I thought Hume's enquiries were about epistemology (the study of the acquisition of knowledge - or something) - and that doesn't seem to be germane to the author's subject.
"Facts" was in quotation marks at first because it wasn't meant to be taken literally throughout the rest of the paragraph. The problem I see when scientists or math people read humanity-discussions is that they often pretend they can't understand the structure of an argument whenever it might question their belief systems.
I should point out that the West has had a love affair with Japanese art and culture predating our identification of the Japanese with all things futuristic and technological. The beat poets were highly interested in Zen bhuddism as were a lot of minimal artists at the 60's.
Minimal Japanese art was a big influence of the style of French art, like art nouveau and expressionism. Perhaps this is because the avante garde of Western culture (be it culturally obsessed nerds like Gibson, or bohemian artists) constantly look for a way to overthrow the Victorian-era Christian systems of values and behaviour that are prevalent in the west.
Hence, we see them as futuristic because everything that has been modern about our culture for the past century has often been influenced by Japan. And everything modern about their culture has been influenced by us.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought Hume's enquiries were about epistemology (the study of the acquisition of knowledge - or something) - and that doesn't seem to be germane to the author's subject.
"Facts" was in quotation marks at first because it wasn't meant to be taken literally throughout the rest of the paragraph. The problem I see when scientists or math people read humanity-discussions is that they often pretend they can't understand the structure of an argument whenever it might question their belief systems.
I should point out that the West has had a love affair with Japanese art and culture predating our identification of the Japanese with all things futuristic and technological. The beat poets were highly interested in Zen bhuddism as were a lot of minimal artists at the 60's.
Minimal Japanese art was a big influence of the style of French art, like art nouveau and expressionism. Perhaps this is because the avante garde of Western culture (be it culturally obsessed nerds like Gibson, or bohemian artists) constantly look for a way to overthrow the Victorian-era Christian systems of values and behaviour that are prevalent in the west.
Hence, we see them as futuristic because everything that has been modern about our culture for the past century has often been influenced by Japan. And everything modern about their culture has been influenced by us.