I spent this past weekend reading Krista Tippet's Einstein's God, Weber's Vocation Lectures and Look to Windward. To my surprise, they all kind of complemented each other.
Look to Windward was a fascinating book and it was probably the best way to conclude our semester-long exploration on how to contact beings so different from ourselves. But I guess, how and in what form contact happens is equally important as who should carry out the initial contact. I guess, I will therefore have to follow Ellen Arroway's example and assume that if the aliens contact us in the language of science, then we should not talk to them about our prophets at first instance. However, it is possible that in any given circumstance contact may go unnoticed, as in K-pax. Perhaps we have been contacted many years ago and given vast amounts of technology well beyond our capabilities and we owe our civilization to a superior civilization. It is also possible that we are being studied and when global warming reaches a certain level, we will be contacted again. In any case we should not actively sit and wait for a contact to take (or not take) place.
I think Weber's Science as a vocation should have been one of the required readings we discussed in class. However, it almost feels as if we read it, for most of what we read and discussed tiptoed around Weber's Science as a Vocation lecture. In his lecture Weber contrasts the American and the German paths in becoming a faculty member, and explains how not every scholar is not a teacher (real story) and proceeds to his discussion about having an inner vocation- the actual subject of his lecture. He submits that "in the realm of science, the only person to have "personality" is the one who is wholly devoted to his subject." Furthermore, one who accepts to wholly devout him/herself to his subject should also accept to become obsolete in the years to come.With every progress, science supersedes itself. What interests me most about Weber's lecture is his conclusion that "the growing process of intellectualization and rationalization (to which he calls the "process of disenchantment") does not imply a growing understanding of the conditions under which we live" (12). He takes this point further and says that science is meaningless because "it has no meaning to the only question that matters to us: What shall we do? How shall we live?"(17). Science, according to Weber, can provide us with methods of thought and clarity and comes with its presuppositions (which makes me think of Palmer in Contact). Along with Weber's line of thought, the best possible encounter experience would probably be of D.W. Yarbrough's, given his scholarly attitude of not letting his beliefs to evangelize any aliens. So I think, I wouldn't mind having D.W. in a potential crew.
Look to Windward was a fascinating book and it was probably the best way to conclude our semester-long exploration on how to contact beings so different from ourselves. But I guess, how and in what form contact happens is equally important as who should carry out the initial contact. I guess, I will therefore have to follow Ellen Arroway's example and assume that if the aliens contact us in the language of science, then we should not talk to them about our prophets at first instance. However, it is possible that in any given circumstance contact may go unnoticed, as in K-pax. Perhaps we have been contacted many years ago and given vast amounts of technology well beyond our capabilities and we owe our civilization to a superior civilization. It is also possible that we are being studied and when global warming reaches a certain level, we will be contacted again. In any case we should not actively sit and wait for a contact to take (or not take) place.
I think Weber's Science as a vocation should have been one of the required readings we discussed in class. However, it almost feels as if we read it, for most of what we read and discussed tiptoed around Weber's Science as a Vocation lecture. In his lecture Weber contrasts the American and the German paths in becoming a faculty member, and explains how not every scholar is not a teacher (real story) and proceeds to his discussion about having an inner vocation- the actual subject of his lecture. He submits that "in the realm of science, the only person to have "personality" is the one who is wholly devoted to his subject." Furthermore, one who accepts to wholly devout him/herself to his subject should also accept to become obsolete in the years to come.With every progress, science supersedes itself. What interests me most about Weber's lecture is his conclusion that "the growing process of intellectualization and rationalization (to which he calls the "process of disenchantment") does not imply a growing understanding of the conditions under which we live" (12). He takes this point further and says that science is meaningless because "it has no meaning to the only question that matters to us: What shall we do? How shall we live?"(17). Science, according to Weber, can provide us with methods of thought and clarity and comes with its presuppositions (which makes me think of Palmer in Contact). Along with Weber's line of thought, the best possible encounter experience would probably be of D.W. Yarbrough's, given his scholarly attitude of not letting his beliefs to evangelize any aliens. So I think, I wouldn't mind having D.W. in a potential crew.
I really enjoyed taking this class, and I am looking forward to next semester when I'll be taking changing views of the universe. Hopefully, I will be presented other opportunities to spend more time studying social science fiction.
Take away lessons from this semester? Here are a couple:
1. We cannot isolate ourselves from outside world, because we are surrounded.
2. We cannot isolate ourselves from ourselves, because there is no escape.
3. Communication or understanding is no panacea for conflict. 4. Final frontier is none other than the walls of our own imagination.
I'll leave you with two quotes:
Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.
~ Voltaire
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
~ Philip K. Dick
Don't stop believing.
Ciao.
Ciao.
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