From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: William Irwin Thompson
Distribution: world
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 04:30:35 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov16.050503.8856@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu writes:

 > I'm not quite clear on what the irony was - are the scientists, too, 
 > "caged" in some sense? Or was their tension somehow analogous to tensions
 > amongst the other primates (the ones in the cages)? (I haven't seen the film.)

Both facets are inherent in the image I received, especially in view of
the fact that the other primates were deliberately kept in their cages
solely for the purposes of "science". My understanding of what Wiseman
endeavoured to achieve has subsequently developed along those lines. I
thought then, and I still think today that his insight has made a very
valuable contribution to our understanding of the social processes of
science, ranking with Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

 > Is the similarity being suggested here that in the film, one saw in a
 > disjointed fashion occasional dialogues between scientists against the
 > "backdrop of chatter" [from the cages], and on the Internet, one sees
 > occasional intellectual exchanges mostly swamped by babble?

Occasional *attempts* at intellectual exchange clipped from any sort
of wider referential context, to which other readers therefore have no
access, are rather the norm here (as well of course as being swamped by
the babble). What emerges is a series of formal statements which can be
discriminated fairly readily from the background noise, but from which
all human meaning has been stripped by the machines being employed to
transmit them.

It is very interesting indeed the extent to which those commenting on
the phenomenon are regarded as *attacking* science, indicative of a
high level of frustration experienced perhaps subconsciously here in
the outcome.

 > Hmm. Regarding John McCarthy's original post, I at first thought the tone
 > was somewhat hostile, but he did say that Thompson's essay contained
 > "acute observations" as well, so perhaps he simply writes in a forthright 
 > fashion whether praising or denigrating. As for taking Thompson outside
 > so I can punch his head in, on the whole I LIKE his ideas - I think you
 > may have misjudged *something* in what I wrote, or you were keen to drive
 > home the analogy between intellectual debate on the Internet and primate
 > emotional/territorial politics.

Well, again, the only basis on which I am able to make any judgement
at all, or misjudgement or whatever, consists of what ends up actually
being printed to my screen at this end. Since the item is contained in
a packet transmitted as I understand intact between my computer and
the sender's, I can only assume that what is written therein is what
the sender wanted to write.

I can very well appreciate, however, that a renowned professor highly
skilled in lecture theatre oratory who might suddenly find his great
thoughts just evaporating into a cybervoid, will come to feel acutely
uncomfortable with the considerable loss of image arising from the
inadequacies of this new medium. But that is not new; the substantial
political careers of great statesmen simply crumbled under the impact
of television, and at each stage of technological change corresponding
social adjustments are inevitably made.

Whether such adjustments are desirable is a different issue we might
well pursue; suffice for the moment that the cage door is now ajar.

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
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