Hi Chris,
thanks a lot for the pretty much articulated and complete reply. Which again
leaves me with some questions :)
Chris:
>thanks for the comments, I here address your questions/points in reverse
order... :-) In passing note that the >MOQ-Pirsig object/subject dichotomy
reflects object-oriented thinking whereas the MOQ-Pirsig emphasis on quality
>and discernement reflects more relational thinking.
>(1) Nazis, Heidegger, heavy-metal ontologies vs 'truth'.
>I think these all occupy the same general space mentally. This space covers
'truth', quantitative precision. The >emphasis is on precise, clear,
identification; the 'point' or the 'dot', the ONE. The stronger the emphasis
>to identify precisely so the stronger the behaviour to take no prisoners :-)
Here and in the following of (1), you go through a very detailed and rich
picture of heavy-metal ontologies. Right from the start, it seems that you would
include in this class of ontologies all those that insist on precision and
(absolute, non-local) truth. This would include most philosophical systems
appeared insofar, wouldn't it (check the belief in A.T. of many subscribers of
this list, followers to diverse western philosophers). Also, I am curious how
does Heidegger fit in here, given the importance he gives to interpretation and
finiteness of being. (I would have thought Heidegger was *against* the idea of
absolute, precise truth).
Chris:
>Once identified the identification holds 'forever' (eternal). there is thus an
emphasis to SAMENESS, a dislike of >contextual change but an attraction to
'newness', new toys, dislike of left-overs [all very robust, forceful,
>'male' :-) and at the same time 'child'-like] The 'newness' emphasis also ties
to the 'one', the latest and so best of
>something I know of or have.
[...]
Yes. BTW, absolute truths are eternal truths. That doesn't add anything in a
sense; but I think the idea of eternal truths (absolute w.r.t. time) is possibly
even hardly defendable than that of contextless truths (absolute w.r.t.
contexts).
>There is no 'play' in this, the emphasis is on competition and so being 'top
dog/gun' etc., all play is rough and as close >to the 'real thing' as possible;
there is continual training to keep the skills 'sharp' (which shows that some of
the skills are >not 'natural' [...] There is here a subtle emphasis on extremes,
unpredictable EITHER/OR occurances and so a need to >be 'ready' to deal with
those extremes e.g. a 'sneak attack' by an apparently trusted neighbour. The
training allows for >dealing with these extremes very quickly and totally. Note
that from a general behaviour angle there is an acceptance of >the 'miraculous'
(the saviour turning up at the last moment) as well as the 'random'. This
acceptance reflects the "mind >of child" thinking you find supported in
fundamentalist religious groups). The strong use of technology (as in the sword
>which in our times is transformed into Star Wars technology) is reflected in
our current times where the emphasis
>on precision is dominated by those countries that have 'heavy-mental'
ontologies (sense of Empire, the American way, >the French way etc etc is the
ONLY way and so the ONE way, the TRUE way and so on. This gets into
fundamentalism, >both religious and secular, nationalism etc etc)
As you go on with this painting, in a way it looks as you are depicting an
extreme-right, militaristic mentality. At the same time, you seem to expressing
concepts that are so general to apply to most of the history of human thought
and behavior. But well, you also seem to be talking about the "shape" or the
"pattern" of things, as perceived by the relational mind and thus I am inclined
to accept it, or at least oppose no particular resistance. Still I feel that
your picture is in fact *too* general, too much zoomed out, too much about the
form of thought to be applicable to discuss issues at the much finer-grained
level that we have in the MOQ - perhaps you're looking on philosophy from too
far to even distinguish the MOQ as something different from something else,
except maybe qualifying it as more relational than other metaphysics.
(It really seems to be as much zoomed out as zoomed in, as I will say below, of
course it is the same - zoom in onto basic principles of the brain = zoom out
onto general shapes of thoughts).
Chris:
>(2) Flocking behaviours.
>In Artifical Life programs, algorithms have been developed that show this sort
of behaviour at work [...]
>The emphasis is on each individual doing their own thing, responding only to
their immediate environment. This process >means that there will be constructive
and destructive interferences developing across the whole system which will
>lead to the expressions of behaviours being not directly detectable in the
individual; thus the GROUP behaviour cannot >be pinpointed PRECISELY in
individuals; all you can point to (!) is a perculation process, general
patterns, a wave front >that develops out of the simple act of each individual
making local distinctions.
