On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 6:24 AM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[email protected]> wrote:
[John] > Intellectual descriptions are inevitably culturally derived. But... In > order to > conceptualize self, the Other is of absolute, logical necessity. > > [Arlo] > I don't see how this is a "but". Of course, "culturally derived" means > following the assimiliation of a social symbolic code, which, of course, > derives from the mutuality of recognizing the "other". [John] The "but" butts in because I'm thinking the conceptualization of self comes before and precedes intellectual description OR social symbolic code. Thus placing an urgent primacy upon the insight of how this conceptualization of self arises. [John] > The apprehension of difference, contrast, similarity and definition is no > doubt > shaped by culture, language and intellect, but I'd say primarily it derives > from an interactive relationship; first and foremost before > language/culture > gets its greedy paws on it. > > [Arlo] > Let me ask, does a dog have this apprehension? An amoeba? A carbon atom? At > what point, and how, do these apprehensions appear? [John] A dog? In my experience, yes. An amoeba? In my experience, no. But thank the cosmos that I have dogs and amoeba's to compare because it is the contrast in my experiences of these differing patterns of biological value that I observe and learn what "apprehension" or concept of self means. > [Arlo] > I don't know, I was sitting here eating a dark chocolate bar infused with > chili > extract, and I think that in the moment of enjoying that, nothing was more > evident. > [John] Hah. That's what you think. > [John] > And a metaphysics that takes human perception of "time" as an absolute > given > is fraught with difficulty and paradox. > > [Arlo] > Of course, but you have to ACCOUNT for it. You can't simply ignore it. [John] I agree of course. I think the point is that it's tricky. There are very strong and pervasive common-sense notions of time and causation that contain paradoxical truth traps in the very system of rationality developed from them. The term, "genetic defect in reason" comes to mind. [Arlo] > If you > are, for example, proposing that modern human cognition "causes" the past > ... [John] I'm not. [Arlo] > You can't simply say > "ignore time" or "ignore history". > [John] I wouldn't. I would say that if you want to go deep, you have to pay careful attention to both those things, time and history. Time because of what I said earlier and history because it is a creation of historians who ALWAYS have an agenda. [Arlo] If you want to argue that the reason it appears that human in ancient > pre-history acquired consciousness is because modern humans had it given to > them by an outside source, then your "metaphysics" must explain this. If > you > account for dinosaurs by saying the bones are there because modern human > imagination willed them into existence, then you must explain this. But I want to argue neither of those things. I have no evidence at all of humans pre-existent to history. I have access to the postulates, theories and myth trotted out from varying cultures from all over the globe to chose from and I use the knowledge that Quality is real to guide my selection from this cornucopia. I have a strong feeling that those who argue most vociferously for their particular point of view have agendas antithetical to the pursuit of truth. And I've never seen a real dinosaur only theoretical ones propounded by metaphorical ones. [Arlo] I'm not arguing for any particular view of "time" per se, only that when a > theory denies what we know about history (geological, anthropological, > social, > etc.) then it can't just go "forget about all that stuff". > > It occurs to me that your "what we know" contains a great deal of static baggage that I'm not sure we can carry forward. Metaphysically speaking, that is. peace out, John Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
