Hi Matt, On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 6:05 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Mark, > > I think the problem is/was/may-have-been that you were concerned > about people you needn't be concerned about...? I don't know. I > don't engage in cultural polemic too often when I do philosophy, so I > wasn't thinking about people who take Dr. Phil seriously, of which I > agree, there are some. I wasn't thinking about advertizing agencies, > though I'm not sure whether that's an ethical issue at a different > level than how we conceive of the mind. But like I said, we probably > swing in different circles. Though I've also been known not panic at > the cultural level.
Well maybe, but I think my concern was the posibility that we be considering MoQ as some kind of psychological apparition. To place it in the anals of philosphy as some kind of "interesting" idea that came to a person on the verge of a nervous breakdown. These "breakdowns" are certainly cast a negative light in our current society, and something to be avoided at all costs. Ooooh, Pirsig had a breakdown, no wonder! So, indeed this is not a panic of any sort, perhaps a mild anxiety of fruitlessness. > > My suspicion, which puts us at odds, is that you have a reductionist > view of the discipline of psychology, one that only focuses on > reductionists. But I don't know. All I know is that you must have > misspoke in your statement that you "do not believe that our minds > can be objectified," because if it was a matter of "can," then we > wouldn't be able to do it, which means you'd have nothing to fear. > One might put it that I _do_ actually think that our minds can't be > objectified, but that's only because the sense of "objectified" you > seem to have been using is based on SOM assumptions, and I don't > think those assumptions give us a working picture of the mind. > Whatever "objectivity" about the mind may be, it is not rooted in that > problematic. The problems you want to talk about seem to me much > more discussable only when we don't talk at such an abstract level > as you do. But I'm likely in the minority here, as Pirsig does discuss > these problems at that level of abstraction. But either way, your > conditional claim that "the intent of psychology to 'understand' the > mind through rigorous data collection" doesn't seem right to me as > history or conceptual substance. It sounds like the oversimplification > you otherwise want to avoid. Well, yes our minds cannot be objectified. But we can adopt the view that they can. This as I see it is the purpose of psychology. That is, to endeavor towards the perfect human who is tranquil and free of worry, all through antecedent control and drugs and genetic engineering. For, isn't that the purpose of evolution, after all? Again, shades of 1984. We already see much progress towards this, but I will not bore you with my conjectures on that. Suffice it to say that I see an evil psychologist around every corner... I would love to avoid the oversimplification, and do, as far as the mind is concerned. However, if one looks at psychology and notices the classifications that are resulting, one can only be reminded of Aristotle. We are currently being left with "types" of abnormal (and normal) behavior. Did you know that there are "two types of people"? Or maybe it is three, depending on the guru one reads. The problem is that people actually begin to see themselves as the textbook describes them, and then say, "Well, yes I can't help it, I am a type A personality" as if that is sufficient justification. You know, we have the racists and the fundamentalist and the occupy wallstreeters, and the childish, and the old, and the meek, and the arrogant. People then feel it is appropriate to choose what group they are part of based on the classification they are given. And so, the "behavioral" groups grow. Perhaps you are not familiar with this phenomenon, and live in a nice neighborhood, but Southern California is full of these "cults". We've got the Geeks, the valley girls, the Theosophists, the rednecks, the Christians, the actors, the producers, the gangbangers, the rage drivers, the housewifes, the Casanovas, etc., and a wide variety of smaller sects that sit around 6 pointed stars and such. These all become behavioral classifications that the press loves to establish and promote. And we ask, what was it about their childhood? And people say, yup, too bad I was born that way. People ask "what do the occupy wallstreet people want?", so that they can classify them. As far as I can tell these are people that have reached their limit of frustration and are acting out in the only way they know. So I guess I classify them as the frustrated sect. I think if they promoted themselves that way, the movement would take off (you know, the Mad as Hell people) However, there is a psychological anathema to simply being frustrated, since our intellect should dominate our emotions. They MUST have a logical solution. So we have the relegation of "feelings" to some animal behavior by some psychologists who believe that reason should prevail and they try to talk to frustrated people reasonably, when such a thing will not do a thing. Ever try to calm down two fighting dogs? > > As for whether I was ready to deal with ZMM or ZMM created me, I > thought the one thing we did agree solidly on is that it was nearly > impossible to tell which was which? > Yup, the dance of two possibilities. Not nearly as fun as line dancing. > Matt > > p.s. That's a SOMist notion of proof you used at the end. Hmmmm... well what can I say, I was born into the wrong century, and was dropped on my head, and there is this heritable gene that I can tell you about... And don't forget that I am a professional scientist, so it is all that I know. Can't help it, so stop making fun of me there are laws against that! Cheers, Mark > > 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
