Sometimes I read what people say, and although I might agree or disagree with what they say, I feel no further need to add anything, because it will just keep the thread going. I feel that the thread has run its course. Whether Tom* wants to resurrect the thread as the best of 2009 is entirely up to him.
It is rather like explaining a joke. If you have to explain a joke, the joke ceases to become funny and becomes an academic exercise. So, the point of the joke is lost, it is no longer funny.
This not to say that what Josef K or Wintereis has written is not correct or valuable, it is just that I do not wish to make any further comment.
A long time ago, I went to a lecture by Liam Hudson on 'Contrary Imaginations'.
"Contrary Imaginations: a Psychological Study of the English Schoolboy"
His thesis was that scientists and artists are taught to think in completely different ways. To give a very simple example; to a scientist, a paper clip, is a clip for holding paper sheets together. Whereas an artist can turn a paper clip in a small dog or cat, or something completely different.
Liam Hudson is dead, and his obituary is in The Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article439905.ece
and also The Independent
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article439905.ece
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
His astonishing first book, Contrary Imaginations (1966), reflected the thinking of the times — C. P. Snow had published his influential analysis of the two opposed “cultures” of science and art in 1959. Hudson, on the basis of the Getzels-Jackson test (one question: How many uses can you think of for a brick?) given to 95 schoolboys, differentiated two intellectual types: convergers and divergers. Convergers, specialising in mathematics and physical sciences, thought literally, prosaically and predictably; divergers, geared to the arts, were capable of surprising cognitive leaps.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
It is rather like explaining a joke. If you have to explain a joke, the joke ceases to become funny and becomes an academic exercise. So, the point of the joke is lost, it is no longer funny.
This not to say that what Josef K or Wintereis has written is not correct or valuable, it is just that I do not wish to make any further comment.
A long time ago, I went to a lecture by Liam Hudson on 'Contrary Imaginations'.
"Contrary Imaginations: a Psychological Study of the English Schoolboy"
His thesis was that scientists and artists are taught to think in completely different ways. To give a very simple example; to a scientist, a paper clip, is a clip for holding paper sheets together. Whereas an artist can turn a paper clip in a small dog or cat, or something completely different.
Liam Hudson is dead, and his obituary is in The Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article439905.ece
and also The Independent
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article439905.ece
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
His astonishing first book, Contrary Imaginations (1966), reflected the thinking of the times — C. P. Snow had published his influential analysis of the two opposed “cultures” of science and art in 1959. Hudson, on the basis of the Getzels-Jackson test (one question: How many uses can you think of for a brick?) given to 95 schoolboys, differentiated two intellectual types: convergers and divergers. Convergers, specialising in mathematics and physical sciences, thought literally, prosaically and predictably; divergers, geared to the arts, were capable of surprising cognitive leaps.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++