Clarissa AL Lee's Lateral Worlds

First results from Heavy Ion collisions at the LHC (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS)  I missed the first two events because I overslept (!) due to my weird sleeping habits nowadays (I can't sleep when I try to sleep earlier). But at least I caught Jurgen talking about ALICE's results. I can look at the slides for the rest (not that one can make as much sense to me without some explanation). It does seem as if they are getting the sort of results they have been looking forward to, even exceeding expectations. For ALICE as least, they've got all they want on the QGP , which is exciting. Finally they are beginning to feel like they are doing 'real physics' with actual data for 'new physics' instead of merely calibrating the tools many times over.  

This idea came to me as I was working on a project for a visual studies class that tries to use as its subject matter the history of Durham (see www.digitaldurham.duke.edu).  I worked on history of the Duke Family (because their papers are most readily accessible from the University Archives of Duke, where I go to school). But the larger idea was the excavation of 'dead' epistemology, and working through the 'dead' histories of once 'living' objects that are still connected to the living 'members' of the community through genetic and social ties got me thinking about the sort of knowledge generated before the growth in experimental particle physics, and the sorts of knowledge that have come and gone before the LHC was even built, and also the knowledge that came to pass WHEN the LHC was built (one just has to go through the large archives of materials relating to the planning, organizing and building of the LHC). I've written up extensively on this ...

One of the main goals of my dissertation project is to understand the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in terms of the epistemological world it exists in, as well as its contribution towards scientific knowledge formation that grew out of a relationship between the human and the machine.  This includes understanding how data collection, generation and simulation takes place, dealing with the different stages of validation and interpretation of data, and working out the intricate relationship between the data and the apparatuses used to collect and generate them.  However, my eventual goal is to elucidate the ontological that is hidden and tightly bounded to the epistemological, which is important for understanding the foundations of all forms of knowledge and experiential structures. At the foundation of my analysis are theories of phenomenology as developed in the tradition of critical theory, which is different from the kind of phenomenology espoused by working partic...

Yes, I am trying to build an epistemological database that will also reveal the ontological. To do that, I have to be able to effect negative information, blank spaces (which does not mean that it is empty, just that it is not visible because there is no 'textual' marker). Which theorists can I turn to for help in that? Gadamer? Foucault? Deleuze? Lacan? Fuller? Kant? Simondon? Merleau-Ponty? Bergson? Heidegger? Whitehead? Any other names I have yet to mention? But one thing that we do know is that, in order to understand epistemology, we have to understand what are categories of knowledge and how to grapple with that. To figure out what categories I would like to work with, these are some of the questions that I will have to ask myself, and I hope that the various work I am currently doing will help me deal with that. 1. How do we set the parameters for what is important knowledge over what is less important? What categories should be the root and from that ro...

Well, I have to admit that I haven't done more work on the LHC at this point, being distracted as I am with completing the final leg of my coursework requirements. However, there are other things I am working on at the other end which will be useful for taking a distant approach to my research. However, I would have to start going back to direct research once I am done with exams and all. At the moment, I have started a series of science fiction blog entries that can be found in my other blog . If you can read Malay, I have started an episodic series for a science fiction 'novel' I am writing. See the first one here . The purpose for that will become clear as I work through the series. :) On the other, I am studying how epistemology occur for other disciplines to find that common denominator. I have spent the greater part of my free time writing out the project proposal for a fellowship I am applying for. I hope that pans out as it will provide the giant leap for my...

Yesterday, I had a very fruitful discussion with one of my professors on my work (and very intense as well) and since that has revived some thoughts I have on my project that is currently on hold due to other commitments, I will jot them here ---------------------------------------------------------------------- CERN is like the UN in some ways, but not in all ways. For example, not all the employees based there are directly employed by CERN. Some were sent over as 'labor' and 'expertise' contribution by various institutions who collaborate with CERN, even though they may be there pretty much long-term, so the salary scale and even benefits differ. Also, there are the shiftworkers (shift work can be extremely exciting or the most boring job in the world, depending on what happens during shifts. Once again, it reminds me a lot of the whole Star Trek trope). The politics involved are interesting to explore because it actually affects the way in which the organization, ...

The confluence of science fiction, cybernetics, and scientific ontology constitutes an intersection between predictions, myth-making, hypotheses, phenomenal gestures, thought-experiments and material realization. Science fiction is not a genre by which one can easily position textual productions and reproductions of scientific ideas in either sublimated or pedagogically direct forms. At the same time, the potentiality of science fiction has spurred scientists and philosophers of science to model postulations, and theoretically-produced predictions in the sciences, on its ‘narrative,’ especially in areas that are still epistemically speculative. As Godfrey-Smith suggests, model-based science is motivated by the complex nature of the scientific target and the employment of exact methods (3). Even then, as the mathematicians will tell you, the final goal is to create a general enough model, so that it can be the public key by which one can unlock the encrypted data nature has bestowed u...