Re: Malcolm Gladwell and beliefs)

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 16:38:35 -0800

William: Sometimes I think I have a lot of gall participating on the list. Then I think of advice I've often heard given to thesis and dissertation writers: Give it to someone outside your discipline to read. If they can't understand it, you'd best re-write it. (I'm not advising anyone here to re-write anything.) 
I have little choice but to come to the table with my armchair notions.
For an armchair philosopher, your defintion has unfortuante connotations. If everyone else gets it, let's get on with ... Santayana (is he now passe?). 
Geoff C
----- Original Message ----- From: "William Conger" <[email protected]> 
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 6:06 PM
Subject: Re: Malcolm Gladwell and beliefs)
It is a matter of belief. I believe that Newman was who he was and I believe Snow White is what it is. I contextualize the two ideas differently. But I still construct the ideas.
In my contextualization of Newman, which is my fictionalizing, I find far more evidence that he was a real person who, as you say, had attributes like independent intentionality, than I do to support the contextualization that he was a cartoon.
However, I never saw this Newman except as a screen image, and that's how I also saw Snow White. Thus my personal experience and personal evidence would better support the otion that both are cartoons.
But, again, the evidence is so abundant that Newman was a person like you and me, and that Snow White was a cartoon image, that my fictionalizing one as a person and the other as a cartoon, is more believable (and pragmatically workable) than some other fictionalizing.
Remember, for me fictionalizing is a (partial and faulty) reconstruction of the stream of experience in consciousness based on evidence.
Because my use of the term fiction here differs from everyday usage, it only reveals the inexactness of everyday language. For instance fiction as equivalent to falsity and falsity as equivalent to lie is an easily disproved line of logic.
We can't have a serious discussion of ideas if we restrict ourselves to common everyday uses of language -- often bordering on slang and colloquialism. Of course, we do need to define our terms in philosophical discussion and I have done that with my term "fiction" over and over here. 

WC




--- On Thu, 1/1/09, Geoff <[email protected]> wrote:


From: Geoff <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Malcolm Gladwell and beliefs)
To: [email protected]
Date: Thursday, January 1, 2009, 2:41 PM
William: For those persons who distinguish between
non-fiction and fiction
(as book lists do), your use of the term may be confusing.
Your system has one word for events wholly imagined as well
earnest reports
of disciplined observation. You succeed at maintaining an
extreme position
regarding our (acknowledged) perceptual construction and
obscure significant
differences in what are accepted "facts": Paul
Newman's existence (noumenal
or otherwise) and Snow White's presented existence.
Geoff C
----- Original Message ----- From: "William Conger" 
<[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 12:37 PM
Subject: Re: Malcolm Gladwell and beliefs)


>I think "fiction" is an excellent word for
what I mean by the reinvented
>experience we call consciousness.  It is a make-believe
narrative.  It may
>origniate in truth (the unprocessed actuality of
experience) but our brains
>make up the story of that and then we becomes conscious
of it. A marvelous
>fiction that if verified by evidence is truthful
fiction.
> WC
>
>
> --- On Thu, 1/1/09, Geoff
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> From: Geoff <[email protected]>
>> Subject: Re: Malcolm Gladwell and beliefs)
>> To: [email protected]
>> Date: Thursday, January 1, 2009, 11:11 AM
>> William: For what it's worth, we're
approaching
>> convergence on "fictions". I
>> would say that our reality is
"constructed" (not
>> fictional) and that we
>> "construct" based on both observations
which we
>> know are 'fictional" and
>> "factual".
>> I agree that my communications on the list is
impaired by
>> my lack of
>> background in philosophy and creative activity. I
am little
>> able to perceive
>> your position purely in philosophical terms.
>> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "William Conger" 
>> <[email protected]>
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 4:29 PM
>> Subject: Re: Malcolm Gladwell and beliefs)
>>
>>
>> >I never said that one truth is as good as
another.
>> There is such a state
>> >as true fiction and false fiction.  Again, by
fiction I
>> mean the necessity
>> >of our reinventing the stream of experience
not only as
>> we experience it
>> >but as we recall it, too.  That reinvention is
always
>> partial and biased,
>> >and thus it is fictional.  There is, in my
view, no
>> alternative to this.
>> >That's why in court several witnesses are
better
>> than one, or why 12 jurors
>> >are better than one, or why cross examination
is aimed
>> at teasing out the
>> >correspondences among overlapping reinventions
of past
>> events. Several
>> >reinventions of the same event can produce
more likely
>> evidence than one.
>> >
>> > I think you are simplifying my view by
testing it in
>> everyday terms
>> > instead of philosophically. I admit my terms
may not
>> be everyday usage,
>> > such as "fiction versus actuality"
but I
>> have tried to be clear in stating
>> > my more complex way of using such terms
because this
>> is that sort of
>> > dialogue, not everyday conversation.
>> > WC
>> >
>> >
>> > --- On Wed, 12/31/08, GEOFF CREALOCK
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> >> From: GEOFF CREALOCK
>> <[email protected]>
>> >> Subject: Re: Malcolm Gladwell and
beliefs)

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