KARL JASPERS FORUM

N72 (to N69 Müller)

REFLECTIONS CONCERNING EDITORIAL QUESTION
by Serge Patlavskiy
22 August 2006, posted 26 August 2006

[1]
I belong to the kind of scientists who are interested in science, but not in career in science, and for me, it is better to be criticized than ignored. For the last four years I have written scores of comments on the articles published in JCS, JSE and other journals that discuss the problems of consciousness and the complex phenomena. The comments are displayed publicly on various forums and on my website. But what is particularly interesting, only about one third of authors responded to my comments, and only one tenth of them were maintaining continuous discussion.

[2]
Well, why some authors are reluctant to discuss their ideas ? As I conclude from my experience in commenting on papers, it is because the two third of articles contain no ideas at all, or, at best, are the compilations of the ideas of others. Simply speaking, there is nothing to discuss. Therefore, if, at least, one third of contributors to KJF respond to the commentaries on their articles and take part in a continuous discussion – such state of affairs must be accepted as a norm.

[3]
How to stimulate the discussion on the complex scientific topics (like consciousness) that may have serious influence on the development of Science ? I think that here the specialized Foundations must be engaged, since to read and comment on a paper – it is not an easy task, and the time and efforts of the commentator must be properly rewarded. The author’s response has to be rewarded too.

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Serge Patlavskiy