Dear Shiang-Loong

An idea that advance must necessarily be controversial to get all the details of the controversy if there is no idea

Best regards

Dear Shiang-Loong

An idea that advance must necessarily be controversial to get all the details of the controversy if there is no idea

Best regards

Dear Fadel,

Thanks for your answer and trying to get a sense of it:

• Only an idea that is advanced enough goes through the cycle of life and death?
• An idea,if it exist at all, must be controversial to a degree?

Cheers

@ Absolutely, you are right dear Shian-Loong

Dear Fadel,

Interesting twist to the question! That line itself contains the rise and fall of an idea- I like its self-referential nature!

Cheers

Dear Shian-Long,

 I think that the rise and fall of an idea occur to idols, as called by Francis Bacon in his Novum Organum (1620). He said:

“There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgement and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.” (Book One, XIX).

The first way leads to four kinds of idols: idols of the Tribe, idols of the Cave, idols of the Market place and idols of the Theater. He gave many examples of these idols some of them are always valid even if entirely rejected by scientific knowledge. For example astrology, one idol of the Tribe, occurs when the human understanding is prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. We (with Jakub Bijak, Robert Franck and Eric Silverman) have given other examples of idols occurring nowadays in: Are the four Baconian idols still alive in demography?, you can read in my Research Gate website. I have also described with Atam Vetta how Behaviour Genetics, born with Fisher’s assumptions, leads to a dead end (see the joined paper). However this discipline is always followed by a great number of researchers, even if more and more evidence occurs against it. The final nail in behavioural genetics’ coffin is given by Charney (2012). He clearly shows that:

“the cumulative evidence of recent discoveries in genetics and epigenetics calls into question the validity of two classes of methodologies that are central to the discipline [behaviour genetics]: twin, family, and adoption studies, which are used to derive heritability estimates, and gene association studies, which include both genome-wide and candidate-gene association studies.” (p. 332)

Charney’s paper was followed by a very large number of peer commentaries from different social sciences, and by authors’ responses. Even though this shows an increasing agreement against the use of behavioural genetics, a number of commentators remain convinced of the usefulness of behavioural genetic methods.

The second way proposed by Bacon is now followed by more and more scientists and is the only way to undertake scientific research.

Dear Daniel,

Ideas personified as idols, I like that! Indeed there are intellectual idols that we have propped up and toppled through the centuries, and re-propped?

Cheers

Dear Shian-Loong,

Thank you for your agreement on my answer.

I think that there are also other kinds of ideas, which are not idols, but which may rise and fall as you said. These ideas are supported by the logical-empiricism of Popper with his falsificationism (1934), which said that no number, degree, and variety of empirical successes can either verify or confirm scientific knowledge. So that under this condition every scientific theory may rise and fall by conjectures and refutations.

Only, in my view, the approach supported in the seventeenth century by Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, etc., laid the foundations of modern science. Their theory of induction, which consists in discovering a system’s principles from a study of its properties by experiment and observation, is contrasting with the way Mill (1843), his followers, and Popper consider under this term only the generalization from particular facts, which is entirely different. Unfortunately many researchers in social science are following Popper’s way, which may lead them to continuous revisions of their theory.

Cheers

Dear Daniel,

The danger is in the assumption that induction and deduction are discrete modes of inquiry when they are actually a dual of the same?For if one starts with ideas and theories that have not been galvanized and tempered through the process of induction, revisions may lead to infinite regress? What is also interesting are some ideas that seemed to have fallen by the wayside, that have made a comeback, because the social framing of the time or technological advances enables it.

Cheers

Alternative energy is a recurring and languishing theme, throttled by dinosaur fuel industry in the name of imposed repeat-profit supply lines for over a century. Planned Obsolescence:  Let's make a product so crappy that it breaks; then we can throw it into a landfill because economics doesn't support it's recycling or reuse, and force the consumer to buy another, thereby creating and sustaining jobs. Or how about product branding, or making something so specific to one company that no one else can fix it, thereby the product never outlives the company who made it. Trashing the environment for future generations because we're short-sighted and selfish.

At the moment can't think of a story of the rise and fall of an idea or ideas. But will think on it and say my bit. For the moment sharing an interesting quote on 'ideas' that I came across recently.

Bullets or Seeds

By: Richard C. Halverson

You can offer your ideas to others as bullets or as seeds.

You can shoot them, or sow them; hit people in the head with them, or plant them in their hearts.

Ideas used as bullets will kill inspiration and neutralize motivation. Used as seeds, they take root, grow, and become reality in the life in which they are planted.

