My vote is for the not-worth-disproving category, but I think in truth his geometry really is being used in Architecture and Engineering, everyone's just not jumping 'up' and 'down' saying "Oh boy! R. Buckminster Fuller discovered the triangle which made this new design possible."

Besides that I think you could pretty safely say that his 'non-Euclidian geometry' is basically Archimedean.

But even more importantly Bucky had basically what would be called a Sachlikeit. He kept saying all this stuff he was doing was because he careed so much about everyone else, but in reality it was alll being done for he himself alone.

This is gobbledy gook:

"Synergetics discloses that wealth, which represents our ability to deal successfully with our forward energetic regeneration and provide increased degrees of freedom of initiation and noninterfering actions, breaks down cybernetically into two main parts: physical energy and metaphysical know-how. Physical energy in turn divides into two interchangeable phases: associative and disassociative ‹ energy associative as matter and energy disassociative as radiation."

So what Mr. Fuller?
I find these things which I found so profound
as a young man to be so utterly meaningless today.

If he made any serious contribution
to philosophy I would say it would have
been his contribution to Dualism with the
phrase:
Unity is plural and, at minimum, is two. (Synergetics 905.11)

But so much of what he had to say was such
utter non-sense. He was also completely wrong
about the Greeks and Romans, dismisssing it all
as it were as basically 'old-hat.'

He said their works were not worth reading, those of us who
study the Greeks and Romans say his works aren't.

Not only that the whole question of science 'solving humanities problems' is just so totally overrated
because quite frankly its the wrong place to even begin
to address the question.
Science is frankly overrated period.

And he just doesn't measure up to someone like
G. W. F. Hegel either.

Edward Campbell
http://inopibuspressseattle.blogspot.com/

Hello everyentity!
...
I think Bucky might be right.
Is Buckminster Fuller right?
Maybe.
...
As humans,
we can only refute one-piece-at-a-time.
And Bucky makes a lot of sense to me.
...
I owe that Karl Popper,
and Alfred Korzybski, I think.
...
So until I find something else
that makes even more sense,
I further happily enjoy Bucky.
...
Besides,
there is much to digest.
I have read maybe 23%
of what Bucky thought lifetime.
...
Truly...
there are even happier times
to come.

-- ---
This is your head, baby :o) And it is 2 000 000 000 years old.

Inventor and fellow passenger.

Hi Jay,
My question to you is 'Isn't our thinking our environment on the most practical and fundamental level?' Since there's nothing in the way of any possibility of human imagination, isn't the most fundamental environment our thinking and our ability to give up behaviors that don't serve the 'Long view' and adopt those that do? Isn't 'Design Science' fixated on the 'Hardware' which is certainly important, yet neglecting the more critical to the success of '100% of humanity' aspect of the 'Software' which actually is the actual fundamental source for all human experience both physical and metaphysical?

{deletives}

do I just love to reply to myself, or Brian?
.
well, anyway, the most important of the Color Plates
-- see my sig --
is Plate One. ah, but how many of you Wanabi's have even bothered
with the elements of spherical trig, polar trigona etc. ??
.
how else are you going to know where y'@,
without a God-am GPS attached to your optical input?
.
of course, it really helps to have been borne
to the yacht set, as RBF was; eh?
.
--les Protocols de George Elder chez Kyoto!
(emmissions-trading scheme online in USA as of Feb.12)
http://tarpley.net/bush8.htm
http://larouchepub.com/other/2002/2903_chapter_11.html
http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/plates/plates.html

