Continued elsewhere

I've decided to abandon this blog in favor of a newer, more experimental hypertext form of writing. Come over and see the new place.

Saturday, August 30, 2003

Anti-science

William Burroughs provides this thought for the day:



"Elimination of all natural sciences----If anybody ought to go to the extermination chambers definitely scientists, yes I'm definitely antiscientist because I feel that science represents a conspiracy to impose as, the real and only universe, the Universe of scientists themselves----they're reality-addicts, they've got to have things so real so they can get their hands on it."

But this was part of a long interview that I found, the more interesting quote to me was this:


"Now all politicians assume a necessity of control, the more efficient the control the better. All political organizations tend to function like a machine, to eliminate the unpredictable factor of AFFECT---emotion. Any machine tends to absorb, eliminate, Affect. Yet the only person who can make a machine move is someone who has a motive, who has Affect. If all individuals were conditioned to machine efficiency in the performance of their duties they would have to be at least one person outside the machine to give the necessary orders; if the machine absorbed or eliminated all those outside the machine the machine will slow down and stop forever."

Related to thesis and models for thinking about action, blah blah etc.

What I read on my summer vacation

Back from an exhausting tour of the east coast with family. I realize I managed to get quite a bit of reading done (and revisited my favorite Harvard Square bookstores):



Snobbery: The American Version, by Joseph Epstein

The curious incident of the dog in the night-time, by Mark Haddon

In Green's Jungles, by Gene Wolfe

DNA: The Secret of Life, by James Watson

Tishimongo Blues, by Elmore Leonard

Krakatoa: the day the world exploded, by Simon Winchester