I am delighted to read this quote below from Angell & Demetis, 2010, Science’s First Mistake: Misinterpreting Observation, Delusion and Paradox. (thanks webisteme for posting this!)

We cannot even know if reality is consistent with sense data, because we only perceive what is already consistent.

After all, under hypnosis we can be jabbed with a needle and yet feel no pain, or smell disgusting imaginary odors, or consider ourselves nailed to the spot unable to move, or a million and one other sensory sensations impressed upon us by the hypnotist. 

So what if our society is the hypnotist, and we experience everything in a way we have been pre-programmed and disposed to expect? What if there are other dimensions, available only to senses we do not have? That possibility is of no consequence. It is our blessing, and our curse, to be trapped in three dimensions with the senses we do have, or rather with the senses we have been deluded into having.

But damn my brain hurts to think about this quote in the context of reflexive ethnography.

I’ve been writing for 2 weeks straight so I can’t produce anything comprehensible. So I’m going to out-source the thinking to Mike Lynch - another wonderful recommendation from Barry Brown. Take some time to read Lynch (2000) Against Reflexivity as an Academic Virtue and Source of Privileged Knowledge. Lynch starts off by telling us what he’s pretty much going to rip other forms of reflexivity to shreds - he doesn’t even spare the anthropologists!

Although reflexivity often is associated with radical epistemologies, social scientists with more conventional leanings often speak of reflexivity as a methodological tool, substantive property of social systems, or source of individual enlightenment. Radical and conventional social scientists alike tend to stress the importance of being reflexive, as opposed to being unreflexive, but they do not share a coherent conception of what `being reflexive’ means or entails. As an alternative to reflexive self-privileging, I recommend an ethnomethodological conception of reflexivity as an ordinary, unremarkable and unavoidable feature of action. The ethnomethodological conception does not support a particular theoretical or methodological standpoint by contrasting it to an `unreflexive’ counterpart. It has little value as a critical weapon or source of epistemological advantage, which, in the present context, can have advantages of its own for promoting peace and epistemic democracy.

I love Lynch’s piece so much that I’ve put it online for anyone to download. This should not be stuck in the gallows of academic journals. The section that is most useful starts on page 28  where he outlines 6 different version of reflexivity, and then outline an reflexive ethnomethodology. 

Lynch just kills it in this piece. He really does. He pretty much demystifies the typical anthropological or sociolgical excercise of being reflexive about her/his fieldwork. 

Ya I know this is straight up ethnomethodology - but Mike Lynch’s work is excellent and super revelevant (unlike many other grumpy old ethnomethodology pieces).

After reading another suggestion from Barry, Mike Lynch’s Silence in Context: Ethnomethodology and Social Theory (1999), i’ve decided that i need to keep that one near my intellectual heart so that my work remains ethnographically driven, not theory driven. It’s a subtle distinction, but important to the work that I do. Hmmm I think it’s Barry’s secret mission to brainwash me with ethnomethodology. 

Well I really want to read Angell’s & Demetis’s Science’s First Mistake- but when will I have the time before I move to China! 

Another reason why I’m interested in reading this book is because it comes out of Information Systems Analysis.  

And this quote makes me of Ghost in The Shell, Denoi Coil, Fringe, and Tron. 

ahhhh maybe watching Tron will be a temporary solution.