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From: snodgras@cts.com (John E. Snodgrass)
Subject: The P-word: sci intellectual no-no
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Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 02:41:29 GMT
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      Why is power such a dirty word amoungst scientifically-oriented
intellectuals? Here's my opinion. Science has attempted to carve out
an area of expertise which is on the edge of the known. On the other
hand, a great deal is known about the workings of power 
(and self-organization) amoung humans -- even amoung other species. Scientists 
wish to disengage themselves from these political issues in order to carry 
out "objective" research into how the natural world is. The joke? The natural 
world is based on power. Consequence? Science entirely misses the boat, and 
misconceives nature.

      Glimmerings of a new philosophy are already in the offing -- one
which sees the relationship between the struggle for survival, 
self-organization, stability of systems, social organization, and the
structure of the natural world (of which all these processes are
manifestations). The mechanistic science of today is unable to deal with
these concepts, because it views nature as passive and inert (in a manner of a 
machine doing only what its design determines). This is why mechanistic
science cannot deal with _us_ -- to whom power is the most basic
and most important determiner -- and why we have the ludicrous irony
everywhere of the power-hungry scientist -- a ludicrous irony not because
he is worse than anyone else, but because he professes to be above that.
(Anyone who is a scientist, or knows scientists, knows whereof I speak.)
Scientists in fact are often the most authoritarian, self-righteous, and
rigid power-seekers of all -- because they are so unsophisticated in how
they seek it.

      The related practical problem is technology dangerously outdistancing 
our social advancement, to the point where we have primitive, hostile nations 
with weapons of mass destruction. Scientists claim this is not their fault,
and indeed it is nobody's fault -- it is a philosphical trend that must
be curtailed if we want to survive. (When I say "we" this naturally
applies generally to any sane society on Earth, not just to the U.S.)
This has resulted from a historical process where scientific intellectualism,
rather than technological advancement, has been associated with increased
social power. 

      There are alot of strange distortions in the scientific picture of
nature -- but none is so gross or so evidently a distortion than the
suggestion that nature is either inert or random. _We_ are nature, and
as we behave, nature behaves: the obtuse failure to recognize this is the
danger. The NON-intellectual community recognizes this without any problem.
The business community (with their associated scientific activities) and
the political systems recognize it to some extent -- though they have
given too much power to scientific intellectuals in our universities. This
must be counteracted. Philosophers should be the ones willing to look at the 
hard questions, not the ones most adept at ducking them -- and power is the 
hardest question of all.

      Power determines everything. As I've said elsewhere, the philosohpy
of power reigns -- always will reign -- over the long run and in 
general because those who have power hold this philosophy and spread this 
philosophy -- but it will not necessarily prevail in your community or
your country, especially if decadent processes like scientific 
intellectualism have become dominant. In the East, in Asia, this tradition
is not influential -- so they have no intellectual shackles on their 
growth process -- on the development of their power through technology.
In the west, we have one advantage, and that is our lead in the area of
computer science and software development. My own field is computer
augmentation -- i.e. systems which augment the individual's ability to
carry out complex tasks -- but do we see this kind of system as a major
topic of discussion in comp hierarchy? No. What is? AI. Why? Because AI
is what scientific intellectuals think is a high-level application of
computer technology. Recognize this: scientific intellectuals, who
dominate our universities, will throw away the only competitive advantage
the west has in the area of software -- that's just the simplest level
of the deleterious effects of this currently widespread philosophy. Ask an 
AI proponent: where is the power in AI? He'll be embarrassed for you -- 
you said the p-word.


      JES
