[MD] Another parallel

[John Carl]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:16 PM, dan glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:

 Sure, some images may
>
> > contain objects with which a person from a certain, specific culture
> > would not be familiar, but words DO require a common language and
> > interpretation whereas simple images from nature are universally
> > recognizable.
>
> Dan:
> I think if you were to show a picture of simple snow to a native of
> the tropics with no experience in snow, they would be unable to
> recognize it. There's an old movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy which
> illustrates this nicely.
>


But surely there are some universally recognizable images to any human -
regardless of cultural understandings.  Whoever built the sphinx knew what a
human face was, and here I am a long time later and no knowledge of any
mutual cultural understanding, and yet i too recognize an image of a human
face.  We have communicated "something".  A reality, at least.

Images appeal and communicate on more emotional levels without the need for
a lot of intellectual filtering.  That is their magic.


> Dan:
> I agree there's a value difference. I think maybe the fundamental
> difference you seek may be found between the biological and social
> levels, if we apply the MOQ to the problem. This article might pertain
> to our discussion:
>

Well I'll go click on the link.  even tho it says "oprah" in it, but already
I disagree with the fundamental difference being social/biological.  I am
clearly making a distinction between images and words here, based upon the
MoQ hierarchy of the social vs. the intellectual.  Images are a form of
 social communication and words are primarily intellectual.  Hey, Pirsig
turned down Bob Redford over that very morality distinction.  There is
fuzziness, there is overlap and one of the central thesis's's's  (thesi??)
of Elluls was the same Orwell made about the socialization of the word - the
subversion of the word to image-dominated reality.    I wish I could say
more about it, but honestly most of Ellul's argumentation went way over my
head.  He wasn't really that much of a theologian as he was a philosopher
and critic of philosophy.    But in the main, that's how I see this in
MoQvian terms.

Ellul makes the same assertion of morality as defined by relationship in
that it is wrong or immoral for images to dominate words. Images aren't
"bad"   Don't mistake the reality presented by artificially propogated mass
media images as "truth".  Truth is an abstract intellectual concept that
must be dealt with in abstract, intellectual ways.




>
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17508-oprah-neuron-hints-at-nature-of-memory.html
>


Ok, went there, clicked that.  On a completely different subject it does
illustrate what I think of as "concept".  Neurons are as good a definers as
any.  I'm using a few of 'em right this minute.  Or are they using me?  Hard
to tell with neurons.



>
> Biologically,  parts of the brain seem to respond differently to
> images vs. words. However, this response is always socially mediated.
>


That's pretty much the way everything goes with humans.  I have a real hard
time thinking of anything that isn't.




>
>
> Dan:
> That's how I learn, so thank you for bringing up folk like Ellul and
> Royce and Cassady. Google, google, google...
>


ah well it's nice that your interested.  Most people I meet in the world
aren't.  it's good to have some conversational company.



> >John:
> > All philosophy IS a  story, although maybe not all stories are
> > philosopophical.
>
> Dan:
> If you say so... but most philosophy is a pretty long dry slog if you
> ask me. That's what attracts me to Robert Pirsig's work. He makes it
> interesting.


Agree wholeheartedly.




> >John:
> > Well, assertions like this always get me going.  How do you know
> fundamental
> > reality is beyond ANY sort of reason?
>
> Dan:
> Experience.
>
> John:
> What evidence from experience
> > supports this postulate?
>
> Dan:
> The "evidence from experience" is static reality.  Experience is
> Dynamic. The second we try and support this postulate, we find
> ourselves tied in philosophical knots. Tell a story instead.
>
> >John:
> > You obviously can't state *that* assertion with certainty, unless you
> want
> > to be accused of presumption.  Which I think I just did ;)
>
> Dan:
> Right. The moment we open our mouth to say something or tap away at
> the keyboard, we're disrupting the purity of experience. I've heard it
> referred to as "controlled folly." We know we cannot assert anything
> yet we do it anyway. It's like trying to keep the fat girl out of the
> frig.
>



Well that was a *good* answer.  It stopped my intellectual reactions cold.
 "Evidence from experience is static reality."   I feel hungry still, but
satisfied at the same time.  Like a fat girl at the fridge who can see
there's a lot of goodies, and realizing maybe she doesn't need to gobble
anything down just yet.

 And I will go work on a story.  But first I'm gonna play games with my four
kids before they all scatter for the schools in a few weeks.




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