Dmb,

Where did I state that "concepts are necessary to act in the world"?


Marsha



On Jun 7, 2011, at 11:48 AM, david buchanan wrote:

> 
> dmb said:
> You can't say that reification is "interdependent with the conceptualization 
> process" or simply "conceptualization reifies" AND also say that concepts are 
> necessary to act in the world.
> 
> Mary replied:
> Why not?
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> Like I already said, you can't make both assertions because they are mutually 
> exclusive claims. To say that reification is interdependent with the 
> conceptualization process means that concepts depend on reification, that 
> concepts need to be reified, that forming an idea necessarily entails the 
> conceptual error known as reification. That's like saying the man depends on 
> cancer when in fact getting rid of it is just about all he wants to do. His 
> life depends on NOT having cancer. And this is the point of identifying 
> reification as such, to cure it, to cut it out and restore health to the man. 
> That's what's necessary to act in the world, a healthy concept, free of the 
> cancer of reification.
> 
> The first claim condemns the conceptualization process as inescapably wrong 
> and inherently misleading. The second claim says concepts are necessary. If 
> you don't understand why it is incoherent to make both claims, then I really 
> don't know what to tell you. 
> 
> Mary said:
> The human brain is nothing more than the product of the evolution of Pirsig's 
> static patterns of value.  Static patterns of value interact with one another 
> in static ways.  It would be a leap to expect the static brain to function in 
> a non-static way, would it not?  Conceptualization is no doubt a high quality 
> STATIC pattern of value.  It is a useful and necessary tool for interacting 
> with other static patterns.  It does not follow that it would be necessary 
> for it to develop transcendence.  If it were even a "tendency" of the human 
> mind to flexibly transcend the static, then DQ would not be undefined.  
> Capisce?
> 
> 
> 
> dmb says:
> 
> No, I can't make any sense of that. I don't see how evolution or 
> transcendence has any relevance to my objection. I don't think concepts are 
> supposed to "transcend" the static, whatever that means. The problem is 
> making contradictory claims. It's a simple logic problem. You can't say 
> something is always bad (conceptualization reifies) and also say that same 
> thing is the highest species of static good (necessary to act in the world). 
> IF you want to avoid contradicting yourself and and otherwise present a 
> coherent idea on the topic, then you just can't say both things.
> 
> 
> 
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