Re: Universal Roots

John wrote:

> Gerry, the wedge you speak of between art and science occurred

before

> Marx. Its ultimate source lies in the Greek separation between the
> spiritual "ideal" and the materialistic "real". Nevertheless as

late

> as the Renaissance there was a general acceptance in agreement with
> Aristotle, that Ars and techne were the same; "a capacity to do or
> make something with a correct understanding of the principle
> involved," and Art as a branch of knowledge was considered to be a
> form of practical science. Nevertheless the breach was made with
> Descartes insistence that the res cogitans of the "human rational
> soul" was completely separate from the res extensa of the physical
> material world. With the Grand Encyclopedia of Diderot and other
> Enlightenment thinkers, technology increasingly came to be seen as
> divorced from Art, a finding which was confirmed by the pastoral
> Romantic Artists rejection of the technology of the "dark Satanic
> Mills" of the Industrial Revolution.

Hi John, If we do wish to impose a wedge between art and science, we
perhaps could interpret many of the early texts (pre-Greek) as
containing such a hostility between spiritual and materialistic.
Origins are always a difficult task to assess. Renaissance men such
as Leonardo da Vinci were most impressive but as you say, it was
during the Englightenment that scholars began to concentrate on
technology to improve the human condition and assuage the everyday
chores of life. This new millennium marks a very devisive stage in
the progress of technolgoy -- it might even replace biological man.

> This idealistic scepticism towards modernism has contributed to
> producing the "two cultures" conflict as described by the British
> physicist and philosopher C. P. Snow. Snow's basic thesis was that
> the breakdown of communication between the sciences and the
> humanities (the "two cultures" of the title) was a major hindrance

to

> solving the world's problems.

C.P. Snow was knowledgeable beyond his years.

> This conflict - arts versus sciences - continues to exist, however,
> in all highly developed western societies. Despite the indisputable
> dominance of the scientific and technological culture in everyday
> life and despite its contribution to the welfare of everyone, the
> vocal intellectual leaders of public opinion together with the

others

> in the media, schools and churches, have cast doubt not only on the
> consequences of science and technology, but also on the legitimacy

of

> the scientific world view itself.

The process of science is an admirable pursuit; the end result of
science in "scientism" can be interpreted as "Hitleresque".

> How are we to bring the two cultures together. I would suspect

that

> through a "Green" sensibility, soundly founded upon scientific
> ecological principles, we have a chance to satisfy both sides of

the

> argument - and achieve a way of using both reductionism and wholism
> as means of coming at wisdom, doing justic to the creative,

artistic

> and spiritual aspects of life in a way that avoids the polarities
> discussed above.

Fusing the two cultures together with a "Green" sensibility founded
upon scientific ecological principles is our "final frontier".

> Gerry, the Swadesh list, I understand, was of the 100 words most
> likely to be found in different languages. I know from the work of
> the Summer Institute of Linguistics, that many languages have no

word

> for God, and considerable work must occur to find a way of creating
> an indigenous equivalent. This is certainly the case of the

Nyungar

> language of the South West of Western Australia, where I live. I
> don't think that the lack of a word for God on the Swadesh list has
> anything to do with "scientific atheism" or the non-scientific
> attitudes of Creationists. I have met many Creationist linguists

via

> SIL who make use of the Swadesh list to look at differences between
> languages.

What about the word "ecology"? Would that be present in all
languages?

Best wishes and thank you for the discussion,

Gerry