
Why Scientists Need to Fail Better - ernestosoo
http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/why-scientists-need-to-fail-better
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ernestosoo
CK Dexter • 10 months ago Oh for crying out loud. If you want to interpret the
meaning, READ THE WHOLE DAMN PASSAGE. Not one mention of the surrounding txt,
not a single quote of Beckett's actual words beyond the familiar soundbite.

If you read the whole piece, or even just the whole paragraph, it's clear
THERE ARE NO MORALES TO BE DRAWN, it is not normative but descriptive, it
tells us not what we ought to do but what the entire natural order does and
will do: fail, get sick, throw up, and die once and for all, never to rise
again.

It's about the absolute and final fact of mortality, the ontological unreality
of progress of any kind. The total cosmic triviality of change, not its
celebration.

But hey, that's just one interpretation. It might be wrong, but AT LEAST I
READ THE DAMN THING.

Here's the original context of the quote:

"Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least. A place. Where
none. For the body. To be in. Move in. Out of. Back into. No. No out. No back.
Only in. Stay in. On in. Still....

Somehow on. Till sick of both. Throw up and go. Where neither. Till sick of
there. Throw up and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where
none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again.
Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where
neither for good. Good and all...

All of old. Nothing else ever. But never so failed. Worse failed. With care
never worse failed."

