Hi !
Gary Boyd wrote :
> WEin Principia have some shared understandings of complex
> coupled generative systems,
> which are woefully lacking in the conduct of the World's affairs.
> There are now also wonderfull and practically useful technics
> for marshalling such understandings:
> Lowry's Needles <http://www.ultranet.com/~eslowry/>,
> Jaworski's j-Maps <http://www.gen-strategies.com/>,
> High Performance Systems' Stella <http://www.hps-inc.com>,
> and Sentences <http://www.lazysoft.com>
> Perhaps it is time to look at the project of unifying science again with
> the various current tools, which were undreamed of
> by the Chicago group (Otto Neurath, Kuhn et al.)
I've quickly browsed the above sites. In relation to these new tools
(techniques) mentioned there, how about viewing *everything* in
philosophy as *tools* ? I mean: OK, it seems to me to be potentially
quite useful to use tools such as those you mention here to aid
philosophy, but why not go a step further and change our way of thinking
in philosophy in such a way that we think of everything as TOOLS ?
Everything that purports to be useful, must therefore be capable of beig
used usefully for some purpose, -- and is therefore inherently
automatically a TOOL. Everything that is not a ''tool'', is not useful.
Everything that cannot be used as a ''tool'', therefore equals useless
phantasizing -- which, since it's useless, is behavior that will get
elbowed out in the Darwinistic survival process. I mean: ''being
a tool'' is logically equivalent to ''uiseful''.
If this above reasoning is correct, then this IMO shows that useful
science and philosophy inherently should be almost incapable of shunning
using all and every kind of tools as sub-processes unside itself : like
a big machine (= philosophy) that is supported and aided by, and/or
which even is made up of, a set of smaller machines (= the auxiliary
tools).
Also: IMO, the whole way of thinking about things as tools, and the
mode of operation of constructing and then using tools, and of building
new tools out of (on top of) older tools, is also a rather neat way of
doing ''meta-cybernetics''. :-):-) <serious> IMO, it seems that a
''meta-cubernetical'' POV on philosophy would regard everything in
philosophy and science as equivalent to ''tool making''. Even the whole
process of philosophy itself, can be IMO usefully and meaningfully
regarded as being a process of tool-making.
A significant advantage of viewing philosophy in this way, is IMO that
it takes the ''dreaming'' and ''mystical'' element out of philosophy.
Often, philosphers and scientists are regarded by many people as useless
dreamers. But in the ''tool-making'' POV, this is incorrect :
scientists and philosophers are in that POV only the people who are
engaged in making the tools at the topmost ''meta''-layers (most
abstract and theoretical layers) -- but au fond, functionally, they are
(IMO) tool-makers just as e.g. any programmer is.
Technical and technological criteria (such as: a spare, clear design for
a technological apparatus is more useful than a complicated, fussy
design) IMO apply not only to designing of technology, but also to
philosophical tool-making. IMO, philosophy is maybe more abstract, but
still definitely quite as much down-to-earth as any
technological/technical work. It is IMO no help at all in any way to
look at philosophy in a way in which it appears to be a more
''esoterical'' thing than necessary.
--- Best regards, Menno (rubingh@delftnet.nl)------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ir. Menno Rubingh, Scientific programmer, Software designer, & Software documentation writer Doelenstraat 62, 2611 NV Delft, Netherlands phone +31 15 2146915 (answering machine backup) email rubingh@delftnet.nl http://www.rubinghscience.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ======================================== Posting to pcp-discuss@lanl.gov from "Menno RUBINGH" <rubingh@delftnet.nl>
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