From: gavand01@ulkyvx.bitnet
Subject: Re: Dancing to a Paying Piper
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1991 22:39:49 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville


In article <1991Sep28.202342.23986@milton.u.washington.edu>, smoliar@maclane.
iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:
>
>In article <1991Sep26.021421.18751@milton.u.washington.edu>
>gavand01@ulkyvx.bitnet writes:
>>
>>  I talked with Clynes today.
>>He believes it will be many years yet before the intellectual mainstream quits
>>laughing at the obvious.  Who knows?
>>
>>I talk about arrogance here, and you might be thinking that I am displaying no
>>small amount of it myself.  We all have large egos or we wouldn't be doing any
>>of this, would we?  But it is fun, heh?
>
>
>You left out one critical quotation, from THE MONEY BOOK by Adam Smith:  "The
>crowd is always wrong."

The crowd may always be wrong when it comes to investing, but the public often
are far ahead of their leaders.  And often common sense is inversely
proportional to level of education.

>  Nevertheless, only the arrogant and the foolish use
>a word like "obvious" seriously.  Given how subjective all forms of perception
>are, no individual can assume that what is "obvious" to him is so for anyone
>else.  The surest way to break off communication is to tell someone that
>something is obvious after you realize that they do not share your opinion.
>Isn't it funny that as our technological powers for communication increase,
>our ability to actually COMMUNICATE seems to be going downhill?  Will we be
>able to communicate with each other any better when we all go into virtual
>environments?
>--
>Stephen W. Smoliar

Who was it that said, "It takes a great mind to contemplate the obvious"?

Ludwig Wittgenstein said in order to overcome hurdles that prevent progress,
"DON'T THINK!  LOOK!" (Quoted from memory)

If through personal or cultural habit, an intellectual tradition becomes
established, there is great resistence to a contrary formulation.  The present
scientific tradition sees the Arts as a matter of subjective feeling, as
non-cognitive, and not worthy of serious scientific attention.  Of course, we
can find exceptions (any general statement is dangerous).

Scientific progress is not linear accretion; there are occasional radical
discontinuities in its development.  The Copernican revolution that made the
sun the center of the solar system rather than the earth is an example.  That
the sun is the center was not and to many, I am sure, is still not "obvious."
Some still insist the earth is flat.  Such people, however, are summarily
dismissed from serious intellectual work.  The problem with that, however, is
that intellectual traditions also summarily dismiss serious ideas, and that
such dismissal prevents important progress.  That is why I included the
Chomsky and Faraday examples.  I can refer you to dozens more.  Clynes, in our
personal conversation, said that it is *obvious* that art works are "data
stores of feeling," an idea that repeatedly gets dismissed.  And even Clynes
takes exception to Susanne K. Langer's term, "presentational symbol."  But that
is a semantic issue.  They are talking about the same thing.  Experience tells
me that few find Clynes and Langer's concerns obvious.  But neither are easily
dismissable.

If I see a white vase against a black background, and you see two black
silhouettes in profile against a white background, why should we argue?  Why
don't we make the mental effort to see in flexible ways?  Even intellectuals
(sometimes I wonder if they, especially) would rather promote their point of
view than to seriously advance the knowledge.  The more someone gains by
maintaining the status quo, the less likely is he/she to risk threatening it,
even if it should become obvious that he is looking at both a vase and
silhouettes.  Sometimes you must then "make the big noise" (attributable to
Bruce Sprinstreen!)

Getting someone to share my opinion is a small part of what I am after,
although obviously (do I dare use this word?) communicating is at the core of
it and sharing with someone a common perspective adds quality to experience.

Communicating is an exceedingly difficult process.  Not only do we see from
different perspectives, we often are seeing different phenomena and remain
unaware of that (The movie, _Being There_, with Peter Sellers makes that
hilariously clear).  Then there is the problem of verbalizing a perception.
After carefully selecting words, the vocabulary is still technical jargon to
someone else, or offends someone for its unintended lack of political
correctness.  All I can say is that I am sorry for any offense.  I simply make
a sincere effort; it takes time to get in synch with the cerebral tug of war
here.

If my postings have no merit, the moderator should ask that I stop this
nonsense.  If there is merit in what anyone says, we should always give someone
the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to the foibles of being human and to
the limitations of speech.  Rationality is a small part of the process.

Gary Van Den Heuvel
University of Louisville
Gavand01Ulkyvx