3.1254 classics? honest linguists? play in discovery? (96)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Tue, 3 Apr 90 21:58:42 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1254. Tuesday, 3 Apr 1990.
(1) Date: Mon, 02 Apr 90 17:51:59 -0700 (22 lines)
From: ruhleder@sloth.ICS.UCI.EDU
Subject: Information Technology and Classical Scholarship
(2) Date: Tue, 03 Apr 90 15:36:10 EST (9 lines)
From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM>
Subject: computers and honest linguists
(3) Date: 3 April 1990 (42 lines)
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: play in discovery?
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Apr 90 17:51:59 -0700
From: ruhleder@sloth.ICS.UCI.EDU
Subject: Information Technology and Classical Scholarship
Calling All Classical Scholars...
I am currently carrying out a dissertation project that evaluates the
use of information technologies as tools to support research-related
activities in classical scholarship. I would like to get in touch
with any classicists on the HUMANIST mailing list who would be willing
to take a few moments to share with me their experiences in being
members of HUMANIST and using electronic mail, concordance packages
bibliographic search systems, on-line textual data banks, personal
computers, and so forth.
If you think you might be interested in responding, please send me
mail (address below), and I will send you a more complete statement of
who I am, what I'm doing, and what burning questions I have for you.
Karen Ruhleder (UC Irvine)
ruhleder@ics.uci.edu
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------17----
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 90 15:36:10 EST
From: Stephen Clausing <SCLAUS@YALEVM>
Subject: computers and honest linguists
At the recent Calico conference in Baltimore, I heard someone remark in a
talk that "computers make linguists honest," meaning, of course, that bad
linguistic theories and practices tend to be rewarded in kind when transferred
to the computer. I thought this was a clever quote and I was curious if the
saying is well-known, and if so, who started it.
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 3 April 1990
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: play in discovery?
I am looking for instances in which play, sport, accident, jest, or the
like figure prominently in some discovery, scientific or otherwise. I'd
be most grateful if these could be documented. Apocryphal stories (like
the one about the apple that helped Newton discover gravity) are fine,
but I am especially interested in historical incidents.
Let be illustrate with one or two I know. I think Pound is supposed to
have remarked to Eliot that he (depricatingly, about his poetry) made a
racket at the front of the shop while the other went round to the back
and stole all the goods. Now this is not exactly about play, but it
makes the point that great things are obtained by indirection or by
distraction, as if the conscious mind needed to be kept occupied so that
the real activity could take place. Props for meditation have this
function, I suppose.
Another story I dimly remember has Linus Pauling attributing some great
discovery he made (? about the chemical structure of DNA) to his habit
of playing with those balls and sticks chemists construct their
molecular models from. This may be another case in which the
not-so-conscious mind works out a tough problem by playing.
There's a weighty tradition of "playing seriously" (serio ludere) that
Edgar Wind talks about in _Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance_. I know
very little about this but can suppose that play-acting (drama) is
connected to it. Wind mentions the role of the grotesque in mystery
religions, and this suggests the terrifying beasts, noises, and so forth
in initiation rituals.
Any leads or suggestions? I wager some will think I've gone round some
bend with this one, and that the question has nothing to do with
computing in the humanities, but I assure you that it does. Or so I
would like to think.
Yours, Willard McCarty