Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 01:31:40 -0600
From: rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu (Rahul Mahajan)
Subject: Re: RAHUL: CLUTCHING YOUR PEARLS


Yes, Ralph, I'm the same guy. I was very fortunate that I started that
thread on particle physics, since otherwise I would never have been treated
to the scientific understanding of Jim Jaszewski. No, I don't think you are
anti-science at all. The beauty of this medium is that we can insult each
other for beliefs that the other doesn't actually hold, but by the time one
can say, "No, that wasn't what I meant," there's already something new to
get pissed off about.

I hadn't intended my comments about Blake to be dismissive, although they
were probably too glib. In a sense, though, I suppose they were. The
implied view was that art might be interesting, nourishing to the soul
even, but not of the very stuff of life. That is actually the way I feel,
but I recognize that it's a reflection of my own personal bias, and someone
else may well be justified in feeling differently. I have a couple of
questions, though. First, if Blake was presenting an ordered, rational
construction of human relations or the universe or whatever his object was,
why do it through the medium of this utterly fantastic (in the sense of
fantasy) cosmology with his own special anthropomorphic creator? He sounds
more interesting than Yahweh, but he's still no substitute for the Einstein
field equation. Less importantly, why did he believe in the Jesus died to
redeem us business?

Second, is such a rational construction of a cosmology really a sign of a
sane mind, or, to put it another way, can it really be a worthwhile
pursuit? Often insanity has perfect internal logic. Take the example of
Newton, who many people have firmly concluded was a little off his beam.
The magnificent edifice of Newtonian mechanics was only a small part of his
ouvre; he wasted most of his time on alchemy and theology. As Keynes said
in his famous speech about Newton, "They are just as sane as the Principia,
if their whole matter and purpose were not magical." Keynes also calls him
the last of the Magi. I happen to think, without having read any of the
million words he wrote on said subjects, that his Principia has great worth
and the rest of it does not. Blake no doubt had a more felicitous turn of
phrase and more interesting political views and insights than Newton, but
is this grand system he constructed worth a hill of beans in and of itself?



>Could there be some connection between this discussion and the
>flap over "purity of intellect"?  Could it be that the terms of
>the debate purity-impurity reflect the two inevitable and
>inseparable stages of bourgeois reason: from confident ascendant
>rationalism to cynical decadent irrationalism?

Well put. I was, however, considering impurity (and science) as the
reasonable middle ground between the purities of 19th-century scientistic
philistinism and 20th-century postmodern cretinism.

Rahul




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