Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:50:55 +0100
From: Rene de Bakker <rbakker-AT-bs18.bs.uva.nl>
Subject: Re: <fwd> S.J. Gould on new genome findings 


It's a choice, that for instance Gould is incapable of seeing.
He thinks, that by becoming more complex, science can do justice
to the object under examination. But all the expressions, that serve
to express this 'more than the sum of the constituent parts', are ...
metaphysical terms, which will lead, along a now well-proven, nihilistic,
procedure, to the nothing that remains of man, when he compares himself 
to fruit-flies. Terms like Gestalt, organism, structure, system and so. 
I don't say we're more than a fly, in this respect we're mainly less.   

Scientists are merely deeply absorbed in the things they do. Lately
I saw a documentary on the CERN-accelerator in Geneva, where they're
building now a new one, 70 times a strong as the old one -
it is called "Atlas" - to find the Higgins particle. There is a big tunnel, 
scanned by an ingenious system of registrators, whereto computers are
connected, and again to them the brilliant scientists. The dependence on the 
actual is enormous. Newton didn't even need an actual apple, to conceive of
his hypothesis. Parmenides not even an apple.

In other words: the scientist is no longer subject. Rather Nietzsche's 
"subject as plurality" comes to mind. His, contemporary, examples are:
the order of the Jesuits, the Prussian army. When you hear those
scientists speaking, they're not individuals, they are completely
absorbed into the totality of calculating, and they're the first to admit
it. 

So the choice is, do these non-individuals decide for us, what we are, 
in terms of DNA, particles, stardust etc.,
or ...  it's about you, so do you care?  But when you are no longer there,
da, the choice isn't really there too, not?

Anyway, Jan, thanks for spamming,

Rene

-----------------------------------
drs. René de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering 
tel. 020-5252368              


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