[MD] Quine and the Linguistic Turn

[david buchanan]

Arlo said: It is not, thus, what "can and can not" respond to DQ (everything does), but HOW one is able to respond, and this is predicated on the evolutionary complexity of the pattern in question.
dmb says:Exactly. The ability to respond to DQ is in direct proportion to the level and range of the static patterns. They more or less define the limits, the possibilities. Hopefully this limit grows for each of us as our lives unfold, which is parallel to and in addition to the growth that has occurred through evolution. I mean, there is an interesting connection between our evolutionary history of the whole species and the developmental unfolding of each individual and in both cases the process entails a constant dance of stability and innovation, of preservation and growth, of static and dynamic. I was thinking about that all-important gumption trap, namely stuckness. I guess just about everybody here can picture the scene from ZAMM where the motorcycle mechanic is stuck. You'd tried everything you can think of but you still can't even find the problem, let alone a solution. The facts are right there, staring you in the face but for some reason you just don't see it. When you're stuck, it means everything you can think of just isn't good enough. This is where you come up against your limits as a mechanic and have to become a motorcycle scientists in order to solve the problem, in order to see the problem. So you put down the tools and just stare at the damn thing. And you wait for a nibble, a little tug. Novelty is conjured because the known just ain't working for you. That's what's got you stuck in the first place. I was thinking about this because my "Hero's Journey" class is looking at the concept of the "Nekyia", the dark night of the soul, the passage thru the underworld, the Sol Niger. It sounds a lot more grandiose and dramatic than the depression suffered by baffled grease monkeys but that's just a matter of scope and scale. They're actually quite the same thing. For the same reason that Pirsig says there is no growth without suffering, the Nekyia is considered to be perhaps the most important phase of the hero's journey. It's so often depicted as a kind of death (Christ's harrowing of hell, Orpheus' descent into hades, Pirsig's descent into Chicago) because transcendence means the old way of seeing things has to be given up, has to die, and that includes the way you see yourself. The rebirth or ressurrection symbolizes a transformation of consciousness such that everything is understood in a new way. Its not that all facts and memories evaporate, of course, but there is a new gestalt, a new paradigm of consciousness. And they say that this journey never ends, that a person spirals upward each time. I like to think of the progress in terms of stages or levels and not just because it works with the MOQ. The hero's journey paints it that way too and it seems psychologically true as well. In my own experience, its like you live with a worldview and an attitude toward life only as long as it works. At a certain point, it starts to feel a bit tight and then one day you pop a button. You don't see it in terms of a prelude to growth at the time. At the time it feels like a crisis and it is a crisis. You're stuck. You're depressed. All is lost and your mojo ain't workin'.That's when its time to re-tool, to upgrade your static patterns, to integrate some new ones and re-arrange yourself. And so you know I only wish you the best when I say, "Go to hell". Death. Its what's good for you.See you there,dmb  
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