Milton has shown in his writings that he was aware of the new learning, but he does not seem to have taken it very seriously. Other literary men associated themselves with the scientists, and when the Royal Society was established men of letters were also associated with it. For a long time it was not realized that science would be speaking in a language alien to the literary men. It was not even dreamed of that the scientist’s view of life would be different. In fact some scientists like Boyle interested themselves in literary work, and science had its influence in literature. As Dr. Evans says, it was perhaps due to the influence of the scientific spirit of the time that the heroic couplet was chosen as the dominant verse form since it is “ordered, precise, and employable in analysis and criticism.”
But it was in the eighteenth century itself that the first major attack on science came, and the leader of that was Jonathan Swift. The Battle of the Books is usually taken as referring to the competition between ancient and modern literature. That is true, but, as Dr. Evans suggests, the pretensions of the man of science were also probably in Swift’s mind. In any case the satire of that pretension is clear in the Voyage To Laputa. But to suggest that Swift was unaware of the true value of science is to go quite astray. He had too shrewd a mind for that. He made fun of Newton for different reasons. In any case the mockery in the dinner with mutton cut into equilateral triangles, and beef into rhomboid, and pudding into cycloid is no mere attack on science since other items at the dinner are shaped into fiddles, flutes and harps. Even Pope who recognized the value of Newton ridiculed the vanity and lack of spiritual understanding of some drunk with the new knowledge...
As the years rolled by the antagonism between the scientist and the poet became marked. Blake the mystic and the seer naturally saw a red rag in the scientist’s materialism. Dr. Evans suggests that Blake was opposed to the reason, analysis and experiment of Bacon, Locke and Newton. But that is to put it in a way that leads wrongly. It was not exactly reason or even analysis and experiment that offended Blake. It was the materialistic attitude and outlook and the disregard of vision and of spiritual interest. He wanted that imagination and intuition should have their proper recognition; and he opposed the attempt to put anything else in their place. Keats again has passages that suggest that he felt philosophy and reason destroyed poetry, and his lines in Lamia are the most powerful lines pointing that way:
Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
But these lines should not be taken at their face value, since the romantic nature of his theme and the illusions he wanted to produce must also be taken into consideration. Besides, in his letters he shows that he could think and study in a purely intellectual way.
The same is true of Wordsworth also. In his pure adoration of nature he would admit of no mere analysis and reason. It was all vision. His heart leaps up when he sees the rainbow in the sky; the. mere contact with nature teaches him lessons that are too deep for tears; and the ways in which he learns these lessons are certainly not those of the scientist but of the visionary and the poet. Yet he was not unaware of the value of mathematics and science in general. He speaks of their “clear and solid evidence.” But still poetry was to him “the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge: the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science.” Intuition, mystical experience, these were the most valuable to him. Coleridge’s fines:
O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our fife alone does Nature five
may be said to show the attitude of the poets to the investigations of the scientists. That is why Shelley who was by nature interested in the scientific gives in the best of his poems only the fruits of pure imaginative realizations. After him there were many poets who did have even scientific training, and yet their attitude has been alienated from the scientists. Tennyson, Browning and T.S.Eliot are examples of these. - P.L. Stephen Literature and Science (By B. Ifor Evans (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd, London, pp. 114. Price 8-6-0.)
Science is constantly evolving, and so is our understanding of genetics. This interesting feature in @NewIndianXpress explains the truth about epigenetics in a simple way. It shows that while some changes in the way our genes work can be passed from parents to children, most of these changes are naturally reset and do not continue forever. A valuable read for anyone interested in genetics, diabetes and the science behind how our genes interact with lifestyle and the environment.
https://x.com/i/status/2084843410981278171
“Thinking about thinking,” to change its origins and functions in the brain, is metacognition’s higher purpose for practitioners and patients metacognitively engaged in psychoanalysis. Neuroscience suggests Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) mastered his own metacognitive learning, knowledge, and regulation long before John Flavell (1928-2025) coined and codified #metacognition in 1979. Freud “saw things” happening in brains and their minds, quite possibly similarly to Einstein’s wordless visualizations of the thinkings of his preverbal thinkingness—long before today’s ways and means of neuroscience were available to scientifically validate “visions.”
@Mark_Solms, the author of the new book The Only Cure: Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Health, is a South African neuroscientist with deeper, wider, and higher views about Freud’s prescient perceptions. Excerpts from the attached article in @TheAtlantic I curated into standalone sentences:
“His lab discovered the specific pathway in the forebrain responsible for stimulating dreams, and he disproved the notion that dreaming is dependent on REM sleep. He’s also done extensive research into the science of consciousness.”
“…Freud deserves credit for neuroscientific prescience.”
“Many prevailing theories about how the brain functions were first worked out by Freud. For instance…Freud effectively identified the way that short-term memories get consolidated into long-term ones, and did so more than half a century before the neurochemical mechanism for this was discovered.” —@SStossel #ThinkToThink™ your way through this excellent article and perhaps also the above-referenced book. theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/…
https://x.com/i/status/2084975830086590567
How much of your day is actually a choice? Psychologist Wendy Wood found 43 percent of daily behavior is habitual, done while your mind is elsewhere. That’s why willpower often fails. The fix is environmental: no junk food in the house, running shoes by the door.
https://x.com/i/status/2084364897958445349
Power has a peculiar way of transforming people, writes a serving bureaucrat in this lament about the compromises with principles and ideals that they see all around them.
"The tragedy is not that compromises exist. Every institution requires accommodation. The deeper tragedy is that compromises slowly cease to feel like compromises. They become habits. Language changes. Expectations shrink. One begins to celebrate survival as success.
"Power has a peculiar way of transforming people. It rarely demands dramatic acts of surrender. Instead, it asks for small adjustments, one after another, each perfectly reasonable in isolation. By the time one notices the cumulative effect, the transformation is already complete."
https://x.com/i/status/2084936778826543403
Read this book! Leisure: The Basis of Culture
Lessons: 1. We work too much. Life isn't about grinding 60 hours per week, 2. Leisure doesn't mean "TV, video games, relaxing." It means active pursuit of educational, philosophical, and spiritual objectives.
https://x.com/i/status/2085023703843143833
Ever land an opportunity through someone you barely know? Sociologist Mark Granovetter found people were more likely to get jobs through ‘weak ties’ than close friends, who already share your network. Even brief chats with near-strangers can lift mood and belonging almost as much as close friends do.
https://x.com/i/status/2085081463243084051
The harder your day, the more nostalgia shows up. That's the finding that surprised psychologists studying this emotion.When something knocks you down, your mind reaches for a pleasant memory the way a falling person reaches for a railing. A psychologist named Clay Routledge has studied nostalgia for years. In one experiment, he wanted to find out when we feel this emotion the most. He gave three groups of people three different essays to read. What he found overturned the standard story about nostalgia.
https://x.com/i/status/2085082417782808874
Williams was particularly adept at registering the way that the human significance of actions exceeds their intentions. There is “in the story of one’s life,” as he puts the point in his discussion of Oedipus Tyrannus, “an authority exercised by what one has done, and not merely by what one has intentionally done.” The fact that the meaning of an action can be determined by what happens, in a way that goes beyond intention and control, is just one instance of the way that human life is hostage to luck. Shame and Necessity
https://x.com/i/status/2084764193853460677
Is "China envy" driving progress—or self-doubt? This conversation explores how admiration can fuel innovation, national confidence, and reform without sacrificing cultural identity. youtu.be/5wqJxJbmgzA?si… @MakrandParanspe @PariksithSingh @AmazingVedas
https://x.com/i/status/2085058250928734687
Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra
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