[lit-ideas] Re: Scientific Method Dead! Postmodernism Not the Villain! Could it be?
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:58:39 +0900
On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 6:06 AM, David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I'm slow; I don't understand why a new source of patterned data implies that
> we can abandon the task of deciphering what those patterns mean.
Perhaps there is no particular point in knowing what they mean as long as
they are useful anyway. Consider, for example, Amazon.com. Amazon neither
knows nor cares why John McCreery buys certain books. It suffices that the
algorithms that generate those "Readers who have ordered this book have also
purchased" suggestions toss up combinations that do, in fact, lead to my
purchasing more books.
It might be argued that, while we Homo Sapiens are constitutionally
incapable of abandoning the search for meaning, the value of what that
search discovers is limited. This is the thrust of several forms of
mysticism (Zen, for example) and a dark, cyberpunk short story "The Swarm"
by Bruce Sterling, whose protagonist is a vast organism, a kind of cosmic
jellyfish, that has evolved the ability to temporarily grow sufficient
intelligence to wipe out intelligent races that obstruct its expansion but
delete it as a waste of energy when no such threat exists.
A less apocalyptic perspective, that of General Systems Theory, suggests
that the mechanical or statistical models produced by conventional
scientific research apply to only a limited set of phenomena--most of what
we'd like to know falling into the far larger zone of complexity in which
such models fail. New tools like Amazon's algorithms may make it possible to
manage complexity with no need for explanation or empathy to understand the
patterns that ebb and flow as the data stream pours in.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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