Wednesday 9 December 2015

Some References In "The Sensitive Man"

Why was "semantics" regarded as so important?

"'...a state of semantic equilibrium on a world-wide scale, which of course has never existed...'" (The Psychotechnic League, p. 147)

"He didn't notice the vicious cholla through which he raced..." (p. 163)

"They climbed up on one of the hogback rocks... (p. 170)

"'You war against the sunset-glow. The judgment follows fast, my lord!'" quoted Dalgetty. Heriot's Ford was one of the few poems he liked." (p. 173)

(Kipling again!)

"'Francis Bacon speculated about a genuine science of man. Boole did some work along those lines as well as inventing the symbolic logic which was to be such a major tool in solving the problem.'" (p. 187)

Logic is merely consistency between propositions as semantics is meanings. I get the impression that, in an earlier period, it was hoped that these disciplines would contribute to a science of man.

"'Cybernetics developed such concepts as homoeostasis and feedback... Games theory, the principle of least effort, and Haeml's generalized epistemology...'" (p. 188)

I can't find Haeml.

"'Read Voltaire's Micromegas.'" (p. 190)

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I was curious enough to do some quick googling for this mysterious "Haeml." I found nobody with that name using either "Haeml" or "Haeml and generalized epistemology." I wonder now if that was a fictional scholar Anderson thought up for the purposes of his story.

Sean