Hello everyone On Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 12:10 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Carl, > > Carl said: > Time for a big slice of humble pie here. I did confuse the definitions. > (Who was it that said something about a little learning being a > dangerous thing?) See the following for a one-page definition of the > distinction between psychopath and sociopath: > > http://helpingpsychology.com/sociopath-vs-psychopath-whats-the-difference
Hi Carl Thank you for that. I think we all knew what you were talking about... perhaps I am too much a stickler for precision. > > Matt: > That's fair enough. The DSM-IV itself doesn't use the terms officially > (like, in the index for example) and you have to know ahead of time > what the history of label-transformation in the field is. In common > parlance, for example, there's no difference at all between > psychopath and sociopath (that I've found). People pretty much use > them as slang for the same thing: people who lack social empathy. > (Though, my impression is that "psycho" was earlier appropriated > into slang, though lately "socio" has begun displacing it: witness > Dexter. Angel Batista is constantly calling Dexter, ironically, "socio," > though given the weblink, Dexter is clearly a charming psychopath. > Come to think of it, Dexter is a good version of the thought > experiment I fielded. Certainly he's sick, but what does he tell us > about our ways of moral thinking, particularly if we suppose that he > is never outed to the public.) Dan: Gotta disagree once again with you here, Matt. The character of Dexter is not a psychopath in the strict sense of the definition: A social predator who charms, manipulates and ruthlessly plows their way through life...completely lacking in feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret. The fact that Dexter is a serial killer immediately brings to mind the likes of Ted Bundy, Richard Speck, John Gacy, and other notorious psychopaths. But Dexter isn't that kind of serial killer... he is more a vigilante like the character Charles Bronson played in Death Wish. Dexter is a normal, every day person... he is a loving father, he cares deeply for his wife and sister. That is what makes the character so interesting... we can see ourselves doing the same thing that Dexter does given the same circumstances. And remember, Dexter wasn't born a psychopath... he learned his art from his step father. And he adheres to a code. Now... if you really want to see a psychopathic character, check out Walter White on Breaking Bad. The character is distant from his family (doesn't even tell his own wife that he has lung cancer), commits kidnappings, robberies, and murders without batting an eye, and teaches chemistry during the day at a local high school. This guy is one bad muther. You don't want to cross him because you will go down. > > Carl said: > From reading the thread, it strikes me that Persig's definition of DQ > is very similiar to the concept of superposition in quantum theory. > Once a particular option is chosen, it then becomes SQ. Does that > sound too far 'out there'? > > Matt: > No, it sounds about right to me, though I don't like analogies between > social phenomena and scientific phenomena (in the past, they have > often been gateways for reductionism, as people try to stop thinking > of it _as_ an analogy, and for pernicious forms of cosmos-projecting, > i.e. taking one pattern and finding it everywhere, and drawing > conclusions from it and making those conclusions fit back onto the > phenomena, which sometimes creates a square-peg/round-hole > forced feeling). Dan: RMP wrote a paper concerning the framework of complementarity and the MOQ: http://www.moq.org/forum/Pirsig/emmpaper.html But he said later: "The existence of collective masses of electrons can be inferred from experience and there is every reason to think they exist independently of the mind. But in the case of the spin of an individual electron, there is no experience. In addition, the nature of the Heisenberg Theory of Indeterminacy prevents any inference from general collective experience of electrons to certify the spin of any individual electron. If you can’t experience something and you can’t infer it either, then you have no scientific basis for saying that it exists. Thus the single quantum event that is supposed to trigger the cat’s fate is a figment of the imagination. It can never exist independently of the mind and cannot have any effect whatsoever on any real cat that does exist independently of the mind. The Schrödinger experiment is interesting to think about, but like an angels-on-pinheads experiment, is impossible in to perform in an objective world." [Robert Pirsig, LILA'S CHILD] Dan comments: What RMP is saying is that the MOQ sees the "concept of superposition in quantum theory" as a figment of imagination. It cannot exist independently from our mind and has no effect on anything that does exist independently of the mind, like inorganic and biological quality patterns. >Matt: > I prefer the analogy with the practice of common law: there are laws, > but also judgments by judges, and past rulings have the force of law. > This kind of practice mimics the authority of tradition and codifies it > as a principle: stare decisis, the rule of precedent. You can't just > make up the law (pure chaos), you have to take seriously past > judgments (SQ) and--if you disagree with how to fit a current > experience before you into the past's purview--find in the past a > latent principle that, on the surface might seem to break past > interpretations of the particular law, but in the eyes of future judges, > holds true as what the law really meant all along (DQ). That's for > English and American common law what betterness replacing past > static patterns would look like. Dan: That's interesting. I am unsure if your Dynamic Quality/static quality analogy holds water though I am probably not seeing things quite right. You seem to be saying Dynamic Quality is what the law meant in the past, means now, and will mean forever. I think of law, common or codified, as purely static quality. Dynamic Quality, or the notion of what is better, is what's behind the continuing evolution of law... it changes with the social circumstances of the times via intellectual arguments and judgements. If that's what you mean... then I agree. Thank you, Dan 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
