[MD] The double blind double bind

[ian glendinning]

Alan, Ted,

I think that doubly blind double bind is what I call our "Catch-22".
I think it's a real issue. Great verses.

The Michael Crichton "State of Fear" rings bells too.
Sacred cows as truth references - I like it.

MoQ'ers take a look at this FoW thread.

Ian

On 6/17/06, ted lumley <emiliano at goodshare.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> dear alan,
>
>
>
> your piece recalls citations from a scientist who is currently being
> oppressed by the politicization of science in regard to 'anthropogenic
> global warming'.  he (david deming) cites from michael crichton's 'state of
> fear' and comments as follows;
>
>
>
> "Perhaps the most interesting character in State of Fear is professor Norman
> Hoffman. Professor Hoffman studies what he calls the "ecology of thought."
> In a memorable soliloquy, Hoffman muses how the most prosperous and safe
> civilization in human history has become obsessed with doomsday visions and
> exists in a "state of fear."
>
> Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society
> really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented
> safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in
> the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of
> strangers, disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the
> homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them.
> They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see--germs,
> chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and
> depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment
> of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the
> belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion--a global fantasy
> worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live
> in fear. Amazing (Crichton, 2004, p. 455).
>
> Foremost among the institutions that promote the state of fear are American
> universities. The modern State of Fear could never exist without
> universities feeding it. There is a peculiar neo-Stalinist mode of thought
> that is required to support all this, and it can only thrive in a
> restrictive setting, behind closed doors, without due process. In our
> society, only universities have created that--so far. The notion that these
> institutions are liberal is a cruel joke. They are fascist to the
> core...(Crichton, 2004, p. 459).
>
> As the twenty-first century dawns in America, our institutions of higher
> education appear to be reverting to their Medieval ancestors. Intolerant and
> dogmatic, European universities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
> were dedicated to maintaining the intellectual consensus. After attending
> most of the European colleges of his day, Paracelsus (1493-1541)
> characterized his university education by stating:
>
> I was brought up in the garden where the trees are mutilated (Baas, 1889, p.
> 377).
>
>  * * *
>
>
>
> perhaps bath is a but a remote lagoon in the riptide of reversion of
> academic institutions to intolerance and dogmatism, .
>
>
>
> i will copy you offline with an exchange i have with a russian philosophy
> professor, valentin bazhanov, on the politicization of science.  his
> following paper, passed to me by a friend, attracted my attention;
>
>
>
> Logic and Ideologized Science Phenomenon (Case of the URSS)
> http://staff.ulsu.ru/bazhanov/english/asml_bazh1.pdf
>
> Valentin A. Bazhanov
>
> abstract. The paper analyses the reasons of negative attitude against logic
> in the USSR under ideologized science phenomenon and describe the process of
> deliberation of formal logic from Marxist-Leninist ideology.
>
>
>
>
>
>  * * *
>
>
>
> coming form 'inclusionality', the idea is that a too-simple (reductionist
> science) has politicized the world.   but what is interesting here is that
> the marxist philosophy attacked the 'law of the excluded middle' and this it
> has in common with 'inclusionality', ... but there are many ways to look at
> the same conflict.
>
>
>
> anyhow, the academic who is singled out by bazhanov as having done well in
> his zeal to apply marxist ideas in science is one lev semyonivich vygotsky
> ('thought and language') who i often cite as an 'incluisionalist'.  the
> enduring field of study known as 'paraconsistent logic' connects with
> vygotsky by way of his close working associate luria through luria's
> connection in kazan with vasiliev, who is recognized as the founder of
> 'paraconsistent logic' which vasiliev called 'imaginary logic'.
>
>
>
> if one looks up 'paraconsistent logic' on the internet, and reaches the
> stanford encyclopedia, ... the first example given is bohr's model of the
> electron in the atom, and it notes that while that 'works', there is also
> maxwell's equations that say that an electron in orbit must radiate energy
> in which case it cannot sustain itself in orbit (without an influx of
> energy, which would obviate seeing the atom as a closed system).
>
>
>
> 'paraconsistent logic' refers to the ability of two workable models to exist
> at the same time even though they are conflict with one another.
>
>
>
> where vygotsky took this 'paraconsistent logic' in the case of language and
