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Author | Topic: The problem with science II | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3987 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.0 |
JavaMan writes: Although I haven't the foggiest idea what the first line means, and only have an inkling of what she's getting at in the final verse in reference to
The nearest dream recedes, unrealized. I'd read that as "(even) the nearest" dream of (even fleeting) happiness is elusive--thus what chance the hope for "steadfast" {lasting) happiness? Tonally, it's much richer than that, of course, the speaker's voice loaded with melancholy and loss, hinting that there may be some rare instances of realized happiness but leaving us to wonder at the particulars behind the melancholy. The child's disappointment mirrors the poet's disillusionment; this should resonate in anyone who has watched a child play and wondered what hard knocks the future held in store. Auntie Em could be dwelling on a lover or a god--seems that way often in good poems, and hers are exceptionally consistently good.
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Sour Member (Idle past 2273 days) Posts: 63 From: I don't know but when I find out there will be trouble. (Portsmouth UK) Joined: |
There was actually a small amount of controversy regarding this problem including many PHD'd professors getting it wrong.
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2345 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
I'd read that as "(even) the nearest" dream of (even fleeting) happiness is elusive--thus what chance the hope for "steadfast" {lasting) happiness? Tonally, it's much richer than that, of course, the speaker's voice loaded with melancholy and loss, hinting that there may be some rare instances of realized happiness but leaving us to wonder at the particulars behind the melancholy. The child's disappointment mirrors the poet's disillusionment; this should resonate in anyone who has watched a child play and wondered what hard knocks the future held in store. Yes, I think that's pretty much how I'd interpreted it, but thanks for the analysis. It's always good to read someone else's impressions. I love those two lines at the end of the middle section:
Heedless of the boy Staring, bewildered, at the mocking sky. They seem to contain that perfect combination of the emotional and the physical that excites me in poetry.
Auntie Em could be dwelling on a lover or a god--seems that way often in good poems, and hers are exceptionally consistently good. I'm fairly new to Emily Dickinson, but she's already becoming a favourite. Reading her is like watching a high wire act. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2345 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
The nearest dream recedes, unrealized. I'd read that as "(even) the nearest" dream of (even fleeting) happiness is elusive--thus what chance the hope for "steadfast" {lasting) happiness? The more I read that line to myself, the more it keeps rousing memories of unexpressed desire or love. Growing close to someone, but never getting to the point of expressing what you feel. And then the moment is gone, and you're just left with the unrealized desire. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2345 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
This is a general post to correct a misunderstanding.
I am not claiming that human perception is infallible, so examples of human fallibility such as the Monty Hall dilemma, although they are fascinating in themselves, are irrelevant to my point. What I'm trying to do is contrast scientific explanations of human nature with the actual experience of living. The former are abstractions or generalizations of reality, the latter is the reality itself. Maybe Dostoyevsky can explain it better:
You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even it if goes wrong, it lives. (Notes from Underground) The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2345 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
I'm not saying that scientific descriptions of the world aren't true, and I don't disagree that sometimes what they tell us about the nature of things contradicts our personal experience. (Although I'd argue that this is a rarer occurrence than you suggest - if our perception of things were so faulty we wouldn't have much chance of surviving, would we?) I'd be interested in this argument. What argument? That your personal experience of the world is fairly accurate? Do you really doubt that?
But a scientific description is an interpretation of reality, not reality itself. Agreed, but it is an interpretation based on fact, rather than subjective experience, or interpretation. Literary analysis is _based_ on interpretation. The interpretation of the analyst is the basis of their position. The point I'm trying to make is that an interpretation or explanation of a thing is different from the thing itself. The accuracy of the interpretation is irrelevant to this point.
I'm not sure the actual experience itself is that useful for understanding the experience. The experience of eating doesn't explain taste, it demonstrates it, but can it offer an explanation? Where human nature is the object of scientific investigation it is human experience that is the reality being explained. The reality is what you experience, scientific explanation is just a model of that reality. Knowing the mechanism of how one's sense of taste is caused is fascinating and can be very useful, but claiming that taste IS this mechanism is wrong. Taste is the subjective experience - that's the reality that's being explained.
Are you talking about understanding human experience or finding deeper meaning? What does understanding human experience mean? I'm talking about living human experience, not understanding it in a rational, scientific sense. I've addressed this in a general post, so I won't go into it here. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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fallacycop Member (Idle past 5546 days) Posts: 692 From: Fortaleza-CE Brazil Joined: |
JavaMan writes: Is it? Really? I would have said exactly the oposite!! Scientific exploration is our only hope to ever get in touch to reality itself, while our daily experience of living is a totally abstract concept that exist only in our mind. Funy how that happens
What I'm trying to do is contrast scientific explanations of human nature with the actual experience of living. The former are abstractions or generalizations of reality, the latter is the reality itself.
