Re: Prigogine & Co.

In a message dated 6/18/2003 7:32:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
wwagar@binghamton.edu writes:

> The essential difference remains that natural
> scientists deal with inanimate stuff, and social scientists 
> deal with
> animate us, i.e., human beings.  The gulf is measureless.

Actually, I think this is something of a point of debate among the 'new 
sciences'.  Lots of physicists are saying things along the lines of 'the 
universe is alive' or that the gulf between what we've identified as living and 
inanimate is not so clear as we thought (and that, contra Decartes et al, its 
not a question of reducing living things to the inanimate, but vice versa). 
Biologists, of course, have always been somewhat stranded in this division 
between a 'dead' natural world and a 'living' social world.

 But I do agree about the different ways major philosophical statements about 
the universe can be read.  Kevin Kelly, editor of Wired, is into the 'new 
sciences' because all this stuff about self-organization proves you don't 
really need a state to organize things, therefore let the 'free-market' do all 
the work...

Steven Sherman