At 03:19 PM 6/11/2009, you wrote:
> >[Krimel]
> > That is groovy but not very helpful if one needs a fire for warmth or a
> > tree for Christmas decoration. All those dynamic alien properties are
> > spiffy and all, but the whole point of conceptualization is to dismiss
> > the irrelevant from the relevant in the given moment. The immediate
> > present contains system within systems and if we are to survive from one
> > moment to the next we need to focus on our relationships within those
> > systems.
> > Concepts are filters that we cultivate over time to help us
> > separate what's important from what's not. In this case we are usually
> > scanning for dynamic foreground against a static background.
>
>[Marsha]
>First, what's that 'we' white man?
>
>[Krimel]
>Us, all of us with nervous systems sufficiently complex to manage it.
[Marsha]
"Concepts are filters that we cultivate". Concepts are filters that
first the theologians and now the scientists "cultivate over time to
help" themselves "separate what's important from what's not".
[Krimel]
The intellectual level is nothing less than rich fertile fields of concepts.
Some of been nurtured for centuries. Thick cypress trees sprouted the
marshes of the Axial Age. Others thrive like kudzu. Hateful vines that
strangle and swallow up everything they touch. Ideas, concepts are our
shared heritage. There are plenty to choose from. Conceptual systems come
with all manner of pedigree. There are ancient bloodlines and the neuvo
rich.
Those conceptual fields of the intellectual level are not just Platonic
Ideals they are manifest in stone and steel. We measure the ages of man as,
stone, copper, bronze and iron. The intellectual level is an ecology of
ideas and systems of ideas. Rather like what Dawkins says about memes and
Pirsig gets at by viewing societies and the Giant as living systems.
What is important and what is, not are questions each of us has to answer
for ourselves each and every second. But that cross is much lighter to bear
when you are dragging it though a rainforest.
>[Marsha]
>Anybody starving in this scientific tech'd-up world?
>
>[Krimel]
>I am not sure why it matters but yes.
[Marsha]
While you are busy patting yourself on the back, I notice many
peoples (women and children) in the world are starving and dying, and
many others (men) are fighting and killing each other for power to
decide on which filters will define "reality". The whole thing seems
a failure.
[Krimel]
Assigning Quality on the basis of gender makes about as much sense to me as
measuring it via body count. Is that what that makes it easier for you to
see nothing but failure.
Two hundred years ago the things that bother you weren't even high on the
list of concerns. They were not understood as problems that could be solved.
They were acts of God, Shit Happening. Things to be endured not things that
could be cured. Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death; history is written in
the hoof prints of the horses of the four riders of apocalypse.
The very fact that you even think in terms of success or failure is clear
evidence of progress. It is a step upward on Maslow's Hierarchy of Need. We
know how to corral those horsemen we are now working on finding the "right"
way to do it. But again it is much easier when we can build fences with
lumber from trees of knowledge and relax in the coolness of their shade
sipping the nectar of their fruit.
>[Marsha]
>Cockroaches have proved successful at survival, humans have proved nothing.
>
>[Krimel]
>What have cockroaches proved? What needs proving?
[Marsha]
I thought you might decide to hawk the success of human survival (you
have used that strategy before) and the idea of protecting your tribe.
[Krimel]
We are surviving and we have the potential to become something
extraordinary. Agent Smith talked about the stench of humanity as a virus in
the system. I think we are more like an immune system. We are developing the
ability to manipulate all of the forces of nature from the tiny to the
immense; among the quick and the dead.
Does it matter? It does to me. But it's ok with me if it doesn't to you.
[Marsha]
I'm sure you are very kind to everyone you meet, a really great guy,
but by some of the talk you seem to me to be scientifically arrogant
and totally heartless.
[Krimel]
I want you think about what you just said.
The kind of guy I am is irrelevant. But you have sampled enough of my posts
over a long enough time to be qualified to pass that kind of judgment on
them.
Do you really mean that?
Scientifically arrogant: YES!
Heartless: no, no, no.
Do you remember the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Try
watching it again with a little bit of heart for a kind of knowing
that is outside of Science.
Marsha
_____________
"He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has."
(Friedrich von Schiller)
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/
