Language: The Ultimate System

by

Dan Moonhawk Alford, Andy Hilgartner, and Don Watson

(The Inside-Out Gang)

Much of what passes for science these days, including the social sciences it spawned in this century, is dominated by an Outside-In perspective; i.e., from a point of view nobody inhabits, outside our solar system, it's clear to see that the Earth circles around the Sun and not vice versa. However accurate, that perspective is of little use when watching a beautiful sunrise or sunset from a spot on Mother Earth, where we live and experience the Inside-Out view.

The study of language has been dominated in the 20th Century by an Outside-In view, from a place nobody inhabits. Members of the Inside-Out Gang are, instead, committed to studying our chosen topics from the inside out, whether the inherent organizing principles of the spirit of enformy, or a scientific notation not subtly influence by the principles of Western syntax, or a diachronic, evolutionary view of language at odds with the more normal synchronic version.

It is our contention that our "opposing" views can fit in complementarily with the dominant views, the latter as special cases of our more general approaches -- that both can be held tentatively at once in our fragile consciousness much as objective heliocentric and experiential Earth-centered views of the Sun are, each true in its own way.

"And the Fool on the Hill sees the Sun going down,
and the eyes in his head see the World turning round." -- Beatles

Don - This Scientific Revolution

Andy - The Need for a New Language in Science

Moonhawk - Language as the Ultimate System

Don - The Theory of Enformed Systems: Foundation of Wholeness Science

Andy - The Need for a New Language, Especially Within Science

Moonhawk - Language as The Ultimate System

Andy's website:  http://www.hilgart.org