{deletives}

every body's a critic, and I am of Bucky.
.
but firstly, lets go back to one thing that he got "right," or
that he should have easily gotten: fullerenes.
.
I have an alternative model to the usual one
(which gives a soccerballene for C60, and so on),
which Bucky really should have uncovered. of course,
there's nothing "wrong" with the old model per se.
.
since I announced it on Synergetics-l, I have seen
no dyscussion of it, although I know it's out there,
because the model came back to me in a talk
in the math department at UCLA, a year
or so later, by a visiting .
.
when I was able to explain some thing,
at the end of his lecture, that he didn't quite "get,"
he would then not give me a copy of his God-am paper.
(my first actual sighting of this was a tiny diagram
in Nude Scientist.)
.
I was completely incensed (because I was apparently fuming !-)
.
what do you say, KU?
.
--les Protocols de George Elder chez Kyoto!
(emmissions-trading scheme online in USA as of Feb.12)
http://tarpley.net/bush8.htm
http://larouchepub.com/other/2002/2903_chapter_11.html
http://www.rwgrayprojects.com/synergetics/plates/plates.html

Sphere packing matrix CCP and related FCC cover the same conceptual ground as isomatrix (IVM), so most scientists don't feel the need to delve deeply into a philosophical language (extraordinary grammar) that takes them far afield (i.e. into philosophy). Also "geometry of nature" has a scary ring to it, sounds more like PR. But Fuller could pull it off, given his stature across several disciplines, including of course architecture. You don't find many specialists with letterhead to rival his. So I agree with the earlier comments: it's an uncomfortable silence, and in the long run untenable. There's no escaping the relevance of Fuller's contribution, and to remain silent about it just adds to its underground potential to undermine the status quo. Capitalism's other main strategy should be kicking in soon: to defend itself by commercializing what it cannot destroy (if you can't beat 'em join 'em -- what Bucky forecast in 'Grunch of Giants' i.e. the engines of industry finally coming to grips with a non-misanthropic, high tech philosophy).

Kirby

regarding jay baldwin's statement posted above, he is dead right. i would add, that what jay is refering to, is not a john cage kind of silence, with biological/gestation modalities for embryonic develoment, along the lines of when, lets say, a musician is hot, as it were. at any rate, whilst i was in northampton, ma. this summer i was reminded of the book entitled "the alchemy of intelligence" by warren doheman and marvin suhd published by metamorphous press in portland, oregon. therein, was a great icebrekaing mode of education using the tetrevertex (hedron). that book was written many years ago. as i walk out into the star studded night, one wonders? on another note, along the lines of bucky's posturing of the 'music of the new life', i just caught ian tyson, singe,r guitar player, cowboy from canada. And at 72 he was still yodeling, and the irony, although it was in the myth mode, a long the lines of larry mcmurty's book the "lonesome dove" he rocorded his new work with jazz musicians from toronto. I bet ornette coleman, a fan of bucky;s, would be concur: check out his work "prime design eneough groveling, don't get me started on what is holding back the new music, if you will...

I think that the fact that they haven't responded may not be a sign that they disagree. I rather agree more with the first statement that we are now devoid of scholars whose knowledge can straddle enough breadth to really tweeze apart Bucky's ideas. I personally think that it isn't necessarily a bad thing. I believe tht knowledge goes through cyclical progressions. Specialists seperate to study the small pieces, then when a great mind emerges, or when individual parts are sufficiently understood then the small parts can be put together into a large mosaic that redefines and expands the rules of the universe as we know it. Then with new rules and perspective each specialist takes another piece to the corner to play with it. Over and over. Perhaps Bucky's part of the puzzle came out before it was ready to be put into the puzzle, we've got to wait for the rest of the pieces to caught up. That's just what I think.

Jay is correct in his analysis of "the great silence", but I believe that we have already had discoveries in the area of Fullerenes tha have disclosed that Bucky was on the right track. Remember that Bucky, like Galileo has a block of established dogma to overcome and since he has said that the angle we have called "right" may not be as all powerful as previously believed. Look to the youth and to the comprehensivists.

Elizabeth,
Jay is right; the "silence" is a result of over specialization which keeps many, if not most in the acedemic world, unable to ask and unfortunately uninterested in pursuing the really big questions. Also, those in acedemia or scientific research usaully follow the safe money trail which does not pay people to inquire into or research the really challenging big questions that might threaten the status quo. Furthermore, the acedemic/scientific community often functions like an exclusive club whose members do not like admitting that those outside the club, those without the right credentials can ever contribute breakthroughs in thinking to their field.

Joshua