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From: laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Do philosophers need defending?
Message-ID: <2569@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Thu, 30-Jul-87 19:07:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.2569
Posted: Thu Jul 30 19:07:47 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Aug-87 11:51:54 EDT
References: <3219@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> <825@klipper.cs.vu.nl> <3227@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> <831@klipper.cs.vu.nl> <3392@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Reply-To: laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Distribution: world
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 32
Keywords: methodology creativity

>In article <831@klipper.cs.vu.nl> biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. "Biep" Durieux) writes:
>
>In an "ideal" world, where methodology for every science is complete,
>scientific work is just applying the rules of the methodology for that
>realm of science: which experiments to perform, which hypotheses to
>consider, all is prescribed by the rules. I called this "when philosophy
>is ready" (as far as methodology is considered, that is...). So,
>ultimately, scientific work is not creative (I hope I now have found the
>word..). Of course at the moment it is, since philosophers aren't ready
>yet constructing methodologies, and aren't even sure some "final" methodology
>is possible at all (it may very well not be).

I think that all scientific work is fundamentally creative.    Maybe you
haven't found the correct word yet.  Any creative work is done by
``applying the rules of the methodology'' -- the creative part comes
in deciding HOW to aplly the rules and WHICH rules to apply.

I can write two programs, both of which yield the correct result, one
of which is a ``quick and dirty hack'' and the other which is a
beautiful piece of code which has those I show it to gasping at how
wonderful it is.  There is a difference.  Yet the rules for
writing code in C do not change.

-- 
(C) Copyright 1987 Laura Creighton - you may redistribute only if your 
    recipients may.

	``One must pay dearly for immortality:  one has to die several
	times while alive.'' -- Nietzsche

Laura Creighton	
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