A Pox On Ante-Meridian Edumacation
Sep. 4th, 2008 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gnommiThis morning I am reading about how the ideas of Derrida, Saussurean and post-Saussurean epistemological relativism and semiotics might impact upon taxonomy, specifically within the context of paleontology.
Considering that this is a consequence of a throwaway line in a book that I am reading for leisure and that before this morning I had no idea who Saussure or Derrida might be, I feel somewhat chagrined. Where are all the pretty pictures of trilobites? Of course, now I've started reading on the subject, who knows where it will end?
Next time I'll read That's Life!. Or maybe not. There was a stack of this and similar pulp fiction in my psychiatrist's waiting room yesterday, containing such gems as SCHIZOPHRENIC MONSTER SHREDDED MY SISTER and MANIAC KEEPER FATTENED ME UP FOR SICK SEX. Perhaps not the most apposite reading material, all things considered.
Considering that this is a consequence of a throwaway line in a book that I am reading for leisure and that before this morning I had no idea who Saussure or Derrida might be, I feel somewhat chagrined. Where are all the pretty pictures of trilobites? Of course, now I've started reading on the subject, who knows where it will end?
Next time I'll read That's Life!. Or maybe not. There was a stack of this and similar pulp fiction in my psychiatrist's waiting room yesterday, containing such gems as SCHIZOPHRENIC MONSTER SHREDDED MY SISTER and MANIAC KEEPER FATTENED ME UP FOR SICK SEX. Perhaps not the most apposite reading material, all things considered.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-05 09:58 am (UTC)Did you know that Fred Hoyle inferred the energy levels of the carbon atom from the Weak Anthropic principle? These things go hand in hand.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-05 11:03 am (UTC)like you say, its a no-brainer that science and philosophy are indivisible, but I have a feeling that Conway-Morris is just having a gripe with big words so that he can justify slagging off Dawkins for being shallow, short-sighted and unduly obsessed with mechanistic minutiae
not that i disagree with him ;)
anyway it can't hurt to read up on all this stuff right? *remembers having a minor breakdown whilst trying to read Wittgenstein's Blue and Brown Books*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-05 11:17 am (UTC)I just like people who are much cleverer than me. If Dennett was a girl, I'd fancy him something rotten :)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-05 11:41 am (UTC)I WILL FINISH THAT BOOK!
frikkin mock turtle and his "don't go any further until you understand this"
pffft
but wasn't that Douglas Hofstadter?
erm dunno if i spelled that right
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-05 11:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-05 11:42 am (UTC)