Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 373.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com> (30)
Subject: What's in an Idea?
[2] From: Randall Pierce <rpierce@jsucc.jsu.edu> (7)
Subject: Encounters of the Fourth Kind
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:45:08 +0100
From: "Osher Doctorow" <osher@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: What's in an Idea?
From: Osher Doctorow, osher@ix.netcom.com, Tues. Oct. 17, 2000, 5:34PM
"What's in a Name?" has inspired me to consider "What's in an Idea?" The
answer that I come up with, in contrast to the former, is "surprisingly
much". You may know that I dabble in mathematics and physics to an
inordinate degree, but I think that this relates to Humanist because it says
nothing specific about mathematics or physics. I have been finding the most
amusing new discoveries by making tiny modifications of ideas. Where people
put +, I put - (minus). Where people divide, I multiply or add or subtract.
Where people draw a graph that looks like a teacup, I ask what happens if
you turn the teacup upside down. Believe it or not, you get a totally
different mathematics if you do any of these things. If you play your cards
right, you also get a totally different physics. It appears to explain
some of the recent findings on the accelerating universe, on
information/entropy/knowledge near singularities (black holes, rare or zero
probability events, etc.), how the Sun captured the planets in elliptical
precessing orbits, etc.
Change some assumptions in the humanities and see what you get. It only
takes a few changes to get science fiction, which has stimulated many
inventions. Somebody wanted food to taste better (spices), and we got the
New World. Some proto-human apelike ancestor, if the stories are right,
asked what would happen if he/she walked on the ground instead of the trees,
and here we are. Some politician asked what would happen if we traded with
the Chinese instead of warring with them, and vice versa, and here we are
(I'm not sure where, but you know what I mean). Some French King asked what
would happen if some harsh consonant were dropped in French, and we have
ellipsis or circonflexes or whatever they are called (my French decreases as
my mathematics/physics increases - in one ear and out the other). Alexander
the Great asked what would happen if Macedonia were bigger, and he
"conquered the world" (caution: do not imitate at present).
Osher
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Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 09:45:38 +0100
From: Randall Pierce <rpierce@jsucc.jsu.edu>
Subject: Encounters of the Fourth Kind
My congratulations to Arun-Kumar Tripathi for bringing news of the
"First Contact" seminar before the Humanist community. I wonder how many
governmental and NGO's have seriously considered all of the
ramifications of alien contact?. I do know that "conspiracy" buffs have
determined that all UFO contact has been carefully covered up to prevent
"widespread panic." Be that as it may, I am glad to see this august body
considering the problem. How do you think that hyper-text technology
would aid such a contact(stripped of technicalese? Randall
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