I just bought a book for a Dutch friend - 1001 Beers.
On Fri, Nov 15, 2019, at 6:15 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote: > One thing the responses to your post haven't mentioned is that you flatten > (or "thin" or "reduce") relativism to its most simple form. I find people > tend to do this with pluralism, as well. And I think Marcus does a nice job > of showing that nihilism isn't as thin as we may think, either. > > Since I care most about pluralism, I'll make my argument there. A pluralist > isn't required to believe in an infinity of things, only more than 1 thing. > E.g., to my mind, those who believe the standard model's particle zoo is a > problem may *still* be pluralists. But there's just too many fundamental > objects. So, let's unify them down to, say, 3 things. But we don't > necessarily have to unify them down to 1 thing. > > Of course, pluralists need not be discretists, either. So, there's nothing > special about 1 vs 2. What fractal dimension *should* have taught us is that > there are probably competent ways to model reality that allow for, say, 1.001 > fundamental types of thing ... or 13.7 or whatever. Oversimplification is a > risk for any -ism unifier. And it seems like you've done that for relativism. > > On 11/15/19 3:47 AM, Eric Charles wrote: > > The relativist asserts that competence-incompetence and stupid-smart have > > no tangible meaning. > > > > Who is competent and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and > > no point of view is better than another. The designation of "competence" is > > a colonialist activity providing illusory justification for the > > marginalization already oppressed groups, and while it has a valence, it > > has no basis in "reality" (i.e., it is bad, you should stop doing it, and > > you should deeply hate yourself for ever having had done it). To label the > > president as incompetent is to inappropriately invalidate his way of being > > in the world; ways of being are all equally valid. > > > > Who is stupid and who isn't? Eh, it depends on your point of view, and no > > point of view is better than another..... > > > > If you believe that SOME people ARE competent and/or smart, then you can't > > be a relativist. If you believe there is still some chance that competent > > and smart people can make a difference, you are not a nihilist. > > > > Old Soviet Joke: A man walks into a shop and asks, "You wouldn't happen to > > have any fish, would you?". The shop assistant replies, "You've got it > > wrong – ours is a butcher's shop. We don't have any meat. You're looking > > for the fish shop across the road. There they don't have any fish!" > > -- > ☣ uǝlƃ > > ============================================================ > 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 > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ 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 archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
