Re: Does anyone have information...

["Pete Giansante" <***>]

Hi Judith:

Two comments:

1.  Regarding RR's alleged "stupidity":

I wanna know how people who call RR "stupid" define that term. I define it as deliberate ignorance, where "ignorance" of any given subject is defined as the totality of whatever one doesn't know about that subject. By that definition, everyone is ignorant to some degree, since no one knows everything.

As for whether RR was deliberately ignorant about marketing considerations, I suppose that's a matter of perspective. From what I've been able to gather, he certainly wasn't ignorant of the fact that such considerations exist. Rather, he just didn't give a rat's as_ about such things; it just wasn't important to him. His work was what mattered to him, and the entire human species is the beneficiary. Anyone who's presumptuous enough to criticize him for his personal preference for focusing on his work rather than on the mundane crap that attends commercial considerations ain't living in the real world... by which I mean that RR's attitude is typical of many great innovators, whose work is usually their greatest priority. It seems to me that most members of the human species can look forward to a great deal personal growth in the area of understanding which people produce the greatest long-term value for humankind. It sure as hell isn't the politicians.

Yeah... I know all the arguments that assert that it's the hyperfocused scientist who's not living in the real world. As far as I'm concerned, all those arguments are a pantload. Our species makes progress via the creation of new knowledge -- innovation -- a "luxury" that one can't afford if one is constantly struggling to survive. It seems to me that our species could have benefited immeasurably more from a longer-lived RR. In other words, to anyone who was smart enough to see it and decent enough to care, there was a great proprietary interest in ensuring RR's survival. I regret that I didn't even know of his existence until 2001.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy for boneheads to criticize RR as being "stupid", but let's just take a look at what said boneheads have accomplished themselves. As far as I'm concerned, any of them who never lifted a finger to ensure RR's survival, encourage him in his work, or make his creative life more productive, might just as well be looking in the mirror when they point the accusing "stupid" finger.

2.  Regarding the universality of RR's work:

You wrote:

It takes a rare
physicist to see something in a quick scanning of one of my father's books
to notice the overwhelming cross-applicability in Life, Itself or one of the
others..... And that's assuming a physicist gets to the scanning stage!

It's probably tantamount to an admission of clueless naïveté on my part to say this, but I don't know how any physicist -- or any scientist, for that matter -- with any shred of curiosity about the universe he/she lives in could fail to "see something in a quick scanning of one of my father's books to notice the overwhelming cross-applicability in Life, Itself or one of the others....." I mean, it's all one UNIverse, if etymological considerations have any bearing on the philosophical implications of specific semantic encodings like "universe". They do for me.

Then again, maybe it's just that I have an idiosyncratic perspective... probably onna counta all those years I spent playing rock 'n' roll, or something.

My apologies to you and any other list members who might not appreciate such feisty, quasi-limbic commentary, especially in Item 1, above. I don't have much patience with anyone who would attack RR's character on so trivial a matter. They suffer from what I call anal-cranial inversion...(use your imagination). I've about had it with people who are part of the problem, yet act like they have any clue about the solution.

Disgruntled cheers, ;-)

Pete 

---

Judith Rosen wrote:

Thanks for all the input, Folks. Just to clarify: Life, Itself actually is
already marketed as part of the "complexity in ecology" series that Columbia
U. Press puts out. I think it ought to be marketed as general science,
personally, but my father would say he doesn't care what they hell they call
it. He generally laughed at stuff like that-- which was part of the total
lack of interest with which he treated any and all marketing considerations.
It was partly why I said there was a tiny grain of truth to the accusations
of "stupidity". Again, underneath it all, I knew exactly why he felt that
way, and I respect it. His attitude wasn't really "stupid", it was just not
in the same realm as marketing considerations. If he cared about the
"performance" of the book, then his attitude would have been stupid!

Part of the reason that these works are so little known, aside from what I
listed above, is that his work was parcelled out amongst countless little
disciplines. A paper for a Systems Theory meeting would appear under that
heading, a paper for a Physiology meeting would be published in that kind of
venue..... I've already mentioned the unfortunate lack of cross pollination
between disciplines; the fact that MD's for example rarely subscribe to
Systems Theory journals, or Biology journals, or Ecology journals. And that
seems to be true across all boundaries and disciplines. It takes a rare
physicist to see something in a quick scanning of one of my father's books
to notice the overwhelming cross-applicability in Life, Itself or one of the
others..... And that's assuming a physicist gets to the scanning stage! The
internet even categorizes things such that a google search on a subject will
not list stuff that doesn't conform so some programed idea of the definition
of that subject. You have to reword your search subject a few different ways
and then you might get, in three different searches, some idea of what's
available. But maybe not.

I am beginning to think what's required are little guides to Rosennean
Theory, defining the terms and pointing out the cross-applicability
potential in the parlance of each discipline, such that there will be "The
Ecologist's Guide", "The Medical Doctor's Guide", "The Physicist's
Guide".... etc.

Judith