> thought, was that we could model the meaning giving powers of language in
> conveying thought, either in terms of words being endowed with 'independent
> objecthood' in the dynamics of meaning-giving, so that they possessed an
> internal 'first cause' or 'self-determinism' in asserting meaning, and that
> language could therefore be seen as the construction of meaning from
> independent 'atoms' or 'bricks' of meaning endowed (by us) with their own
> meaning-giving 'first cause' or 'determinism'.
>
>
>
> BUT, said vygotsky, that is the smaller view of what is really on since
> meaning is like a field-flow that continually evolves (his research approach
> he calls 'geneticheskii' which is similar to the marxist material
> dialectic).    the meaning that words take on, rather than being absolute,
> by way of our God-like ability to endow words with internal 'first cause',
> ... is relationally derived in the manner of the hurricane within the
> atmospheric flow, ... a word collective coevolves under simultaneous mutual
> influence with the full collective of words (including itself), this
> continuing coevolution making of the words, 'whorls' in the evolving
> flow-field of thought.
>
>
>
> vygotsky's conclusion was that there was a natural precedence in this
> paraconsistent logical modeling, ... much in the manner there was in the
> case of the electron and the atom, schroedinger pointing out, by way of his
> quantum wave-dynamics, that the electron was simply an undulation in the
> evolving wave-substance of space.    bohr's model of the electron within the
> atom then, being a workable model based on geometric objectification of this
> 'undulation' in the evolutionary quantum wave flow-field, endowing it with
> 'independent existence', ... but relating to maxwell's and schroedinger's
> models within this paraconsistent logical modeling, as a reduction of the
> evolutionary flow-based model.
>
>
>
> this natural precedence in the case of paraconsistent logical models, as
> argued for by vygotsky, is essentially where 'inclusionality' is coming
> from.
>
>
>
> vygotsky claimed that piaget was erroneously interpreting his own research
> experimental data on the manner in which develop concepts in our minds.
> there are essentially two types of concepts referred to at that time as
> 'spontaneous concepts' and 'non-spontaneous concepts' (the latter are also
> referred to as 'scientific concepts').    piaget treated the relational
> 'spontaneous concepts' as a kind of low value soup which was given its
> flavour by the non-spontaneous concepts floating in it, ... thus piaget
> opted for the foundational precedence of the meaning-packed-object-concepts.
>
>
>
> one can understand this view if one avoids thinking in terms of a continuing
> evolutionary dynamic.   that is, if conceptual understanding itself is
> something that 'exists' and we try to 'take it apart' in our usual
> analytical fashion, then we get some 'object-concepts' and 'some other
> stuff', ... just as we take apart DNA, with a mind to locate the 'flavour
> buds' that deliver the qualities of the genetically-determined life-object,
> and we are left with a bunch of 'other stuff' that must be of low value
> since we have grasped and isolated the independent object-buds endowed with
> 'first cause' and 'self-determinism' (but, 'endowed by whom or what? ... we,
> the observer, perhaps).
>
>
>
> anyhow, if one allows the notion of an evolutionary flow-field to enter into
> it, then those entities that we objectified (bohr's electron's, piaget's
> scientific concepts) are instead undulations in the relational substance of
> the evolutionary flow-field, or 'schaumkommen' (appearances) in
> schroedinger's terms, and they are decidedly NOT foundational to the overall
> dynamic
>
>
>
> this was vgyotsky's objection to piaget's interpretation of concept
> formation.  vygotsky found that a child's socialization involved spontaneous
> concept formation as relational whorls which was then precipitated into
> word-based structured concepts amenable to discourse.
>
>
>
> piaget's insistence on the primacy of scientific (rational) concepts in this
> 'paraconsistent logical modeling' was thus akin to insisting on the primacy
> of bohr's atoms over maxwell's and shroedinger's undulations in the
> evolutionary spatial-relational field-flow., ... and/or in the case of
> relativity, to insist on the geometric-object-material-body based version of
> the solar system in paraconsistent logical modeling that, by the
> matter-energy equivalence of relativity, pointed to those material bodies
> being local spatial-relational concentrations of energy in the evolving
> gravitational field-flow.
>
>
>
> what bazhanov is suggesting is that the prevailing politics of the day and
> of the region imposes pressure on manner we do our science and academic work
> and since academia is kind of a gatekeeping authority over how we think, ...
> you know, ... as crichton suggests;
>
> "The modern State of Fear could never exist without universities feeding it.
> There is a peculiar neo-Stalinist mode of thought that is required to
> support all this, and it can only thrive in a restrictive setting, behind
