I apologize to this list for this discussion involving me getting so 
far.  My original intention was to listen, then I responded to 
something Eugene wrote without realizing that I was replying to this 
list.  And now, I can only interpret this post by Rich as a continuing 
attack on the social sciences that began on the transhumanist list 
and has migrated to this list.
My use of Bart Kosko's quote was to supplement my own spontaneous 
poetics on the nature of knowledge, which I now realize was a mistake 
to have posted to this list.
I don't make any apologies for being a student of the social 
sciences, and I fail to understand how my own estimation of the 
methodologies of the social sciences undermines the methodologies of 
the "hard" sciences.   My own contention has always been that 
different types of knowledge require different tools of measurement 
and analysis.
Having said that, I now exit this discussion.
Sin,
Kathryn Aegis