Tom wrote:
> It's not a matter of dismissing [Harry's] two assumptions but of
> dissecting them.
The trouble with Harry's dogmata is that the first one is tautological
and the second is self-fulfilling. These qualities essentially vitiate
them as analytical tools.
The desires or paramecia are unlimited within their cognitive
framework. Green plants desire sunlight and exhibit phototropism.
Prior to death, there is always a next thing that an organism does.
If the organism is human, thus capable of abstraction and
representation of the future within his cognitive landscape, he
necessarily recognizes preferred futures. Harry's first dogma has
potential as an heuristic proposition to engender analysis of what we
might mean by "desire" but as a law of biology it's tautological.
Living things are alive. Opium is productive of sleep because it
containeth a dormitive principle.
A non-tautological notion of desire leads to conflicts and ambiguities
deserving of study and analysis but the "unlimited" tautology doesn't.
The second dogma is self-fullfilling by reference to the first. I
split my year's firewood by hand. I have the funds to buy a power
splitter that would reduce the exertion of splitting 5 cords of wood but
I do it by hand anyhow. How can that be explained by the second
dogma? Easy: I don't primarily desire, it will be said, to have split
wood; I desire to get exercise, prove I can still do it, show off to
the ladies, avoid loud engine noises or what have you.
One's putative desire can be arbitrarily adjusted to verify the
second dogma. This is a view shared by unreconstructed behavioral
psychologists, who deny "internal states" and thus any real meaning
for "desire". According to this crippled notion of mind, what you
desire is what you do; there is no evidence for anything else.
As with the first, the second dogma might serve as an heuristic
proposition for discussion of how we make choices but fails risibly as
a law of biology.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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