On 2/15/13 10:45 AM, "David Buchanan" <[email protected]> wrote:
D: We have watched you berate Marsha over and over on this point and although Marsha needs no one to defend her, you on the other hand might think about broadening your horizons a bit. If you haven't read this article recently posted by yet another David you might think about it: http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/1016083/RSA_Social-Brain_D ivided-Brain.pdf In it he draws a clear distinction between the DEFINITION of reason and rationality. I suggest that you are being very rational but not very reasonable. Years ago I made the point that Pirsig made the division Static/Dynamic for rhetorical purposes. Meaning because it suggested a very clear cut, definitive split. But in his further fleshing out of what qualities static patterns of quality were like, a more accurate and more reasonable DEFINITION of those qualities would have been, "stable." sta·ble 1 (stbl) adj. sta·bler, sta·blest 1. > a. Resistant to change of position or condition; not easily moved or > disturbed: a house built on stable ground; a stable platform. > b. Not subject to sudden or extreme change or fluctuation: a stable economy; a > stable currency. > c. Maintaining equilibrium; self-restoring: a stable aircraft. Now years later we hear via Ant that Pirsig, upon consideration, agrees that "stable" really would have been a better choice. And, What do you do? Ignore it and keep frothing at the mouth with more and viler ad holmium attacks. When are you ever going to grow up? In my world, stable every changing patterns of quality are sure closer to my knowledge of experience than ones that, "Have no motion; being at rest; quiescent or are fixed; stationary. The primary DEFINITIONS of STATIC. But that's just me. Oh and Marsha, and probably every other less pedant human than you. Dave > Marsha said to dmb: > > > You want to fault me for quoting RMP: his language, his concept, his words. > When you present a quote it is evidence of your deep understanding and high > intellectual competency, and when I present a quote it is my contradiction, > in-coherence and anti-intellectualism. Right. I still deny that concepts > and language are a "contemptible prison". > > > Pirsig said: > "... The definition is a cage... You set limits on what a word is. You set > limits on what your experience is. And those limits, which you set in order > that you can manipulate these words, are also a cage for that word. It can't > go beyond it one way or another." > > > > dmb says: > > The problem is not quoting Pirsig but MISREADING quotes from Pirsig. The other > problem is simply contradicting yourself from one moment to the next and using > contradictory terms in your sentences. Given the context of this discussion, > wherein the criticism centers on your excessively negative attitude toward > words and concepts, I can only conclude that the "cage" quote is being used to > push back against this criticism. > > It doesn't. Quite the opposite. To say that definitions set limits like a cage > is not some deep mystical insight and in fact this meaning can be seen in the > Latin root words. from Latin definitio(n-), from the verb definire set bounds > to¹ (see define ). > > Even further, these limits and boundaries are what enable us the have language > at all. Those limits are nothing less than the difference between one meaning > and another. The use of contradictory terms is a violation of those limits and > a destroyer of intelligible meaning. The term "static", for example, cannot > rightly be substituted or equated to "ever-changing". Those are two completely > different cages and you'd have to break one or the other to make that work, > which is why it does NOT work. Neither does "liquid ice" or "clean filth". > Contradictory phrases and sentences have no intellectual value. How is this > even debatable!? > > "Propositions show what they say: tautologies and contradictions show that > they say nothing." Ludwig Wittgenstein > > > > > 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
