On Mar 24, 2009, at 8:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
But you, Michael, are one of those guys who embrace the children's book insight that the stone rolling down the mountain has (an unconscious) DESIRE to get down to the valley. You say what you call a "cause" NEEDS its result in order to be fulfilled.
I reread your message and realized I just blew right past this insult. Leave the ad hominems and categorical crap ("one of those guys") out of our discussions.
I explained in my first message that "need" could be construed as a "completion" or fulfullment of a cause. And I said that one "(moi)" uses the term "need" in that sense. So, that's my notion. You changed that into a sarcastic and scornful jest about my embracing a "children's book insight" that the stone "desired" to get down into the valley.
Then, in a subsequent paragraph, you say "It is useful and reasonable to reserve the word 'cause' for an event. Static objects almost never conform to our notion of a 'cause'..." You juxtaposed "static" and "cause" and then described Jake and the Rock. No mention of lexicography or common understanding, etc. You introduce that nuance later in a second message, again with an ad hominem tut-tutting ("Can you honestly say ...?" Of course, I can. I did. Do you think I'm dishonest?).
As a matter of fact, it's curious that you ask "Can you honestly claim you've never used the word 'static' as an adjective to convey that something is at rest, motionless?" You were asking me if I used the word the way you (I suppose) use it and want me to use it.
To answer you, I usually use the word "static" specifically to signify "unchanging," not "motionless." But in the case at hand, when I read "static" and when you then mentioned the rock rolling down a hill (and, of course, the bullet), I thought of the motion of bodies in space, not an apparently motionless rock on a hill. And after Jake did his thing, I certainly didn't think of the rock rolling down hill with desire and longing, etc.
That's how I think when I see the word "static," and I told you so.
("To actualize its potential" perhaps? By God, I now think William is right in sensing that a Jesuistic, Thomastic education can screw some minds up forever.)
Oh, puh-leeze. That so reeks of anti-Catholicism I can't get beyond it to whatever other insult you intended.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady [email protected]
