Dangerous views

[Guest guest]

<<So, western science at least deludes itself with the notion that a

unified theory of everything is possible,

>>>>Must not have heard of M theory

Alon>>

 

Alon,

 

Thank you for your comment. I was aware that there were 5 String

theories, but not that there was now an attempt to unify them,

although I was aware that the existance of five theories was seen to

be a problem.

 

From http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/qg_ss.html

 

" M-theory

Apart from the fact that instead of one there are five different,

healthy theories of strings (three superstrings and two heterotic

strings) there was another difficulty in studying these theories: we

did not have tools to explore the theory over all possible values of

the parameters in the theory. Each theory was like a large planet of

which we only knew a small island somewhere on the planet. But over

the last four years, techniques were developed to explore the theories

more thoroughly, in other words, to travel around the seas in each of

those planets and find new islands. And only then it was realized that

those five string theories are actually islands on the same planet,

not different ones! Thus there is an underlying theory of which all

string theories are only different aspects. This was called M-theory.

The M might stand for Mother of all theories or Mystery, because the

planet we call M-theory is still largely unexplored. "

 

 

I think this adds additional weight to my argument, that Western

science constantly strives towards a unitary theory.

 

Wainwright

[Guest guest]

think this adds additional weight to my argument, that Western

science constantly strives towards a unitary theory.

 

>>>>No question this is true. If they will succeed who knows. M theory is

apparently dependent on finding the disappearance of energy or particles in

particle accelerators which would then mean we have parallel universes and

realities and may be then anything goes

Alon

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Ken wrote: Anyhow, when it comes to dangerous

views, Paul's are indeed the most.

 

The danger is that people will start thinking

for themselves, and there's no telling where

that might lead.

 

Ken,

 

Thanks. Even old paradigms become new when people rework them consciously in

the present time. It is up to CM to create the future for itself rather than

try to chase the future of some other entity ... like science, healthcare or

insurance.

 

Emmanuel Segmen

 

 

[Guest guest]

Wainwright,

 

This carries a seed that we need to carry and nurture. We do now live in a

planetary culture wherein Western science presents a hegemony of force and

momentum. Yet it's the pluralist view of the CM culture that makes one of my

teacher's says essential ... " you must walk on two feet " . She had yin/yang in

mind as well as all that you've just said regarding pluralism. We need to go to

the place where a " unified field theory " actually contains profound paradoxes

and yin/yang oscillations.

 

Emmanuel Segmen

 

-

wainwrightchurchill

Friday, November 14, 2003 9:54 AM

Dangerous views

 

 

>>I think it's important that when we talk about

the hegemonic tendencies of science we

should remind ourselves that the sources

of such tendencies are more or less

identical to the sources of the hegemonic

tendencies of all human beings.

 

We don't need special conceptual tools

to understand greed and the behaviors

that greed engenders. And we need to

keep in mind the fact that it knows neither

national nor ethnic boundaries.

 

Ken>>

 

Ken,

I don't think you're necessarily right about this. In the West, we

have an either/or attitude to knowledge, whereas CM is characterised

by an approach that Unschuld has discussed in the excerpt below. This

is precisely the problem with the scientific/biomedical outlook -

it's not pluralist, nor heterogenous in nature, and this is one of

the most important issues we need to be concerned about. It asserts

its right to authority, in the manner Rey discussed in an earlier

email.

 

Just to complicate matters, I'll include another point as well in the

Unschuld quote I've selected:

 

" So it is plain to us that although there were many internal

dynamics, in China in 1890 an author could still allude to the Huang

di Nei jing, or to the Nan jing, or the Shang Han Lun, and these

thoughts still made sense to many. Basically you have the same style

of thought for these two thousand years. But when the Imperial Age

ended early in this century the tree lost its roots. Today I would

dare to say that no one can think and argue in terms of traditional

Chinese medical theory. We have no way of being earnest or sincere in

continuing these lines of thought.

So the roots which nourish this type of thinking are just no longer

there. Chinese medicine is still used, and may still be useful, and

certain age-old techniques are used. It is used, but there is no

development from within.

Just imagine that traditional Chinese medicine never strove towards

one truth, as is a characteristic feature of Western science.

Individuals propagated a truth and they may have denied what others

said. But Chinese society as a whole never cared, they just cared

about what is useful, about what makes logical sense. Hence you

arrive at many, many contradictions, and it is just not part of the

Chinese culture of knowledge to solve contradictions And to say this

is true but not that. Individuals may have done so, but a concept of

absolute knowledge is not Chinese, and also the either/or is not

Chinese. So it never mattered whether the heart is associated with

joy as one tradition has it or whether it is associated with planning

or thought as another has it. Both these associations can be deduced

logically from some basic idea. There is no way to say he is right or

she is wrong. The either/or is part of our current Western life, and

now every child in China who gets a decent education is trained along

the lines of the worldwide Western type of thinking. You cannot enter

the age of computer technology if you say it could be this way or it

could be that way. "

 

Unschuld interview, EJOM Vol1No4 p9