[ExI] LA Times: Misreading the mind.

John K Clark jonkc at att.net
Mon Jan 21 21:50:49 UTC 2008


In a very inane article one part struck me as particularly inane even using
its own inane standards:

"Measurement was now in vogue. Psychologists were busy trying
to calculate all sorts of inane things, such as the time it takes for 
a single sensation to travel from your finger to your head."

Oh yes, let's hope those goofy scientists get over that silly fad that it's
often a good idea to measure things.

In talking about art there are 2 buzz words that, whatever their original
meaning, now just mean "it sucks"; the words are "derivative" and
"bourgeois". Something similar has happened in the world of science
to the word "reductive", it now also means "it sucks" but it means not
one thing more. I know this because the article says The Blue Brain Project
is an example of science getting away from reductionism, and yet under
the old meaning of the word nothing could be more reductive than trying
to simulate the brain down to the level of neurons.

And if you don't like this post I beg you on bended knee don't say it's
derivative or bourgeois or even reductive, just say it sucks.

 John K Clark





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