The only risk in the seed approach: Once it grows and becomes part of those in whom it’s planted, you probably will get no credit for originating the idea. But if you’re willing to do without the credit….you’ll reap a rich harvest.

Dear Shian-Loong Bernard Lew,

In the Netherlands, my PhD research (topic: foundations of physics) led in 2008 to the biggest academic controversy about a PhD project in the history of the country; the controversy is still ongoing. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that in the Netherlands it has practically become a new genre in literature to write an attack on my work.

However, I would never use the fact that the controversy exists as an argument that my work has potential. That is: in my opinion, a fundamentally new idea necessarily leads to a controversy, but the mere fact that a controversy has arisen isn't sufficient as a proof that the work has potential.

Regards, Marcoen

Dear Sadia,

Thanks for your telling of the story behind ideas.Indeed ideas are double-edged swords and far from being the rantings of frienzied mad men, the world is seldom the better without them.The absence of one idea is just the presence of another. The best way to sustain an idea is to connect it and not to fence it off. 

The "idea" that an idea needs to be original to be potent is also deceiving:

"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." -Howard H. Aikens,  a pioneer in computing, being the primary engineer behind IBM's Harvard Mark I computer.

 (Source:http://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Howard_H._AikenCheers)

Your phrase "a rich harvest "  reminds me of :https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229790535_Increasing_Returns_and_Social_Contagion_in_Cultural_Industries

Cheers

Article Increasing Returns and Social Contagion in Cultural Industries

"Free energy" as an idea had it's beginning centuries ago, from Bessler's wheel to Nikola Tesla's magnifying transmitter. The idea is still struggling for mainstream recognition and under attack from various camps, first Big Oil, gas & nuclear which it threatens to displace, second, Academia, for violating thermodynamic "rules" that the ivory towers consider chiselled in stone, and third, the government, who apart from considerations of it being weaponized, is concerned that free energy would provide too much personal freedom, threatening social order and profits of established companies. There's a goodly amount of supporting evidence for this idea, and yes, cynical scams as well. Youtube has many videos on the topic that spin off to others more specific. Also see: www.peswiki.com

Adding to what Dean has very aptly stated, and with which I fully agree, this tells us how our existing individual mental operating system (and its social patterns) uses the existing idea process to resist and reinforce the status quo. How new ideas which threaten existing paradigms, motivations, agendas and their specific physical manifestations (in the form of specific social and material processes) are subverted by our existing mental system. I am reminded here of two connected ideas which have been and are resisted to this day; cold fusion (which is actually no longer an idea but a practically possible process but is still resisted and has been deliberately subverted like free energy) and the other is the idea of 'abundance' which is possible given the means of production available today to contemporary man alongside the prospect of free energy and cold fusion. 

Cheers!

Edmund Husserl's "The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology"                            

The rise of this idea has been resisted vehemently, it must not fall. Please Help.

A potent idea may call up commensurate controversy, but the word 'potent' links with the word 'potential.' Potentiality is not always potency. An idea with the greatest future potential may be mainly or totally ignored. There is the tale from anthropology of the natives who could not see the ship out to sea, because they had never seen a ship. Then again, to ignore can also be a powerful way of putting down a despised idea. What do you think is an 'idea?' And what do you mean by 'rise' and 'fall'? Do ideas, however you conceive them, only mobilise on an up-down axis? Might they move laterally, or in circles, or in spirals? Where does an idea come from? Do you think an Idea comes from an 'I,' a subjectivity. Is it generated ex nihilo, or does it arise? The word 'original' links with the word origin. This links with the Latin oriri, to arise. There is the word, 'orient' or 'oriental.' The Orient is the east, the place where the sun arises. Do 'original' ideas arise from outside the human subject, or from within her/him? I am not sure whether or not ideas rise and fall, because rising and falling rather depend upon relativity, or the standpoint of the viewer. I think I might go with Hans-Georg Gadamer and imagine that ideas form part of a 'conversation,' or with Mikhail Bakhtin in his idea of dialogue. Imagined another way, ideas are perhaps dialectical, one with another, but the dialectic never ends, there is never a final synthesis. There is a Husserlian verflectung,  an interweaving, an interpenetration, of ideas, so that ideas transform but never die. "The history of an idea." You draw me to the writings of Paul Ricoeur on history. Do ideas have a history? I ramble. thank you for your question.

I appreciate your ramblings, Mr. Leggett. The concept of an 'idea' having a 'history', i imagine, has much to do with the 'idea of history'. There are certain scholars that have quite interesting philosophies of history, Hegel and Husserl being the first to come to mind.

