Box 106, Item 1: Abstract on deeper nuclear and miscellaneous notes

Title

Box 106, Item 1: Abstract on deeper nuclear and miscellaneous notes

Subject

Typescript and miscellaneous handwritten notes on scrap paper.

Description

Verso of leaves not digitised. Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff.

Creator

Source

The University of Queensland's Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291, Box 106, Item 1

Contributor

This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, Dr. N.A.J. Taylor.

Rights

For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.

Format

[5] leaves. 2.51 MB.

Type

Manuscript

Text

/

7

DEEPER NUCLEAR

roots of the arms race lie in the character of science and technology:

such R & D drives the arms race.
science.

But it is disguised by myth of neutral

Deeper still the drives lie in maximisation drives for power, knowledge,
—————
4

the "newer" virtures, Enlightenment but Faustian virtues.

But the attainment of these even approximately is impossible, because of limitations, because for instance ultimate power means loss of power (for power
becomes go great it goes out of control).

This is a variation on the paradox

For these Enlightenment ends there is no maximization ///
because of limits and associated paradoxes, only an illusion of attainment.
A
of

omnipotence.

Thus maximization is here irrational.
and Gods;

In earlier times the drive le^d to God,

later defter the Enlightenment i’£ led to science -

a new, much more

effective God since it delivers so much cargo.

In the same framework, recast Foley's paradoxes of unlimited power:-

1.

Omnipotence leads to impotence

2.

Omniscience leads to ignorance

3.

Total rationality becomes total irrationality:

[becomes?]

and technicized our means, the more irrational our ends.

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the more rational

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Citation

Richard Sylvan, “Box 106, Item 1: Abstract on deeper nuclear and miscellaneous notes,” Antipodean Antinuclearism, accessed March 28, 2024, https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/show/115.

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