--- 3dwavedave <dlt44@ipa.net> wrote:
> Gary, Elliot, all
>
> Gary
> > Descartes claimed that it was a
> > separate thing altogether and thus create 'The Mind / Body Problem'.
>
>
>
> In Christopher Alexander's new book he too traces the source of the
> currently dominate world- view to Descartes. But he also suggests that
> the way that his work became integrated into it is not as Descartes
> thought or intended. The old unintended consequences thing.
>
> "The mechanistic idea of order can be traced to Descartes, around
> 1640.
> His idea was: if you want to know how something works, you can find
> out
> by pretending that it is a machine. You completely isolate the thing
> you
> are interested in.... ... from everything else, and you invent a
> mechanical model, a mental toy, which obeys certain rules, and which
> will replicate the behavior of the thing."
>
> "However, the crucial thing which Descartes understood very well, but
> which we most often forget, is that this process is only a METHOD. ...
> Decartes himself clearly understood his procedure as a mental trick.
> He
> was a religious person who would have been horrified to find out that
> people in the 20th century began to think that reality itself is
> actually like this."
> (Alexander-Nature of Order-Vol 1, pg 16 )
I've been giving it some thought lately, the Descartes-heritage. Above
is exactly, and well put as well, what my conclusion was. Thanks for the
quote!
Patrick.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:19 BST