Tales of Philosophy:
Recipe for Disaster
according to Jerome Kagan,
Harvard psychologist emeritus
| From Log24 — | |
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From Harvard's Jerome Kagan — |
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| "'Humans demand that there be a clear right and wrong,' he said. 'You've got to believe that the track you've taken is the right track. You get depressed if you're not certain as to what it is you're supposed to be doing or what's right and wrong in the world.'" | "People need to divide the world into good and evil, us and them, Kagan continued. To do otherwise– to entertain the possibility that life is not black and white, but variously shaded in gray– is perhaps more honest, rational and decent. But it's also, psychically, a recipe for disaster." |
Black and White: |
Shades of Gray: |
The above Kagan quotes are taken
from a New York Times essay by
Judith Warner as transcribed by
Mark Finkelstein on Sept. 29.
See also Log24 on
Sept. 29 and 30.
Related material:
Kagan's book
Surprise, Uncertainty,
and Mental Structures
(Harvard U. Press, April 2002)
and Werner Heisenberg–
discoverer of the
uncertainty principle—
as Anakin Skywalker
being tempted by
the Dark Side:
George Lucas, who has profited
enormously from public depictions
of the clash between
good and evil, light and dark,
may in private life be inclined
to agree with Hercule Poirot:
"It is the brain, the little gray cells
on which one must rely.
One must seek the truth
within– not without."
(This is another version of the
"Descartes before dehors" principle–
See "A Table," Sept. 28.)
Ah yeah. “… who espoused the ‘matrix’ form of quantum mechanics” – – Heisenberg.
“Although he would hate to hear it put this way, biology does sound an awful lot like destiny in Kagan’s new book, “The Long Shadow of Temperament” – – “
From Boston.com
And then: Discovered less than a decade ago, a mysterious antigravity force suffuses the universe. (…) the blackest mystery in the shadiest realms of cosmology It’s the biggest question in physics: What is the invisible stuff blowing the universe apart? A decade ago, the idea of “dark energy” was a historical footnote, something Einstein concocted to balance his equations and later regretted. (…) They now know that this mysterious “antigravity” force exists, yet nobody has a good explanation for what it might be or how it works.
Source: Dark Energy Tiptoes Toward the Spotlight, Charles Seife, Science Jun 20 2003: 1896-1897
Comment by BlueCollarGoddess — Sunday, October 1, 2006 @ 3:20 pm
Then of course, when it all becomes too much, I head over to New Grounds, and play 3-D logic.
Takes me about 30 mins. to beat the damn thing. How ’bout you?
Comment by BlueCollarGoddess — Sunday, October 1, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
No contest. I don’t much like, and am no good at, puzzles.
Comment by m759 — Sunday, October 1, 2006 @ 5:11 pm