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Re: THOUGHTS: Time and Relativity
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Re: [NABOKV-L] THOUGHTS: Time and RelativityS K-B: HomSap is a remarkable species (i) driven by "pure" curiosity; able to enhance its own sensory perceptions BEYOND the minimum "animal-survival" needs (ii) able, magically, to CALCULATE exactly the LIMITS of what can be observed and measured (Heisenberg's Uncertainty and Planck's constant) (iii) able to SUSPEND both belief and dis-belief, i.e., happy to shun dogma; free to consider conflicting theories as equally plausible until further evidence. ( Summary)
JM: Gregory, in The Intelligent Eye, and Eye and Brain stressed that humans were sensorially poorly equipped and significantly inferior to all the other animals. But he also pointed out that our human freedom to think and to entertain revolutionary ideas is a direct consequence of this inferiority of ours: instead of seeing objective things as they "really"are, our deficiencies force us to interpret, hallucinate, invent them.He argues that, from the adaptative stand-point, our diminished perceptual capacity is an asset for survival.
S K-B detailed how we can "view the world through our instrumentally enhanced sense organs, aiding and aided by astute analytical brains. Jumping slow evolution, we now have better eyes than a house-fly, faster flutters than a butterfly: our spectrometers, electron-microscopes and atomic clocks boost the natural scale of our perceptions a trillion-trillion-fold[...] whereas Gregory argued that we are adaptable to alien environments only because our deficiencies force us to exercise our imagination and inventiveness - in alliance with our intelligence, of course - whereas other animals, with their extremely ready-adapted eyes, ears, noses (or scientifically excessively atuned brains?) die, due to the lack of any coherent input their programs demand.
Nabokov's writings, besides everything else, help me to envision verbal objects and their strange logic to reach towards realities which my senses only dimly apprehend. I think here S K-B would agree with me: "Nabokovians can, I suggest, more readily than most, imagine the vastly different world-views of mice, men and E Coli arising from having these widely different sensory acuities. Yet all these world-views are valid unto themselves, reflecting different aspects of what we loosely call an under-pinning "reality."
He also noted that "NOBODY (oft mis-read by VN as "Nabokov," you may recall!) yet understands how these new observations FIT together." Is it fundamental to make these often contradictory "new observations FITt together"? Do we need to become more "evolved" animals in a struggle of a "survival of the FITtest" - or should we make allowances for this "vagueness" ( the risks are madness) which is such a part of artistic sensibility, generosity, tolerance... We may always consider that this "inaccuracy", at least, is fundamental for our "survival" as "simple humans".
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JM: Gregory, in The Intelligent Eye, and Eye and Brain stressed that humans were sensorially poorly equipped and significantly inferior to all the other animals. But he also pointed out that our human freedom to think and to entertain revolutionary ideas is a direct consequence of this inferiority of ours: instead of seeing objective things as they "really"are, our deficiencies force us to interpret, hallucinate, invent them.He argues that, from the adaptative stand-point, our diminished perceptual capacity is an asset for survival.
S K-B detailed how we can "view the world through our instrumentally enhanced sense organs, aiding and aided by astute analytical brains. Jumping slow evolution, we now have better eyes than a house-fly, faster flutters than a butterfly: our spectrometers, electron-microscopes and atomic clocks boost the natural scale of our perceptions a trillion-trillion-fold[...] whereas Gregory argued that we are adaptable to alien environments only because our deficiencies force us to exercise our imagination and inventiveness - in alliance with our intelligence, of course - whereas other animals, with their extremely ready-adapted eyes, ears, noses (or scientifically excessively atuned brains?) die, due to the lack of any coherent input their programs demand.
Nabokov's writings, besides everything else, help me to envision verbal objects and their strange logic to reach towards realities which my senses only dimly apprehend. I think here S K-B would agree with me: "Nabokovians can, I suggest, more readily than most, imagine the vastly different world-views of mice, men and E Coli arising from having these widely different sensory acuities. Yet all these world-views are valid unto themselves, reflecting different aspects of what we loosely call an under-pinning "reality."
He also noted that "NOBODY (oft mis-read by VN as "Nabokov," you may recall!) yet understands how these new observations FIT together." Is it fundamental to make these often contradictory "new observations FITt together"? Do we need to become more "evolved" animals in a struggle of a "survival of the FITtest" - or should we make allowances for this "vagueness" ( the risks are madness) which is such a part of artistic sensibility, generosity, tolerance... We may always consider that this "inaccuracy", at least, is fundamental for our "survival" as "simple humans".
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/