> In this sort of behaviour the individuals can perceive invarient patterns in
the group that have no direct source and are >so deemed 'universal' truths; the
emphasis is 'that does not come from me nore from my neighbours'. These 'truths'
can >reflect cultural or even species related behaviours stemming from local
distinction making that reflects a socialisation >emphasis inherent in the
species. This emphasis can be 'varied' given local contextual influences (e.g.
genetic drift >concepts)
[...]
>With flocking behaviour comes cultural truths where these truths cannot be
precisely defined outside of the culture IOW >they are only assertable as if
'absolute' from INSIDE the culture and even then only from a cultural context,
going down >to the perspective of the individual does not help; again we see an
emphasis on the local. Thus we can have personal >truths, cultural truths,
universal truths but they can only be asserted if the perspective is exclusively
personal or cultural >or universal and as such LOCAL. To assert any 'truth' you
need sharp distinction making; precision and the application >of the
sameness/difference dichotomy.
>It is difficult to assert sameness in the realm of the non-local. At best
>you can identify a qualitative truth based on pattern matching but this moves
you more into the space in-between the >dots; a dynamic realm where things (!)
are hard to pin down and so truths are IMPLICIT. In fact we use this mode a lot
>in Science where we try to identify something by what it is NOT; this is
harmonics analysis and there are LOTS of >harmonics and LOTS of possible
configurations!
The "flocking" concept seems to me roughly equivalent to the idea of emerging
properties in systems theory (isn't it?), unless you mean neighborhood in a
strictly geometric terms, as I believe was meant in the "original" use of the
term flocking for migrating gnus, birds, etc. A part of the system always
interacts with (is influenced by) only some other parts of the system
(neighborhood). Applying this to truth... that appears interesting because it
throws the (usual) concept of (human-intellectual) truth in the social realm,
where I also believe it belongs.
Chris:
>The entanglement of the local/non-local in the form of our brain hemispheres
etc combined with the oscillation process >in our brain that helps us to
'collapse' BOTH/AND states into EITHER/OR states introduces 'fleeting' truths --
>something is there and then it is gone...but it WAS there, absolutely :-)
>Overall the assertion of an absolute truth outside of the local is not possible
using the traditional methods we use to >analyse. The moment we move into
non-local analysis so there is a loss of resolution at the explicit, local
>level, we have to identify by implication and in heavy-metal ontologies that is
not satisfactory! :-) Note that the shift >from local to non-local is a shift
from precision to approximation and we get concepts such as the Uncertainty
>Principle or the Incompleteness theorem. As such these can be applied to truth
determination especially when we try to >step out of the local box. Imagine the
brain as a huge eye. This brain, like the eye, consists of a highly precision
>oriented, high detail, FM-like bandwidth, 'center' (called the fovea)
surrounded by a low bandwidth (AM-like), rough >detail but good pattern matching
(edge detection etc) part (Called the parafovea). Imagine overlaid on this is a
>giant ear with the same components, one part high detail and the other rough.
>
> LOCAL distinctions fall within the range of the detail - the fovea for the
> eye; non-local falls into the range of the parafovea. Non-local will thus
> always be 'fuzzy', distorted, out of focus but also informative (e.g. use of
> peripheral
> vision to pick up forms that the fovea misses). Now abstract these
> distinctions to information processing in general where the neural parts of
> the sensory cortices are also used in abstract thought. Do you 'get the
> picture'? :-)
As a single comment on your specific positions, it seems to me, you are not
proving (provide arguments) that precise non-local reasoning is impossible (or
perhaps that it is an absurd concept). That is, if fovea is responsible for
precise thinking etc.: where from comes the necessity that fovea be only
"contextually functional" - that is, that it cannot produce a statement on which
every other fovea on earth will agree to forever, for example. If you could
explain this - I would be interested to read it. (Of course I don't want you to
prove it *absolutely* :-).
> (3) truth and syntax.
