- Joined
- Sep 9, 2003
- Messages
- 2,361
Tai, when I first started reading some of your writing on other sites around the internet, I got the impression that there was very little we would ever agree upon, but after studying your wording over the years, I have come to the conclusion that it would be a mistake to ever underestimate you! The phrase “crazy like a fox” comes to mind 
While I can understand some of your methods, words or actions I may never comprehend the motivation, but this is the case with all human beings. I have a guiding saying that I have lived by for many years now- “no matter who they are, or how close, one can never truly know the heart of another human being”. Nor should we, not only would it make the world very boring, it could make life unbearable. Of all the characters on the show “Heroes” the cop that can read minds is the most tragic to me, I would not burden a man I hated with such a curse.
I personally don’t see metallurgy as a method to make better knives, in fact the reason I started studying it and buying gadgets was not for the knives but to overcome and combat the handicap that the traditional “wisdom” in knifemaking had burdened us with. I don’t see scientific fact as a tool as much as I view it as a cure. It is the best antidote to the garbage that bladesmiths have been consuming and regurgitating for too long. When a famous icon tells you that the grass is blue and the sky is green, and all of your common sense protests fall upon deaf ears because you are in no position to argue with an icon, then the cure is to start stacking up facts. Eventually, with the help of science, you can build enough of a solid foundation that the column of knowledge can be seen by the general public just as well as the pop idols. When enough people have a sound education in how light wavelengths make the sky blue and the grass green, the nonsense is received as such no matter who spouts it.
The way I see it we haven’t even started laying the foundation for a future of metallurgical bladesmithing, as we are still in the process of clearing the building site of years of useless debris. But then facts are such a powerful tool that we may have some structure up before the old rubble is entirely cleared.
This is a huge sentence. I agree entirely with the first half and adamantly disagree with the second half. Once again metallurgy can be a powerful tool, an effective antidote to ignorance, but it still takes the human hand and the human mind to implement it, but by itself it is little more than cold lifeless equations, and it can be misused to perpetuate mistruths if the people being misled are not versed enough in it to recognize the abuse. However I see expression as an entirely subjective thing and relative concept thus metallurgy, or any other scientific discipline, can contribute very little to it. Expression has no place in science thus science has little to offer expression. When we view facts as just another form of expression we diminish them to relativism and the natural world becomes meaningless to anybody but the one observer to whom those particular feelings apply. To me that is the beauty of science, it is not right or wrong, good or bad, it just IS, and objective facts are a constant. Regardless of how we feel about gravity, Newton’s observations will always apply and every person who ever stepped off a cliff “expressed” themselves in exactly the same way – “SPLAT”. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts.
Science has it’s time and place but it is worthless in something as unfathomable as the human heart. Metallurgy can predict exactly what the internal structure of a knife will be depending upon what the smith does to it, but it is entirely powerless to predict whether the majority of the public will see the knife is beautiful, or butt ugly. Working with just science that knife would be just a cold and lifeless hunk of well tempered steel, but when one includes art and expression with it a very beautiful and functional tool tool can be made. 100% martensite will not make you feel good when you hold a knife, but an artist who is capable adding expression to the science can.
Tai I have to confess to liking chatting with you, you cause me to think deeper than the same old iron-carbon structures.
While I can understand some of your methods, words or actions I may never comprehend the motivation, but this is the case with all human beings. I have a guiding saying that I have lived by for many years now- “no matter who they are, or how close, one can never truly know the heart of another human being”. Nor should we, not only would it make the world very boring, it could make life unbearable. Of all the characters on the show “Heroes” the cop that can read minds is the most tragic to me, I would not burden a man I hated with such a curse. I personally don’t see metallurgy as a method to make better knives, in fact the reason I started studying it and buying gadgets was not for the knives but to overcome and combat the handicap that the traditional “wisdom” in knifemaking had burdened us with. I don’t see scientific fact as a tool as much as I view it as a cure. It is the best antidote to the garbage that bladesmiths have been consuming and regurgitating for too long. When a famous icon tells you that the grass is blue and the sky is green, and all of your common sense protests fall upon deaf ears because you are in no position to argue with an icon, then the cure is to start stacking up facts. Eventually, with the help of science, you can build enough of a solid foundation that the column of knowledge can be seen by the general public just as well as the pop idols. When enough people have a sound education in how light wavelengths make the sky blue and the grass green, the nonsense is received as such no matter who spouts it.
The way I see it we haven’t even started laying the foundation for a future of metallurgical bladesmithing, as we are still in the process of clearing the building site of years of useless debris. But then facts are such a powerful tool that we may have some structure up before the old rubble is entirely cleared.
This is a huge sentence. I agree entirely with the first half and adamantly disagree with the second half. Once again metallurgy can be a powerful tool, an effective antidote to ignorance, but it still takes the human hand and the human mind to implement it, but by itself it is little more than cold lifeless equations, and it can be misused to perpetuate mistruths if the people being misled are not versed enough in it to recognize the abuse. However I see expression as an entirely subjective thing and relative concept thus metallurgy, or any other scientific discipline, can contribute very little to it. Expression has no place in science thus science has little to offer expression. When we view facts as just another form of expression we diminish them to relativism and the natural world becomes meaningless to anybody but the one observer to whom those particular feelings apply. To me that is the beauty of science, it is not right or wrong, good or bad, it just IS, and objective facts are a constant. Regardless of how we feel about gravity, Newton’s observations will always apply and every person who ever stepped off a cliff “expressed” themselves in exactly the same way – “SPLAT”. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts.
Science has it’s time and place but it is worthless in something as unfathomable as the human heart. Metallurgy can predict exactly what the internal structure of a knife will be depending upon what the smith does to it, but it is entirely powerless to predict whether the majority of the public will see the knife is beautiful, or butt ugly. Working with just science that knife would be just a cold and lifeless hunk of well tempered steel, but when one includes art and expression with it a very beautiful and functional tool tool can be made. 100% martensite will not make you feel good when you hold a knife, but an artist who is capable adding expression to the science can.
Tai I have to confess to liking chatting with you, you cause me to think deeper than the same old iron-carbon structures
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