From: Gordon MacKay (gomackay@btopenworld.com)
Date: Wed Feb 26 2003 - 02:29:31 MST
Sorry - I just cannot take any claim implying an end to discovery seriously
folks. Thomas Kuhn's work on the paradigmatic shifts implicit (if not
implicate) in all major scientific discovery demonstrates that prior to each
major advance there was ignorance, even blindness to what was to be
discovered.
Whether gravity or black holes, the curvature of the Earths' surface or the
revolution of the world around the sun - all these now accepted 'facts' were
'invisible' or unimaginable (not to mention all that their discovery led to)
prior to the advent of a 'new way of seeing' whether in terms of synthetic
occular refinement (telescopes etc) or simply being able to 'recognize' /
perceive gravity as a discrete force.
Perhaps interestingly, my understanding of the 'singularity' is like this -
you don't know what you don't know and you can't see what you can't see -
until...... and it's precisely this 'leap' that seems to be being elided by
Horgan's position. But, hands up I've not read the book - so shoot me down!
Gordon MacKay
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