>
> There is a definite development path in the human brain from the 'primitive'
> structures we seem to have in common with reptiles through the more developed
> structures we seem to have in common with mammals and up to the well
> developed structures we share with primates and those parts which are strictly
> 'ours'.
>
> In all of this there is a fundamental behaviour tracable to 'before' reptiles
> and that is the identification of territory. ( I say 'before' since even fish
> are territorial and a recent study of the zebra fish showed striking
> isomorphisms between the human left/right brain functions and those equivalent
> parts of the zebra fish. Left responds to the KNOWN, right responds to the
> UNKNOWN).
>
> In the identification of territory process, all reptiles, mammals, primates
> etc use a particular type of behaviour and that is called waypoint mapping.
>
> Waypoint mapping is where I mark a particular (the pub on the corner) and
> proceed in a direction to another location (railway station up X road) and
> mark that and so on. This marking process is still functional at the mental
> level
> where rats use waypoint mapping to get around a maze and trainee London taxi
> cab drivers use it to aquire the 'knowledge'; the map of London.
>
> The emphasis in territorial mapping is the 'mine/not mine' dichotomy
> abstracted to the 'correct/incorrect' or 'true/false' dichotomies. In more
> primitive lifeforms (reptiles etc) the emphasis seems more on 'mine'
> absolutely :-)
>
> The linkage process we see here is reflected in the hippocampus and the way it
> 'links' frames of data, the flow of 'mines' that when tied with 'me' help to
> identify 'me'. The development path from the Reptilian brain to the neocortex
> shows a bifurcation early on and this bifurcation shows a 'point' bias, or
> 'me' bias on one side and a 'not me', or 'others' bias on the other side.
>
> The 'point' bias is more associated with the marked positions, the waypoints,
> in the territory identification, and the final expression of this 'point' bias
> is in, for most, the left hemisphere of the neocortex. That part of our brain
> most
> associated with object thinking and precise linguistic expression.
>
> The link to syntax is in the form of feeling, a feeling of 'correct' vs
> 'incorrect' and the source of that feeling is in the left hemisphere of most
> with that side's emphasis on internal unity; internal intergration.
Here I feel you are zooming too much *in* to be debating on any common basis
with MOQ (or any other metaphysics). I agree that anything in reasoning relies
on a "feeling" of correct vs. incorrect. Just like, at a lower level still, this
feeling is mapped onto chemical reactions in the brain or whatever. But if you
are to debate about truth with a philosopher from this point of view, it seems
to me like you were debating about the workings of Microsoft Word with a
software architect and you were talking of bits (or, perhaps, bitwise
AND/OR/XORs...), or insist to be talking about a city by talking of bricks, etc.
You and the software architect may each state very "true" things (perhaps you
would even be a "bit" more precise/right than him), but ultimately you may be
both right and be nevertheless completely unable to exchange information.
Simply, it looks like the context (in this case, including the level of
abstraction) is completely different. Your position are very interesting for me
in their own right and context, but: according to the difference of context, I'm
not sure whether it is fair for you to refer to specific philosophical
positions/theories (eg., Heidegger); is there any point in your message that
would not apply to most other philosophers?
> The distinctions of 'correct', 'mine', 'true', 'truth' etc all share the same
> general space, the space emphasising 'oneness', the space emphasising internal
> unity and the expression of that unity.
>
> As far as 'truths' to sentences go, no problem in that since it is all LOCAL.
> As far as 'truths' to sentences that semantically go beyond the bounds of the
> local, that is a problem in that you move from what IS to what COULD BE and
> so there are no 'truths' there, only potentials. :-) Truths, regardless of
> 'class' - personal, cultural, universal are only absolutes locally.
>
> To adopt some concept as an 'absolute truth' is up to you. If it works for
> you, if it helps you to develop without wandering off into ga-ga land then
> that is fine but to prove your truth 'outright' I dont think is not possible
> using
> our preferred methods of analysis.
I admit nevertheless that your point of view is quite unusual from me, and
though I have no objection to the "big picture" (as long as it is understood to
be a big picture from that point of view, of course), I may have misunderstood
something here and there or possibly I may have misunderstood where is that
point of view located at all. It seems that your msg talks to my parafovea much
more than it does to my fovea :-)
--
Andrea Sosio
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