To put it succinctly: A thing is a think. On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 4:34 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote:
> > John said to Mark: > Perhaps I miss this point because I'm just SO verbally oriented, but when > playing chess or picturing a problem in framing a house, I can see how I'm > using a spatial reasoning that isn't dependent on words but uses abstract > things like shapes and relations. But even here, I'm thinking conceptually > at least. For a relation to exist it must involve discrete "things". And > that has a verbal component, even if I'm just thinking to myself, "that > thing over there". Does that make sense? > > > > dmb says: > > Yes, things and thoughts. It's hard to tell the difference. Maybe there > isn't any difference, eh? Try this on for size, gents. > > From "Pragmatism and Humanism", pages 597-8: > > What shall we call a THING anyhow? It seems quite arbitrary, for we carve > out everything, just as we carve out constellations, to suit our human > purposes. For me, this whole ‘audience’ is one thing, which grows now > restless, now attentive. I have no use at present for its individual units, > so I don’t consider them. So of an ‘army,’ of a ‘nation.’ But in your own > eyes, ladies and gentlemen, to call you ‘audience’ is an accidental way of > taking you. The permanently real things for you are your individual persons. > To an anatomist, again, those persons are but organisms, and the real things > are the organs. Not the organs, so much as their constituent cells, say the > histologists; not the cells, but their molecules, say in turn the > chemists.We break the flux of sensible reality into things, then, at our > will. We create the subjects of our true as well as of our false > propositions.We create the predicates also. Many of the predicates of things > express only the relations of the things to us and to our feelings. Such > predicates of course are human additions. Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and > was a menace to Rome’s freedom. He is also an American school-room pest, > made into one by the reaction of our schoolboys on his writings. The added > predicate is as true of him as the earlier ones.You see how naturally one > comes to the humanistic principle: you can’t weed out the human > contribution. Our nouns and adjectives are all humanized heirlooms, and in > the theories we build them into, the inner order and arrangement is wholly > dictated by human considerations, intellectual consistency being one of > them. Mathematics and logic themselves are fermenting with human > rearrangements; physics, astronomy and biology follow massive cues of > preference. We plunge forward into the field of fresh experience with the > beliefs our ancestors and we have made already; these determine what we > notice; what we notice determines what we do; what we do again determines > what we experience; so from one thing to another, altho the stubborn fact > remains that there IS a sensible flux, what is true of it seems from first > to last to be largely a matter of our own creation.We build the flux out > inevitably. The great question is: does it, with our additions, rise or fall > in value? Are the additions WORTHY or UNWORTHY? > > > dmb continues: > In Lila, Pirsig quotes the notion that "we are suspended in language" and > in ZAMM he explains that we all inherit a conceptual reality that has > evolved over the ages. > > ""In our highly complex organic state we advanced organisms respond to our > environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent earth > and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts, language, > philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We call these analogues > reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the name of > truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone who does not > accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But that which causes us to > invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the continuing stimulus which > our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of > it. Every last bit of it." (ZAMM, p251) > Isn't James saying the same thing when he says, "We plunge forward into the > field of fresh experience with the beliefs our ancestors and we have made > already; these determine what we notice; what we notice determines what we > do; what we do again determines what we experience"? I think so. > > > > > > > > > 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/md/archives.html > 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/md/archives.html
