3.1260 serious play (157)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Wed, 4 Apr 90 21:22:31 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1260. Wednesday, 4 Apr 1990.


(1) Date: 03 Apr 90 22:21:51 EST (34 lines)
From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS>
Subject: Serendipity

(2) Date: Tue, 3 Apr 90 22:57:00 EDT (10 lines)
From: GORDON DOHLE <DOHLE@Vax2.Concordia.CA>
Subject: RE: 3.1254 play in discovery? (96)

(3) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 90 01:48:00 EDT (9 lines)
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3.1254 play in discovery? (96)

(4) Date: Wed, 4 Apr 90 09:14:08 EDT (24 lines)
From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM>
Subject: 3.1254 play in discovery? (96)

(5) Date: 4 April 1990, 09:18:17 EDT (14 lines)
From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB

(6) Date: Wed, 04 Apr 90 11:05:57 EDT (13 lines)
From: Todd Lawson <LAWSON@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: play

(7) Date: Wed, 04 Apr 90 12:57:36 EDT (10 lines)
From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@UMINN1>
Subject: query

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 03 Apr 90 22:21:51 EST
From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS>
Subject: Serendipity

From: Jim O'Donnell (Penn, Classics)

A.E. Housman, *The Name and Nature of Poetry* (Cambridge, 1933), 48-50:

`Having drunk a pint of beer at luncheon--beer is a sedative to the
brain, and my afternoons are the least intellectual portion of my
life--I would go out for a walk of two or three hours. As I went along,
thinking of nothing in particular, only looking at things around me and
following the progress of the seasons, there would flow into my mind,
with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse,
sometimes a whole stanza at once, accompanied, not preceded, by a vague
notion of the poem which they were destined to form part of. Then there
would usually be a lull of an hour or so, then perhaps the spring would
bubble up again. I say bubble up, because, so far as I could make out,
the source of the suggestions thus proffered to the brain was an abyss
which I have already had occasion to mention, the pit of the stomach.
When I got home I wrote them down, leaving gaps, and hoping that further
inspiration might be forthcoming another day. Sometimes it was, if I
took my walks in a receptive and expectant frame of mind; but sometimes
the poem had to to be taken in hand and completed by the brain, which
was apt to be a matter of trouble and anxiety, involving trial and
disappointment, and sometimes ending in failure. I happen to remember
distinctly the genesis of the piece which stands last in my first
volume. Two of the stanzas, I do not say which, came into my head, just
as they are printed, while I was crossing the corner of Hampstead Heath
betwene the Spaniard's Inn and the footpath to Temple Fortune. A third
stanza came with a little coaxing after tea. One more was needed, but
it did not come: I had to turn to and compose it myself, and that was a
laborious business. I wrote it thirteen times, and it was more than a
twelvemonth before I got it right.'
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------17----
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 90 22:57:00 EDT
From: GORDON DOHLE <DOHLE@Vax2.Concordia.CA>
Subject: RE: 3.1254 classics? honest linguists? play in discovery? (96)

Play in Discovery.
It has been some time since I read it, so cannot vouch for the "play",
but I believe the DNA reference should not be to Pauling but to Watson
and Crick, "The Double Helix"
Gordon
Dohle@Vax2.Concordia.ca
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------15----
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 90 01:48:00 EDT
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3.1254 classics? honest linguists? play in discovery? (96)

Wasnt Mozart the one who played billiards and compsd string quartets,
etc. , in his head meanwhil, and then wrote them down? Kessler to
McCarty. The great r story was the dream of the omphalos snake the
Kekuli said he had a busstop, and that was the benzene ring. Omphalos
snake meaning it swallowed its tail. Ke ssler
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------33----
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 90 09:14:08 EDT
From: "Patrick W. Conner" <U47C2@WVNVM>
Subject: 3.1254 classics? honest linguists? play in discovery? (96)

The subject of unconscious discovery while the conscious brain is
otherwise engaged is taken up in Richard Young, Alton Becker, Kenneth
Pike's RHETORIC: CHANGE AND DISCOVERY, pub. HBJ a couple of decades
ago. I can't find my copy now (could it be my son has borrowed it,
because he's getting serious about his writing? nahhh.), but there are
several examples of such discoveries therein. Also, once beyond the
dimly-remembered past beyond recall (when on the world the mists began
to fall), I think I remember being told by a Yale PhD (that's as close
as I can get to authenticating this) that Jim Watson was working on the
structure of DNA using Linus Pauling's tri-partite model for the
molecule, which simply wouldn't contain all of the atoms in a way that
explained the molecule's functions. It was (according to the story)
only after engaging in sex and then observing his partner's body as she
lay there (wherever THERE was...) that he realized again the importance
of bilateral symmetry in successful life forms, and immediately
conceived (!) the structure of the molecule. All that remained to do
was to test his theory. (Francis Crick oughta be in this story
somewhere, but I don't think he was...) I should add that this is a
story which made the rounds some years ago about a public person, it may
not be true at all, and I offer it to HUMANIST only as an excellent
example of Willard's general interest in Playing Seriously.
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------17----
Date: 4 April 1990, 09:18:17 EDT
From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB

On serious play, for Willard:
The story about Pauling might be more concerned with Watson and Crick
constructing *successful* models than with his own failure to do so at the
right moment. You also need to work with theories of serendipity (play
at one thing, discover something else more serious), as with the
*mistake* of the 3-M chemist who discovered the adhesive that didn't
work and then invented Post-It Notes or the use of spaceship nose-cone
material for Teflon coating of frying pans. As for the idea of serious
play, the voluminous literary scholar C.A. Patrides somewhere probably
published a paper I heard about eight years ago on the subject, but I
can't put my hands on any reference. Roy Flannagan
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------17----
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 90 11:05:57 EDT
From: Todd Lawson <LAWSON@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: play

Dear Willard, your recent query is most important in my view. After
reading Huizinga's Homo Ludens I felt as if I had been to the mountain
top. This was some years ago, and my ardor has subsided a bit, but it
is such a major topic! The recent number of Studies in Religion (vol
18, no. 4, 1989) has an article enti tled "The emergence of born-again
sport" by Brian W. Aitken. I heard a version of this paper a few
Learneds ago. You might find the article of some interest (and his
references). I'll keep my eyes peeled for you but there is certainly an
element of "play" running threough Mark Taylor, Erring: A Postmodern
A/theol ogy an attempt at applying deconstruction to theology. Todd
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------14----
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 90 12:57:36 EDT
From: Tzvee Zahavy <MAIC@UMINN1>
Subject: query

Take a look at the book
Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science by Royston M. Roberts
Wiley, New York, 1989.