At the risk of adding more fluff to the conversation let me parade my tiny bit of knowledge.
Noam Chomsky of MIT fame postulates in his study of language three distortions that are present within any verbal communication. He called them deletion, distortion and generalization. He claimed that language is a 'map, not a territory'. And as a map it is a sort of shorthand for reality in which a certain amount of information is deleted or distorted or is generalized.
People who use words that cover too much - like desire are engaging in the aspect of generalization. We all do, it is the nature of language that it cannot provide a full description of reality. However, generalization or deletion or distortion all create their own forms of pathology in humans. As NLP, a form of psychotherapy, took these insights into techniques for solving psychological problems by developing a series of questions to challenge the patients view of reality by asking them specific questions - this was called the Meta Model.
Your two statements would be questioned by a therapist in the following manner.
"Man's desires are unlimited"
"Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion."
What do you mean by man?
What desires specifically are you referring too?
Unlimited in what way?
How do you seek - what are the criteria you use?
What does satisfy mean to you?
The idea of this questioning is to try and connect these statements of generalization to reality. For much pathology is a disconnect of an individual from reality. It is not the intention to prove the generalization wrong - rather it is a method of trying to get an individual to have a more realistic defining of their internal meaning which they are trying to convey through language which is too far divorced from experience - and from which many of us act as if everyone else absolutely understood - as the speaker is sure that he knows what he means. However, he finds constant conflict with others who cannot accept his sweeping generalizations - even though they may seem perfectly sensible.
This seems to be the case that you are generating by continuing to hold that your sweeping generalizations are some kind of "Universal Truth" and the evidence of this list is that others do not find that true in their own experience - or only partially true. Hence we have conflict.
Now, when someone holds onto their generalizations as if they were the "truth", rather than just a way of explianing an internal subjective judgement of reality and this clashes with other individuals internal experience - no resolution but conflict or leaving the field is possible. This happens in business, marriages, families and almost anywhere communication takes place. When it get's too far out of line, then it could be considered pathological in the sense that it creates conflict rather than understanding.
As I wrote in my previous post, this is the case for me. In my internal experience, I can find many instances where I would not have attributed these statements as covering all of my behavior - yet retaining the idea that in some of my actions they are very true statements. How can something be true in one instance and not true in another? That is where ol Marshal McCluhan comes in with his model of figure/ground. It is all in the context. What may very well be true in one context, may not be true in another context - the figure/ground context has changed.
Now you are using these statements in economic terms. The ground is the economy and the figure is the individual. And you claim within this figure/ground context your statements are 'true enough' to use as a basis for an economic theory. Many of us are saying, that there are more contexts that we are involved in than just economics and as such we find a discordance with the absolute aspect of generalizing these statements as Universal Truth. Life is not just economics. And many of us also find discordance with these premises even used in an economic sense - but that is from our personal map of reality which could be operating off it's own pathologies.
Still, no matter what counter arguments we present, you continue to dogmatically hold to your assertions which has led to conflict or avoidance - not understanding. Still, Harry, I must give you the credit of patience for you have taken each of our challenges and reframed it to justify your truth - but it is not a Universal Truth, it is just your truth - or the truth of your particular orthodoxy - no different from a Catholic who does not believe in birth control who patiently uses his assumptions to justify a contextual insight. Outside of the Catholic context might be a context of excessive population and it would indicate a different 'truth'.
At the end of the day, the essence of communication is our human attempt to try and convey what is inside our head to the inside of someone else's head in a way that will be understood. When there is conflict or avoidance - then one might assume that misunderstanding between two or more viewpoints prevents learning as each viewpoint becomes polarized on their truth as seen from the inside of their head. What is the answer? Well, all we have come up with is the idea of a third party - an objective and knowledge individual who seeks not to find out who is right, but to assist each side to more fully explain their model until a 'comm uni cation' takes place that leads to resolution or learning. In business, this is often called a negotiator, in pathology, it is a psychologist, in learning, it is called a teacher.
My sense is that this discussion needs a facilitator who can elicite from you and others a 'more full' representation of what is inside their individual heads until the resolution of conflict and learning take place. Until then, as long as one or more of the parties continue to hold and justify their viewpoint, only conflict or avoidance will result.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
PS:
I might add that an interesting discovery was found when the founders of NLP studied the master hypnotist, Dr. Milton Ericson. They found that Milton reversed the Meta Model while inducing hypnotic trances. That using language with the intent of introducing generalizations, deletions and distortions had the ability to induce trance. A truism, continually expounded, can actually produce a truth. Ol Marshal, cleverly identified this when he used the phrase, 'when a cliche becomes an archetype'. Your statements are a cliche. When enough people become hypnotized into believing this, then for them, it is an absolute truth, and you will have created an archetype.
on 3/31/02 1:03 AM, Harry Pollard at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Ray,
Sorry to take so long. Generally you bring up interesting things and I tend to put them on one side to answer later. Then comes a veritable torrent that buries me. I am also in the middle of setting up an Agoura - a market place of ideas. The idea came from my experiences on FW.
We need a place where differing ideas can collide and from their friction produce light as well as heat.
So, excuse my delay.
I think that connote beats denote anytime, but there you are. I've connoted "desire" and promised to deal with "exertion". But, now you want verbs as well.
"Man's desires are unlimited" refers of course to homo sapiens and as I'm not a homophobe, I don't think ill of Mankind. I think they are doing the best they can.
And they have desires.
A desire is a longing for something. Unlike 'want', or 'wish', desire implies an intention to satisfy. We can glean your desires from your actions.
A desire is a longing that is strong enough to stimulate one to try to satisfy it.
"Unlimited" means just that. Our desires run from the everyday needs to long term possibilities that may become probable as time goes by.
Man seeks to satisfy his desires with the least exertion.
Exertion is the outward manifestation of everything within the individual. Exertion is particularly important in political economy (not economics) for the product of our exertion is our Wages. (That's an "official" word, so I have capitalized it.)
The important word is "seeks" (looks for). The least exertion isn't always found, but we'll look for it and prefer it.
Harry
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Ray answering Brad:
However, I would enjoy someone else or better still you take another look at
Information Theory or the Theory of Codes as a basis for examination of the
Three Basic Realms of Harry and Company.
Harry I'm still looking for a denotative definition of your nouns and active
verbs in your assumptions because I have visceral reactions to your
statements but in truth I have no conscious idea of what you mean since your
words are your own. Contextual descriptions are just hints and not nearly
specific enough for examination of a word. A number maybe in a math
formula but not a word. Words are not Math formulas. They are
something else. A symbol that goes to the root of our being and even
carries meaning and power across space. Imagine how important 2 is.
You remember 2 don't you? But if I say Jerusalem. That is indeed
different and you have to know which Jerusalem I am speaking of, otherwise
we will fight over it for 4,000 years.
Hi Selma,
Regards
Ray Evans Harrell
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Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
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