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Voices in the labyrinth: Nature, man, and science
"Tree of Life" series, #3.
- GenresScience
164 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 1977
22 people want to read
About the author
Erwin Chargaff
41 books4 followersErwin Chargaff was an Austrian biochemist who was a professor of biochemistry at Columbia University medical school.
Chargaff proposed main rules in his lifetime related to DNA studies best known as Chargaff's Rules.
Chargaff proposed main rules in his lifetime related to DNA studies best known as Chargaff's Rules.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 29, 2024
6 stars ... or 8. Perhaps, 10. In short, a magnificent read and a stunning critique of "our times" by a Real Scientist. Out of print, naturally - how could it be otherwise?
Chargaff writes, "(With the coming of 'modernity'), the sciences, too, were distorted, but in a different way [from the arts]: they started to swell. Their philosophical basis had never been very strong. Starting as modest probing operations to unravel the works of God in the world, to follow his traces in nature, they were driven gradually to ever more gigantic generalisations. Since the pieces of the giant puzzle never seemed to fit together perfectly, subsets of smaller, more homogenous puzzles had to be constructed, in each of which the fit was better. In the process, the various scientific disciplines had lost their common language. When they wanted to speak to each other, they had to resort to a form of Esperanto called mathematics; and finally, they had to limit themselves to expressing only what could be said in that language. The mathematisation of the sciences, completed in this century, rendered them more exact, but often placed several layers between them and reality. The general loss of the sense of reality in our time has been accelerated powerfully by the growth of the sciences."
This loss of a sense of reality results in a Minotaurian worldview and ethics, which is to say,
all the world's a machine, and all the men and women merely automatons. They have their programmes and their algorithms; And one man in his time gets through many levels, or the same one, repeatedly.
Chargaff's book concludes thus:
Ariadne: you call this world of mine, to which I shall be returning, unreal? This world of rising and setting suns, of wind in olive trees, of children and lovers, of music and honey, of sorrow and joy – you call it unreal? Then what is the reality of the labyrinth? What is your reality?
Minotaur: Reality is what I can measure and what I can weigh. What are the dimensions of your wind? And even if I knew the weight of your olive tree, what good would it do me? In my branch of eternity one asks only questions that can be answered or, even better, one determines the answers first and then one poses the carefully selected questions. You can't imagine how much thinking has gone into this. Reality is what I can describe and what I can repeat ... the beginning and the end have always seemed to me to carry an aroma of irreality. They lack the trivial, the automatic, the banal character of what is repeatable.
Avanti! A portion of the standing reserve of world and people remains yet to be consumed. To work, again!
Chargaff writes, "(With the coming of 'modernity'), the sciences, too, were distorted, but in a different way [from the arts]: they started to swell. Their philosophical basis had never been very strong. Starting as modest probing operations to unravel the works of God in the world, to follow his traces in nature, they were driven gradually to ever more gigantic generalisations. Since the pieces of the giant puzzle never seemed to fit together perfectly, subsets of smaller, more homogenous puzzles had to be constructed, in each of which the fit was better. In the process, the various scientific disciplines had lost their common language. When they wanted to speak to each other, they had to resort to a form of Esperanto called mathematics; and finally, they had to limit themselves to expressing only what could be said in that language. The mathematisation of the sciences, completed in this century, rendered them more exact, but often placed several layers between them and reality. The general loss of the sense of reality in our time has been accelerated powerfully by the growth of the sciences."
This loss of a sense of reality results in a Minotaurian worldview and ethics, which is to say,
all the world's a machine, and all the men and women merely automatons. They have their programmes and their algorithms; And one man in his time gets through many levels, or the same one, repeatedly.
Chargaff's book concludes thus:
Ariadne: you call this world of mine, to which I shall be returning, unreal? This world of rising and setting suns, of wind in olive trees, of children and lovers, of music and honey, of sorrow and joy – you call it unreal? Then what is the reality of the labyrinth? What is your reality?
Minotaur: Reality is what I can measure and what I can weigh. What are the dimensions of your wind? And even if I knew the weight of your olive tree, what good would it do me? In my branch of eternity one asks only questions that can be answered or, even better, one determines the answers first and then one poses the carefully selected questions. You can't imagine how much thinking has gone into this. Reality is what I can describe and what I can repeat ... the beginning and the end have always seemed to me to carry an aroma of irreality. They lack the trivial, the automatic, the banal character of what is repeatable.
Avanti! A portion of the standing reserve of world and people remains yet to be consumed. To work, again!
Displaying 1 of 1 review