I enjoyed Friam for a few years -- glad to see a few others have ventured into expanded awareness explorations, like Zen -- shared paranormal experience is core to conveying mysticism -- this is becoming more prominent in recent years with the proliferation of free video teaching, crafted to induce expanded states in the viewers -- just Google "nonduality" ... the style is to deepen the real-time process of intimate communication about moment by moment raw experience, while agreeing on shared positive goals -- this leads to viewpoints and vistas that completely shift and expand human experience beyond the usual limits...
On Mon, Nov 2, 2015 at 2:48 PM, glen <[email protected]> wrote: > On 11/02/2015 08:44 AM, glen wrote: > >> On 11/02/2015 01:55 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> It seems to highlight the state vs. behavior duality. >>> >>> [NST==>Do I know that duality? I am guessing that I think of them in >> terms of levels of organization. Can you say more? <==nst] >> > > So, in the 20 or so minutes I've spent thinking about virtue argumentation > (obviously enough to make me an expert), shifting judgements of "good" > arguing from the argument to the arguers is enlightening. It reminds me of > considering things like "white space" in a document or a GUI, or "negative > space" in an image. In math (or computation, or both), there's a duality > between things and activity, objects vs processes, state vs. behavior, > nodes vs. edges. I suppose we see it in physics as well, with mass vs. > energy. Most consideration of argumentation focuses on the arguments. > Switching to think more about the arguers is interesting in that same sense > as particle vs. wave flip-flopping is interesting. > > > [NST==>Glen, how familiar are with Peirce’s weird form of [idealistic] >> realism. And how it leads both to tough scientism and blousy >> postmodernism, in different hands. <==nst] >> > > I'm not at all familiar! So, now I have something else to learn about. > > You tend to spend quite a bit of time trashing relativist positions >>> (including the more extreme postmodernism), yet argue in favor of face 2 >>> face teaching, apparently on the grounds that social context is at least >>> somewhat powerful. Do you admit a full spectrum of power: realism <-> >>> constructivism? Or is the rant against MOOCs just a "get off my lawn" and, >>> deep down, you stick with hard-line realism? >>> >>> [NST==>I am sure there is a contradiction in here somewhere, but I don’t >> yet see it. Couldn’t I believe that conversation with other well-informed >> people is the best way to arrive at the real? Or, at least, one of several >> methods, all of which make a contribution? Could you say a bit more? >> <==nst] >> > > Well, you could argue "parallax", the idea that none of us have (or can > have) perfectly accurate opinions, but that collections of us have more > accurate opinions than individuals. To me, though, this gives weight to > things like postmodernism (at least in my own almost private understanding > of what "postmodernism" means). Here is the reasoning: > > One important aspect of postmodernism is that guiding towards a vanishing > point (reality) by navigating opinions is only as effective as the > abstraction layers between the target and the opinions. The further > removed you are from the banal, the crazier the navigation gets. This is > why we see so much symbol reuse ... so much so that the symbols take on and > lose entire (distinct) meanings along the way. I.e. postmodernism is a > reduction to absurdity, which can be used to argue _for_ (or against) > realism. > > So, by allowing all the myriad symbols, the rich interconnections between > 2 face 2 face arguers, you're allowing for a large number of abstraction > layers. E.g. something said with a giggle is different from that very same > thing said with disgust. Something said with vocal fry can be very > different than something said valley girl style. ... #whatever > > Therefore, if you're arguing for _more_ abstraction layers (physical > presence in classrooms), then you're arguing for the same layered > abstraction used to make the Postmodernism Point(TM). > > I would think a hard-core (naive) realist would be all for eliminating, > for example, the physical characteristics of a professor, facial ticks, > gesticulating arms, etc. and getting straight at the argument, focusing > less and less on the arguers. So, realists should LOVE the idea of a MOOC > and dislike "virtue argumentation". > > [NST==>Again, I have not very coherent feelings about this domain. I >> recently read THE BIG FAT SURPRISE and decided to believe it hook line and >> sinker. I think there is an awful lot “food witness” going on, where >> people express their individuality by not eating this and that. More of the >> narcissism of the IMac and the You-tube generation. As the family cook, I >> find it’s just a pain in the ass. But just about the time I get on my high >> horse about “people like that”, I encounter somebody with Crohn’s Syndrome, >> and such like, and am completely humiliated. Not much of philosophical >> interest in all of that. <==nst] >> > > Yes, but there is a boon to such "narcissism". I'm beginning to think > differently about that. All this selfie-taking, facebook-obsessed, > soundbite culture, may well be the opposite of narcissism. It may be a > visible/measurable stage of the hive mind required for an earth with 15 > billion people on it. Perhaps we're evolving from herds to biofilms ... > from cells to tissue? > > > -- > ⇔ glen > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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