We need a verb meaning “doing science” in elemental, non-institutional, non-bureaucratic sense. Something like “investigating” Not “research” since that’s overloaded with methodological baggage from professionalized publication-oriented science. Small-s, no exclamation point.
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Aliveness to change beyond your immediate person is pretty hard, hence instruments. You can’t just meditate on it like it’s your own breath. If you wanted to actually see the sleepers on the tracks whizzing by under your feet, it’s not trivial.
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Keeping up with twitter feed is aliveness to change Trying to photograph Jupiter by stacking frames of a short movie (my next astrophotography project) is like keeping up with the raw Jupiter-twitter feed.
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I’m not seriously looking for a verb btw, though thanks for the suggestions. Looking for a verb is merely the Macguffin powering this theory of science as modernism as aliveness to change. Somehow “science” got wrapped up in the identity performance of “intelligent” as a career.
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Sure, intelligence makes you particularly good at this in a way that can be parlayed into fame and wealth etc., but the fit with intelligence is almost the least interesting thing about it. Some fairly stupid people have wonderfully scientific sensibilities and ways of seeing.
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Learning is definitely part of it for a lot of people, but probably not for me. I’m a bad learner and it’s not a motivator for me.https://twitter.com/starsandrobots/status/1310696012642684930 …
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I wrote this post in 2010 (riffing on the work of artist Amy Lin) on a concept I called “the ancient eye” that gets more at the sense I’m after here. Paradoxically moderning is about developing this ancient eye.https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/03/23/amy-lin-and-the-ancient-eye/ …
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Yeah testing is part of it too, in the sense of testing the boundaries of your own experience, rather than bureaucratic falsification or verification.https://twitter.com/richggall/status/1310701488730247168 …
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Sure, Galileo tested Aristotelean realities when he turned a telescope skyward, but THAT test was not the point. It was just an effect. The real test was of the boundary of the experience of seeing. With an instrument. “Oh that’s NOT a point of light, it’s a striped ball”
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Some accounts of early science make it seem almost like Galileo’s heresies were about him choosing to fight church orthodoxy. No that was just a side effect. If you *wanted* to fight the church in medieval Europe you’d do something more direct, like nailing 99 theses to a door.
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Yeah experiments too... another elemental concept that’s somehow gotten bureaucratized into NSF-Approved Hypothesis-Testing Methodology. But yeah.https://twitter.com/Lauracsc_/status/1310705247883591680 …
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Note to self: do not use words as thread macguffins. Derails thread into isntthisjustism.
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Grokking in the original Heinlein sense comes pretty close. Insight but into something outside of yourself. Except as the result of steady, patient effort. A gradual dawning of a light via a systematic uncovering of a path rather than a sudden enlightenment.
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‘Study’ is probably the best simple English word if you don’t want to get too weird.https://twitter.com/epithetos/status/1310695313322184704?s=21 …
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Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist gets at an aspect of the scientific sensibility that is often lost in modern views. That sense of a gradually dawning, cleansing, purifying light as you get closer to the essence of a thing. I especially like the alchemy connotation.
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It’s no accident that early scientists were often also astrologers and occultists. Not only is that acceptable within the scope of the verb I’m circling, it’s necessary. Superstition is inseparable from this kind of questing and not only not a threat to it, but possibly an aid.
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If you see a strong distinction between science and superstition that must be policed to keep the former “pure” and “uncorrupted” you’re paradoxically being superstitious about the essence of science. Overanxious policing of science/superstition boundary is bureaucratism.
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The Hindi/Sanskrit word saadhna is another useful one with no English equivalent. Learning/study as a mindful spiritual quest. It’s often applied to learning the fine arts. The alchemist’s pursuit was saadhna. Sciencing as a developmental journey similar to learning music.
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And this is why I need a mansion. To do science, one must have money, and a mansion of one’s own.
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End of conversation
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