09 December 2006

The Tree of Life as robot schematics

the tragedy
of 20th century social science
was its neurotic rejection
of the classical standards
of literary culture
(as effeminate)
in favor of
cargo-cult-level emulation
of mathematical physics
(as manly)

so the challenge
for 21st century social science
is to
outgrow those neuroses

clear away the
fake math

find a new math
that's compatible with
the wisdom of old literature

that offers a toolkit
for sketching paths
for robot behavior

go-there
do-this
test-result

a toolkit rich enough
also
to sketch the paths
of fictional heroes

Leopold Bloom
Stephen Dedalus
Anna Karenin
Frederic Moreau of L'Education sentimentale
Charles Swann of Proust's Recherche

of historical figures
Joyce
Napoleon

abstracting their motives

reconstructing
their developmental life-histories
their families
their communities

as embedded
within the Tree of Life

topologically connected
4D worldlines

whose full detail
(though unattainable)
would crystallise
all possible
literature




.