Saturday 24 April 2010

Lovelock's symbiosis and communicating systems

I watched a wonderful documentary about James Lovelock yesterday (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s04qp/Beautiful_Minds_James_Lovelock/) It struck me that the relationship between atmosphere and life may be similar to the relationship between communication and sentient existence. The perspective that Lovelock brings is that you cannot have one without the other, which is different from saying one is more significant than the other. Regarding communication, this is the fundamental difference between Habermas and Luhmann. Luhmann says communication is the most important thing, Habermas say people are. Following Lovelock, communications are the 'atmosphere' within which sentient existence can survive.
Astrid and I went to see 'Comedy of Errors' at the Royal Exchange last night. Fantastic.

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