Essay talk:Left or Right

It's all part of the Two Cultures nonsense. Working in cognitive science/psychology, I end up hanging around humanities/social sciences departments as well as the "hard" sciences. It's very interdisciplinary -- important contributions to the field have been made by biologists, linguists, philosophers, computer scientists, etc. You will find that many so-called "intellectuals" in academia harbor deeply anti-intellectual sentiments. Start tossing around philosophy or social theory in a science department or math and natural science in a humanities department and you'll always get some contingent that either sneers or scatters like cockroaches. Fortunately, I think these divisions are being slowly (or even quickly) erased. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:36, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Harrumph. I never liked those type of people that just judge automatically on something because they never want to understand or they find it too 'strange' for their liking. It makes me want to pinch their nose or flick their ear! HMPH. But yay~ At least they're slowly being fixed for you. I always liked being in a group of different perspectives. It makes life interesting. --Dumpling (talk) 06:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I must pooh-pooh one part of this, however. It seems you are endorsing left/right-brain woo. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Endorsing? No. Just using it as a template for the essay? I guess? Does that even make sense? Oh well. The concept of the 'left/right'ness made it a bit easier for me for writing. It came up in the discussion as well actually (Haha. That was fun to talk about). And as interesting as that sounds, and however fun online quizzes there are about whether or not you're left/right brained, noooo, I'm not endorsing it. I like to know that I have one brain, with two hemispheres, both fully functional...with all regions. Hahaha. Plus, I'm a Biology major, learning the brain structures ruins the woo-fun for me. --Dumpling (talk) 07:07, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * If you say so. Departmental divisions are in great part a product of 19th century rationalization (in the sociological sense). Economics in particular has walled off a number of its basic assumptions, but they are now under fire from ecology, the behavioral sciences, and neuroscience. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 07:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

You might find Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance interesting. Pirsig proposes that the whole Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy is a flaw in our understanding of the world, and suggests an alternate approach he calls the Metaphysics of Quality. Like a lot of these sorts of books, the questions he asks are better than the answers he provides, but it's still worth a read.-- 08:32, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The dichotomy was also debunked by Kahneman and Tversky, Simon, Damasio, etc. (/shameless self-promotion) Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 08:40, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's a categorisation issue. If you split things into categories, you're going to start latching other ideas onto it and mistake them for real properties. They're useful as stereotypes: science is cold, hard, rational and devoid of emotion, while social sciences and liberal arts are soft, woolly and lack thought. So if you're forming a punchline to a joke, sure, keep the stereotypes as it's what they're actually there for - although it's slightly circular in the fact that the stereotypes are given meaning by the whole Two Cultures thing while the Two Cultures thing is fueled by stereotypes. If you want to make a serious argument about it, don't bother. Scarlet A.pngbomination 09:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hooray for reification and essentialism! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 09:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Integrated Science (or iScience if you're cool) courses were going to be one of the big things a few years ago and be a new dynamic for science education. It might still take off but it's young as a degree course. The point was to blur the boundary between physics, chemistry and biology (something I do every day, actually) and include some psychology and sociology too. While it probably isn't interesting in itself, seeing the usual categorisations mashed together and then split up in different, and arguably more applicable, ways was fascinating. That didn't attempt to go as far as integrating the liberal arts (though to be honest I can only see that as an end in itself rather than something useful) but it does show these boundaries are very much a human invention. Scarlet A.pngtheist 09:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * "...these boundaries are very much a human invention." Ditto. If you dig into the "nature vs. nurture" debates (which is based on a bogus assumption anyway), you will find many equally important contributions from the liberal arts and sciences. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 09:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The "nature vs nurture" thing always hacks me off because if you were to ask people to play the taboo game with those two words you'd find that their conclusions, and even the question itself, is remarkably less profound and interesting than it's made out to be. It stems from not really having a fucking clue about what "natural" means in the first place. Nassim Taleb recently added a succinct summary of it to Facebook: "Natural is a word only invented to denigrated things that certainly aren't natural." Now, while I can find issue with that as I can with all sound bites, it's pretty much what is at play. Perhaps even the soft/hard dichotomy of academic subjects was invented ("invented" the loosest possible terms, of course) for the same reason? Scarlet A.pngd hominem 13:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * How did this happen while I was gone? Goodness. Anyyyyways~ You guys are fun. And thanks AD! I will have to add that on my list of Books to read.--Dumpling (talk) 09:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Whoever came up with the idea that "soft sciences" don't require rationality should be smacked on the head for 10 years straight. Equally so those who argue that soft sciences are not economically of any need, help or use and are therefor a waste of time to study. -- 10:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)