eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (01/15/85)
Recently, I picked up the new text: Surely You are Joking Mr. Feynmann?
by Dick Feynmann [his autobiography]. I saw it in a book store, and later
saw a good review in Time. It turns out I was at a lecture which two chapters
were based on. It's not a bad book especially if you had heard any of these
stories at Caltech. It's apparently a popular text because I had difficultly
buying it as a gift. So much for the book review. [Feynmann, Norton, 1985,
$16.95]
On to the main subject:
Anyway, in several chapters, Feynmann, a physicist has a number of
comments about philosophers and other humanities people. He has difficulty
comprehending their perceptions of the world [I have yet to get to his
chapter on artists].
I also am on the verge of marrying into a family of artists [five generations].
It is interesting to see their perceptions of computers [graphics for
instance]. They really like line drawings [calligraphics without hidden line
removal] and highly aliased raster graphics. We frequently have discussions
[arguments] on the sciences and the humanities. They are quite enjoyable!
First, it is clear that the arts and humanities feel threatened by science
and engineering. My girlfriend thinks engineering profs should be paid on
an equal scale as art profs [they should make the choice and go to industry
if they want the money], her father [the chair of Art at Claremont]
'understands' the problem and tolerates modified scales. Should we
run everything like we run a market economy? Does your school run this way?
Your home? {perhaps to a degree. we certainly don't just close down
lots of departments [or do we?] because of economic viability}
Second, scientists and engineers who attack the humanities [and their
counterparts] do not necessarily help the problem [myself included],
but some type of communication is better than none. There is certainly more to life than computing. The humanities will them up like they pick up other
tools. The scientists and engineers should be able to write and communicate
better; whereas the humanities can use computing tools to better "augment"
human thought. The "humanists" who `attack' technology are frequently
expressing non-technologists' sentiments. We have to remember that
there exist problems without adequate technological solution: do you fault
those doing research on perfecting ovens when they were used in Germany
in WWII? [See "The Ascent of Man" by Bronowski {a scientist}].
I realize that many of us support a point of view by taking an extreme
and over simplifying it. It's a useful tool, but we should strive to
educate the humanists rather than retaliate against them.
Nerds and art-types aside: actually, we are very much alike, the people we
should really get mad at are the jocks! ;-)
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
{hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,vortex}!ames!aurora!eugene
emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA