From: Erin N. (enoonan@kent.edu)
Date: Tue Jul 15 2003 - 04:58:56 BST
>The first thing someone like Platt will want to do is try to catch me in some
sort of self-referential paradox. But I still maintain that once you've made
the "turn," you no longer see these things as paradoxes. It's simply a matter
of, "Well, of
>course my description of how we judge descriptions is a itself just one more
description. It's a discursive description isn't it?" The point of the
pragmatist is that my description isn't any closer to the way we really judge
descriptions, it
>just happens to be better than the other ones. It fits better with the set
of intellectual patterns that I hold, my own web of beliefs and desires.
>
>Matt
>
I think this line sums it up for me:
Einstein: What I just said is the fundamental, end-all,
final, not- to- subject- to- opinion absolute truth,
depending on where you are standing.
This is a line from "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" by
Steve Martin (very good, recommend it to everyone)
The play is about young Picasso, Einstein, and Elvis in
a bar in Paris.
Has anyone ever read this...some of it
relates to current topics like the aesthetics of an
idea
Picasso: I think in the moment of pencil to paper, the future
is mapped out in the face of the person drawn. Imagine
that the pencil is pushed hard enough, and the lead
goes through the paper into another dimension
Einstein: yes!
Picasso: A kind of fourth dimension,if that's what you
want to call it.....
Einstein: I can't believe you are saying this!
A fourth dimension!
Picasso: And that fourth dimension is...the future.
Einstein: wrong
Picasso: The pencil pokes into the future and sucks
up ideas and transfers them to the paper, for Christ's sake.
And what the hell do you know about it anyway...you're
a scientist! You just want theories....
Einstein: Yes, and like you, the theories must be beautiful.
You know why the sun doesn't revolve around the earth?
Because the idea isn't beautiful enough. If you're
trying to prove that the sun revolves around the earth,
in order to make the theory fit the facts, you have to have
the planets moving backwards, and the sun doing loop-the-loops.
Way ugly.
Picasso:So you're saying you bring a beautiful idea
into being?
Einstein: Yes. We create a system and see if the facts
can fit it.
Picasso: So you're not just describing the world as it is?
Einstein: No! We are creating a new way of looking at
the world!
----------------------------
another good part
Einstein: I make beautiful things with a pencil
Picasso: you? you're just a scientist! for me, the
shortest distance between two points is NOT a straight
line!
Einstein: likewise
Picasso: Let's see one of your creations
(Einstein pulls out a pencil. Picasso stops dancing ,gets
a pencil. The others back away as if it were a Western
shoot-out.)
Picasso: Draw!
Einstein: Done. (swap) It's perfect.
Picasso: Thank you
Einstein: I'm talking about mine.
Picasso: It's a formula.
Einstein: So's yours.
Picasso: It was a little hastily drawn...yours is letters.
Einstein: yours is lines
Picasso: My lines mean something.
Einstein: So do mine
Picasso: Mine is beautiful
Einstein: Men have swooned on seeing that
Picasso: Mine touches the heart.
Einstein: Mine touches the head
Picasso: Mine will change the future
Einstein: Oh, and mine won't?
Okay, I'll let you read the rest on your own.
Erin
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