm
I've been intuitively extending that concept all over the place since I found it. And, even if it doesn't explain (that's too much), this is a nice tidy way of summing up.
Does it make sense to inculcate the idea that we make sense of the world? Is that too much to ask of people, in a cognitive-load sort of way? If so is there any bastardized form that would work? If not is it intellectually more powerful, emotionally more stable (I assume less, actually), ethically reasonable to do so? Because I think in a very loose sense the world is fighting over these two approaches, and I know which world I'd rather live in.
Science does not, qua practice, necessarily involve the approach of us making sense of the world. There's enough stubbornness, hive-mindedness, authoritarianism and small-minded judgemental fucks in science to match with any other field of living, working, enquiry. Just assuming that we are here to make sense of the world and not the other way around does not preclude these things, even. Maybe it minimizes them; maybe it doesn't - there's nothing to stop some jerk from believing he has the best sensical explanation. Is he then still trying to make sense of the world, instead of believing he has discovered its inherent sense? Does it matter? But if that's not the best darn description of the spirit of scientific enquiry after the discovery of relativism, I'll go memorize Revelation and join a cult.
posted by Kira at 9:19 AM
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