> closed doors, without due process. In our society, only universities have
> created that--so far. The notion that these institutions are liberal is a
> cruel joke. They are fascist to the core...(Crichton, 2004, p. 459).
>
> as you note, alan, the 'due process' that is accorded to ideas such as yours
> is radically deficient in evolutionary capability, and as for those of us
> outside of academia, our lives will certainly be impacted by the ideas that
> are being hatched in academia operationalized through government without the
> general public having any say in the matter (the general public can only
> agree or disagree).
>
>
>
> what is occurring now is that politicians in cohorts with commercial movers
> and shakers are 'buying academics' so as to use academia in their capacity
> of 'the brain of the community' to operationalize the dynamics that benefit
> them.
>
>
>
> meanwhile, academia has come up with the idea of 'paraconsistent logic' and
> with all kinds of examples, like bohr's model of the electron and maxwell's
> and schroedinger's, and the relations there-between, ... so academia has the
> potential to expose its own duplicity (our own duplicity) and put it into a
> natural relational reconciliation that could subsume the current medieval
> intolerance and dogmatism, but the politics of the day are 'literalism' and
> 'fundamentalism' where 'good' and 'evil' are in an 'excluded middle'
> confrontation and the entire world is being mobilized in the object paradigm
> battle between 'good' and 'evil', and this inverting of the natural
> precedence in paraconsistent logical models has the bit in its teeth in
> academia.
>
>
>
> we've got a lot of sacred cows now that have become foundational as
> truth-references, ... and high on the list is the notion of 'genes' that are
> the value-containing flavour-bud object-bits in an otherwise excluded middle
> valueless broth that serves as no more that an operational staging ground
> for their creative constructions.   in so far as these concepts are defended
> as pillars of truth that can guide truth-finding elsewhere, and as academia
> has and continues to develop and add frills and refinements and commercial
> structures to them, what we have is a pervasive ersatz truth-framework that
> serves as a reference for our continuing truth-exploring, ... a framework
> that is medieval, intolerant and dogmatic because the internal meaning in
> its object flavour-buds is the endowment of academia rather than the
> endowment of nature.
>
>
>
> this is just to echo your frustration, alan, ... you as an insider in
> academia who is accorded 'due process' that is rigged, and me as an outsider
> to academia who is denied access to due process altogether and given no
> choice but to suffer under the absurdities hatched in academia (more often
> than not the cuckoos eggs of politics and business) and operationalized
> through the 'first cause' powers of nation-state object-flavour-bud central
> authority.
>
>
>
> heh o,
>
>
>
> ted
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>
> From: A.D.M.Rayner [mailto:A.D.M.Rayner at bath.ac.uk]
> Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2006 7:22 AM
> To: frieNDSOFWISDOM-D at jiscmail.ac.uk
> Cc: inclusionality at jiscmail.ac.uk; Ted Lumley; tim at ahead-space.com;
> terryhewitt25 at hotmail.com; robyn_pound at yahoo.com;
> proberts at solutions-inc.co.uk; Peter Mellett; paul murray;
> naidoo at waitrose.com; moiralaidlaw at yahoo.co.uk; mfarren at compapp.dcu.ie;
> maryanstey at ntlworld.com; LisaLoveridge at uk2.net;
> kathrynyeaman at wiltshire.gov.uk; jspiro at brookes.ac.uk; Jacqui Scholes-Rhodes;
> jackiewilliams at lineone.net; Jack Whitehead; HermesConsulting at aol.com;
> Eleanorlohr at aol.com; beatriz.grandi at sanandres.esc.edu.ar;
> bcunningham2 at eircom.net; Alon Serper; adsmtd at bath.ac.uk;
> 106642.1700 at compuserve.com; Marie Huxtable
> Subject: The double blind double bind
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear All,
>
>
>
>
>
> Recent experiences and frustrations have induced me to compose the piece
> pasted below.
>
>
>
>
>
> Ring any bells?
>
>
>
>
>
> I suspect this is what those seeking wisdom have to reckon with if they are
> ever to become accepted within those ivory towers.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Best
>
>
>
>
>
> Alan
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
> The Double Blind Double Bind
>
> How Academic Orthodoxy Cannot Accept What It Needs to Accept to Make Sense
>
>
>
> I will accept what you say if you can convince me to do so
>
> For I am Fair and Open Minded
>
> But to convince me you will have to show that I am wrong
>
> When all I have to do
>
> To be sure
>
> Of my independent rightness
>
> Is define what I am not
>
> And have no need for further enquiry
>
> Beyond the realm of my security
>
>
>
> So I can wilfully
>
> With Authority
>
> Suppress the disquieting silence
>
> Of your creativity
>
> And be assured of the longevity
>
> Of my double bog standards
>
> Of excellent mediocrity
>
>
>
> I have no need for receptivity
>
> I can fix things for myself
>
> For I am certain
>
> Of my independence
>
> Until you convince me otherwise
>
> But then again I can be sure
>
> That you're not me
>