Re: The Goal of this List

[Judith Rosen <***>]

John M.

I think you are right on track. Thanks.

My only qualification would be that, because of certain aspects to the way
my father wrote his ideas down, it can be very difficult to ferret out the
consistency which is there, underlying the entire body of work. Some people
think they see inconsistency because they try to take an excerpt out of
context and use the definitions he was using inside that context as
"general" definitions. That doesn't always follow. I had long discussions
with him about this very complaint, in fact. It used to throw me off, when I
first began trying to read his books and I had to learn how to navigate his
idiosyncracies in language in his books-- which were radically different
from his use of language in casual conversation. I was used to his spoken
usage patterns.

The point I'm trying to make is that I see a definite need for clarification
in some of his work, particularly for any audience who isn't right at my
father's level of math, science, history, and imagination (like an M.D. or
an environmental legislator). I was lucky enough to have Robert Rosen
guiding me through the concepts, over decades, as he was generating the
concepts. The older I got, the easier it was for him to discuss new concepts
with me because each phase of the earlier work laid the foundations for the
subsequent ones. It just doesn't seem right to hoard what I know about the
work, any more than it would be right to hoard the work itself after he
died. As you said; it doesn't do anybody any good as a museum exhibit.

Judith