[MD] Fw: Natural or supernatural?

[David M]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David M" <davidint at blueyonder.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Natural or supernatural?


> Hi DMB
>
> see comments:
>
>> David M said to dmb:
>> What I am suggesting is that the idea of the transcendental really came 
>> out
>> of the reality of such possibilities, their reduction into a actuality 
>> that
>> is always a reduction, a subset, of the possible, and the loss of most
>> possibilities that is built into the very being of what is actual.
>
>
>> dmb says:
>> The idea of the transcendental came out possibilities? That's exactly 
>> what I
>> don't get. I understand that five possibilities will be lost when a
>> six-sided die finally stops rolling. (Jez, you must think I'm a retarded
>> child.) What I don't get is your assertion that these lost possibilities 
>> are
>> the sorce of the idea of the transcendental. That makes no sense to me. 
>> As I
>> see it, that idea comes from experience. It comes from actual 
>> transcendental
>> experience, not from imaginig what might have been. The imagination is a
>> wonderful thing and is essential in all forms of creativity, but I don't
>> think there is anything supernatural or transcendent about that.
>
> DM: I am trying to break up this link in your mind between transcendental
> and supernatural (hence the dice example) it is not a link I hold.
>
> I think
>> you're trying to make something religious out of a coin toss.
>
> DM: Rather I am trying to recognise that a large part of religious thought
> comes out of ordinary experience, that ordianry experience has to handle 
> the
> transcendental, without that which transcends experience you could not
> even postulate that there is a world to experience, because the world as a
> whole exceeds/transcends your experience.
>
>>
>> David M also said:
>> To put it in different language, what emerges is dynamic and incredibly
>> rich, what never emerges and remains Nothing is even vaster and richer.
>>
>> dmb says:
>> What never emerges is vaster and richer? I honestly don't see how this 
>> can
>> be anything other than confused nonsense.
>
> DM: Then trying thinking a bit harder about it. WIll you DMB ever live
> out all that you possibly could? Are there not 3 billion women you will
> not get around to loving, the few (say 3) you do love will also be the 
> exclusion
> and neglect of the other 2,999,999,997, yet any three (eg) could be met 
> and
> loved. This possible worlds stuff is basic modern metaphysics are you not
> familiar?
>
>
>>
>> David M said:
>> Or again, this actual world is only one of a vast range of possible 
>> worlds.
>> The point of freedom is surely to choose a future that occupies one of 
>> the
>> better rather than one of the awful possible future worlds.
>>
>> dmb says:
>> This is just a string of platitudes.
>
> DM: Possible worlds is central to art (see Steiner) and central to one
> version of quantum theory.
>
>
> Of course there are many possibilites.
>> Of course freedom depends on the ability to make choices. Of course we
>> should choose a better future over an awful one. Is there a 12 year old
>> child in the English-speaking world who doesn't already know that? Of
>> course, of course, of course is true. But so what?
>
> DM: We are discussing the structure of experience, it is both obvious
> and easily got wrong.
>
> I guess you are not
>> taking this objection seriously, because I keep raising it and aren't
>> offering any responses. In fact, you are using these same vague 
>> platitudes
>> over and over and I keep saying, "Okay. So what?"
>
> DM: Well I change the words, hope you get it and you let me down.
>
>
>>
>> Why do you not answer my questions?
>
> DM: What real questions? Here's one for you. Where do you think
> the idea of transcendence comes from, why it was seen as necessary
> until the modern period? Like Steiner, I think the reasons for
> dropping it have been muddled up with crude and faulty notions
> of secularism.
>
>
>
> n various ways I have repeatedly
>> complained that "the problem is that I have no idea what you are saying
>> about those explorations. ..Its extremely vague. ...I keep thinking, yea, 
>> so
>> what? ...if this is so "richly explored in religious thought" why are you
>> not sharing some of this? ...If you think I have any idea what you're
>> talking about, you are definately wrong. ... Maybe you think I'm asking
>> these questions out of fear or as a way to avoid something, but I'm 
>> telling
>> you honestly that I do not see the point.
>
> DM: Never heard of the gene space which is greater than the manifest
> gene pool, or the possibility space of mathematics. My point is that some
> new science and theory is looking like the sort of space that gives
> us a post-disenchanted reality, a space where the criticisms of 
> disenchantment,
> made by Romanticism, Heidegger, Wittgenstein (see Expressing the World
> by A Rudd) actually fit with the description of reality made by science 
> rather
> than against it. In turn these new metaphors for reality (what else is new 
> science)
> can fit well with what we know to be ordinary experience. Although I think 
> we
> neglect to see how rich our lives are with possibility.Why else do we 
> repeat the
> mistakes of the past so often? Never read Fromm's fear of freedom.
>
> See, if you answer questions like
>> this, I might have some pretty good clues about what you're saying. I'm 
>> not
>> rejecting your ideas so much as criticizing your communicaton skills. If 
>> I
>> knew what you were talking about I'd have a real chance to agree or 
>> disagree
>> with it. Maybe then I could try to avoid it, but right now I don't even 
>> know
>> what your point is. I'm not even sure what the topic is anymore. I have
>> repeatedly asked for explantions and repeatedly complained that your
>> comments are too vague."
>
> DM: Truly?
>
>>
>> _________________________________________________________________
>> Get today's hot entertainment gossip 
>> http://movies.msn.com/movies/hotgossip
>>
>> 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>>
>