File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9812, message 56


Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 14:18:56 +0200 (EET DST)
Subject: Re: Paradigms Lost


Help me to clearify whether paradigms of modern fractal geometry and
thermodynamical reaserches in the realms of chaos and nonlinearity are
lost =F3r NOT????????

On Sun, 13 Dec 1998, hugh bone wrote:

> Eric Salstrand wrote:
>
> -AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT-
>
> As a reader of "pop" science, and most recently of the little critter
> on whom 10 years was spent mapping its genome, I suggest that "dark"
> matter, genetics, science of "chaos", artificial life (in computers)
> discovery of a "magentar" which disrupted satellite communications,
> and long-established quantum physics, all contribute to scientific
> uncertainties. 
>
> Other items such as gobal heating, pollution, nuclear and
> bio-weapons of mass destruction, the great view of cometary fragmenta
> causing craters on Jupiter the size of Earth, cause a bit of uneasiness.
>
> Hugh
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
>
>
>
> 
> > Don Smith wrote:
> >
> > Given what Lyotard has to say in section 13, =93Postmodern Science as the
> > Search
> > for Instabilities=94, it sees that he might be counted among those who believe
> > science has found a new paradigm. Consider the following quote from the end
> > of
> > the section in which he has just provided several examples of postmodern
> > research:
> >
> > =93 The conclusion we can draw from this research (and much more not mentioned
> > here) is that the continuous differentiable function is losing its
> > preeminence
> > as a paradigm of knowledge and prediction. Postmodern science - by
> > concerning
> > itself with such things as undecidables, the limits of precise control,
> > conflicts characterized by incomplete information =91fracta,=92 catastaphies and
> > pragmatic paradoxes -is theorizing its own evolution as discontinuous,
> > catastrophic, norectifiable and paradoxical.=94
> >
> > We pop-Kuhnians believe that the paradigm shift in science, which Lyotard
> > describes, helps undermine the metanarratives of determinism and =91science as
> > truth=92 which is part of the hegemony that spreads =91terror=92, to use Lyotard=92s
> > term.
> >
> > Thanks, Don
> >
> > When I questioned the theory of paradigms, the argument was principally
> > aimed at those who use it in a reductive manner to see science as a social
> > construction and nothing but.  Neither Kuhn nor Lyotard use the term
> > paradigm in this manner, so possibly I am simply chasing a pomo straw man,
> > but nonetheless I persist in seeing science as more than social
> > construction.  Its unique characteristics include an accumulation capable of
> > absorbing revolutionary changes (paradigm shifts) in a way that goes way
> > beyond relativistic social fashions and its own rate of change continues to
> > expand exponentially.  In a word, this is not a paradigm.  It is a monster.
> >
> > What describes this image of science best is not paradigm theory, in my
> > opinion.  Science/technology has now become nothing less than a
> > hyper-organism,  a machinic assemblage in a whirl of positive feedback that
> > sets its own agenda and establishes it own priorities.  We humans are simply
> > along for the ride.
> >
> > What you quote above from PMC could perhaps be described as a paradigm
> > shift.  It is also the main basis in the text for what Lyotard describes as
> > the possibility as legitimation by paralogy.  Is it possible that this
> > nightmarish state of legitimation by performativity that we now must endure
> > is only a case of what McCluhan once described as "the original content of a
> > new technology is always that of the old"?
> >
> > Is it possible that we nomadic cyborgs may link ourselves to these
> > newfangled molar assemblages of machinic desire and ride the wave out into a
> > new invisible future, or have I simply been drinking too much coffee while
> > looking at Wired magazine this morning?
>
>


   

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