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fallacycop Member (Idle past 5546 days) Posts: 692 From: Fortaleza-CE Brazil Joined: |
Thanks for the link. That is a very interesting puzzle. I had heard of it before, but didn`t know it is called Monty Hall effect. What`s Monty Hall, anyways?
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jar Member (Idle past 420 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Who was Monty Hall. He was the host of a tv game show. see here for more info.
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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ikabod Member (Idle past 4519 days) Posts: 365 From: UK Joined: |
no , sorry but i must support Javaman here .. reality is where we live and thats inside are own heads , minds if i may use the word .
in my reality celery taste horrid ,i choke on its taste , my mother loves its taste .. "reality - tv" shows are utter rubbish and i always turn off or change channel , to my closest work colleagues they are a must see event ... like enjoy both classical and moden dance music .. to my father both are just noise .. any scientific analysis of each of the above will show that all "percever's" they get the same input , but our personal reality ..ie interaction with those input , differ . this is why Javamans post about poems is so relevent , they take a collection of comman words and produce something that is total beyond the realm of meer printed text .. i think that if you want a secular example of the immaterial world it is our responce to such poems , and music and art ...
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1470 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Just want to say that what you are getting at is in the ballpark of what I had in mind about the "two cultures" but I got knocked out of my frame of reference by the recent discussions and have to regroup before I know what I think for sure. And the book still hasn't come -- I misread the notice from them about the timing.
Anyway. Not sure what to do with that particular Dickenson poem in this regard but that's the idea. A "science" like Sociobiology is just a klutzy pretense that shouldn't be taken seriously for half a second. It used to make me angry that anyone would dare to pronounce on human experience from such a perspetive. Makes me want to strangle scientists. I'd always immediately think how good literature gets at the truth of human experience in a way that makes the social sciences an offensive travesty. My creationist views are in a different category I think. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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fallacycop Member (Idle past 5546 days) Posts: 692 From: Fortaleza-CE Brazil Joined: |
no , sorry but i must support Javaman here .. reality is where we live and thats inside are own heads , minds if i may use the word . Thanks for making my point. The reallity in our head is completely subjective, as you pointed out, and there is no way we can agree over its meaning. You hate celery, Your mother loves it. Which one is right? There is no answer. How can it be "real" then? It`s just a projection in your mind (or your mother`s) of the actual reality of a celery which we can get to by carefull analysis based on chemistry, human physiology, human psycology, etc... All these are branches of science. Granted, they are just an aproximation towards reality. That`s why I characterized it as a hope to understand reality.
in my reality celery taste horrid ,i choke on its taste , my mother loves its taste .. "reality - tv" shows are utter rubbish and i always turn off or change channel , to my closest work colleagues they are a must see event ... like enjoy both classical and moden dance music .. to my father both are just noise .. any scientific analysis of each of the above will show that all "percever's" they get the same input , but our personal reality ..ie interaction with those input , differ .
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2345 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
Is it? Really? I would have said exactly the oposite!! Scientific exploration is our only hope to ever get in touch to reality itself, while our daily experience of living is a totally abstract concept that exist only in our mind. Funy how that happens Maybe I'm not explaining myself very clearly. I'm not saying that our experience of things is truer than a scientific explanation of things generally, when by 'things' we mean the world outside us. I don't hold that we have a special knowledge of the truth about a world that's hidden from science. (So I'd completely reject ikabod's argument in my defence, for example!). I'm specifically arguing about scientific explanation of human nature. In this case, and this case only, our experience IS the reality that science is trying to represent.
our daily experience of living is a totally abstract concept that exist only in our mind That seems a very strange thing to say. Personally I would have said there was nothing more concrete than my day-to-day existence. Maybe you can clarify what you mean? The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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macaroniandcheese  Suspended Member (Idle past 3954 days) Posts: 4258 Joined: |
more precisely. she was in love with that preacher guy she hung out with all the time, but she was born to be a spinster and he was either already married or too dedicated to his cloth. i don't right remember which. i did a project on her. i haven't liked her poetry since.
Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2345 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
more precisely. she was in love with that preacher guy she hung out with all the time, but she was born to be a spinster and he was either already married or too dedicated to his cloth. i don't right remember which. i did a project on her. i haven't liked her poetry since. That's interesting. I got the impression she was gay. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible
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