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. twitter.com/starsandrobots
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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.
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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.
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Replying to @vgr
There’s a concept from Freud: reality testing. For Freud it’s the way in which the ego learns to delineate internal/external worlds - this might not map directly to what you’re talking about but it does hint at “playing” with reality in a spontaneous & exploratory manner
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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.
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Replying to @vgr
Doing experiments! Everyone can do experiments, is fun, you investigate while doing stuff. Then you fail and start again, because that's the purpose of an experiment.
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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.
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Replying to @vgr
I agree. As someone who got paid to science. I used to say 'studying' a lot and 'working on' a fair bit. I think this verb would help a lot with some wider problems science has with camping out fields.
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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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