(no subject)

An interesting introspective thought, while reading Ken Gergen's book The Saturated Self for Concepts of the Person... (The book is basically an introduction to postmodernism, while also making some generalizations about Moderism and Romanticism that are similar to the stuff he's talked about in class...)

I think I can say that I really enjoy the combination of rational and irrational, both in academic stuff and in people. Like in being interested in finding a biological (rational) basis for social behavior (which is, at least in many ways, irrational). And also how, when I was learning immunology at that internship a couple summers ago, I thought developmental immunology was the only thing that was interesting at all, because basically all kinds of antibodies are produced spontaneously, and then only the ones that actually code for things that you could possibly want antibodies for survive. I know that I get really bored and annoyed with overly rational, Modernist ways of looking at the world (as some of my gripes about science people from last semester may show). And I also definitely think postmodern or Romantic architecture and music is more interesting than Modern stuff. But at the same time, at least in academic stuff, I do like a little bit of rationality; I really don't like postmodernism very much, because it seems to basically say that there's no basis for rationality. And especially in this class, where a lot of the students (and the professor) are anti-Modernist, I usually end up trying to say something to support the rationalist, Modernist conception of the world. Still, I think the postmodern extreme is definitely more interesting than the entirely rational extreme.

I guess this is also true for how I look at people. I definitely would say that people who mix spontaneity with rationality (like, say, gerbilicious85, among others) are more interesting than people who are entirely rational (like most hardcore science people...or, well, at least most hardcore biology/chemistry people...hmm, is the uncertainty in Quantum physics the reason why at least a fair number of physics people that I can think of are a bit more spontaneous?), but I'm still a little bit more comfortable with the mixture than with people who are spontaneous and not so rational. (Of course, considering that Jonathan fits that "spontaneous but not entirely rational" archetype, I guess I can't say that lack of rationality bothers me all THAT much, even though just a tiny bit is a plus...)

So I'm not sure if that was coherent or not, but I think it's kind of interesting. Now I guess one thing that may follow from that is the question of whether it's common to find a mixture like that, in people or academic stuff, or whether people/subjects end up being either mostly cold rationality (like scientists) or a lack of rationality (like postmodernism). (I am remembering how, when I mentioned to Scott Gilbert that I thought developmental immunology was interesting, he was like "wow, you find some characters in that...", which may suggest that the answer to my question is "no", but I'm not sure.)

Oh also, there were a few other things that I've been thinking of posting about (like getting advice on classes for next semester), but I think I may put that off a little longer...