Jeez, Arlo, WTF?
On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:16 PM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <[email protected]> wrote: > [Ian] > Just to be clear, before I respond to the rest of that long para ... I don't > have a problem, and I don't see those things (words or static patterns) as > limiting - UNLESS we allow ourselves to be limited by them (which I don't). > > [Arlo] > I'm saying we don't have a choice, those things are both enabling and > constraining, they both sent boundaries (limits) and enable us to act within > those limits. > > Consider the oft-quoted passage from LILA: Descartes' "I think therefore I > am" was a historically shattering declaration of independence of the > intellectual level of evolution from the social level of evolution, but would > he have said it if he had been a seventeenth century Chinese philosopher? If > he had been, would anyone in seventeenth century China have listened to him > and called him a brilliant thinker and recorded his name in history? If > Descartes had said, "The seventeenth century French culture exists, therefore > I think, therefore I am," he would have been correct. > > But, of course, some "menus" are better than others, some menus allow us > greater agency, some expand the lines of constraint, and this is because > "menus" aren't just abstractions that happen in a realm separate from 'lived > real life', but- just like inorganic, biological and social patterns- are a > part of lived real life, and have effects on both agency and structure, on > both ability and limit. > > And, of course, the levels themselves are evolutionary ways to expand agency > and overcome lower-level "limits", and the next evolutionary step in levels > will no doubt help us overcome the innate limits of the intellectual level- > but even this level will impose its own set of limits just as it affords > expanded agency. > > > TL/DR; you are limited by language, but you are also enabled, nature of the > beast. > 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