Cheers,

Ryan

Thank you for your thought on his Ryan. I see from your discussion of Husserl's work that you also acknowledge a propensity for rambling. I am a little too busy today to research the etymological links, but I suppose that rambling and ambling link to the Latin ambulare, 'to walk.' The ambulatory in a medieval cathedral was the walk around its side aisles, and the walk was meant to be a kind of devotional and contemplative pilgrimage. Very much of our thinking now is linear, but the generation of a idea, as it were within us, may be more circular, more dialectical, or just 'other' than a linear chain. (Think Levinas, Totality and infinity. Think Merleau-Ponty and 'wild meaning.') The mind appears to ramble, but this perambulation, this immersion in multiple layers and contexts, all of a sudden enables an idea. I use ''enable" here with particular reference to Emad & Maly's discussion of the 'en-' prefix in the English Language, which is to be found in the preface to their translation of Heidegger's 'Contributions to Philosophy." They used the 'en-' prefix in order to coin the neologism, enowning, as a translation for Heidegger's ereignis. They argued that 'en-' as in 'enabling' almost always implies a "welling up of." Ideas appear to well up, and in this sense they are never entirely subjective or egotistic possessions. There is the well, the bucket, and the wellspring. We can look after our subjective equipment for drawing water, keep the well clear of obstructions, but the wellspring is quite other. Ideas, for me anyway, are rather like clouds. They come, they float across the sky of awareness, they go. Do clouds have a history? In a way, yes. In a way, no. I keep seeing the 'id' in idea. Freud's id was a wild place, primitive, untamed by ego. Did you know that 'savage,' 'salvation' and 'safety' all link to French and Latin words meaning safe? In savagery there is safety; and; in safety there is savagery (Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright...). This could lead me to dialetheism, tetralemmic logic, Professor Jay Garfield and Professor Graham Priest. But thoughts about the generation and decay of ideas would also draw me to Michael Polanyi, to David Bohm, and then more generally to field theory, in both science and philosophy. My perambulation must stop here: I face the linear tasks of shopping and cooking tea.

Good Wishes,

Nick

Dear Shian-Loong Bernard Lew,

your question is vey challenging because there are many ideas in philosophy that have developed and then were abandoned. I have a couple of them in mind if you are so kind to accept more than one example

The first one is the following:

The scientific method puts its emphasis on efficient causality, neglecting, for the purposes of its quantitative and predictive analysis, any formal and final causality. The natural sciences, however, could not leave aside, in their study, an exercise of rationality (spontaneous or reflected) which were also of a philosophical origin, whose last justifications were, and are not, found within the scientific method. Such logical premises will become more and more implicit and unspoken, to the point of no longer feel the need of having to ponder over. To do so, it will be the task of  "philosophy of science”, while “science - as such  -“  would gradually cease to deal with it

 It would have been necessary to wait for  the twentieth century, when the rise of new scientific and epistemological border issues such as ‘indeterminacy’ and ‘complexity’ would pose the problem of 1) the foundations and of the ‘whole’; 2) the revaluation of the shape, direction and emergency, etc., that pressed science to turn "from the inside" towards a new reflection on its own method and foundations. Not surprisingly, these reflections will mark just a recovery of the "forgotten causalities", the formal and final ones, in addition to a careful review of the problems of language and relationship between subject and object. "

Now, I’d like to pass to the events of another idea.

According to historians of philosophy, in the analysis of the idea of ‘progress’ in the history of thought it should not be considered those philosophies of history of the age of Enlightenment and of the German idealism because the complexity of processing the speculation is such that distance them from an enlarged sharing and the discussion is so wide that in its scope that the definition of the central theme gets lost.

Based on this consideration it is argued that it would be rather more convenient to examine the concept of progress in English and French thought of the nineteenth century that give a more incisive definition considering that concept no longer a "possibility" of improving human conditions but a safe and “necessary “ law of human history,

I wish to thank you for the patience in reading and have my best regards,

 Gianrocco

Dear Gianrocco Tucci,

Thanks for your interest, time and thoughtful responses to the question. It is interesting how good ideas can be so time-resilient. I guess in a sense, ideas like energy, is never destroyed. Ideas morph into something else or lie dormant waiting to be resurrected at an opportune time. Paraphrasing Victor Hugo in English...

"All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come."

Best Regards.

Dear Shian-Loong Bernard Lew.

You questions is very interesting, if an idea be implemented just with time line and correlated with part of motivation then i will be rise, and practically the idea may fit, this may be change from one form to another with some medium but it cannot be demolished.

Regards

Chandra Kant Upadhyay