[MD] Reductionism

[MarshaV]

At 03:19 PM 6/11/2009, you wrote:
> > >[Krimel]
> > > That is groovy but not very helpful if one needs a fire for warmth or a
> > > tree for Christmas decoration. All those dynamic alien properties are
> > > spiffy and all, but the whole point of conceptualization is to dismiss
> > > the irrelevant from the relevant in the given moment. The immediate
> > > present contains system within systems and if we are to survive from one
>
> > > moment to the next we need to focus on our relationships within those
> > > systems.
> > > Concepts are filters that we cultivate over time to help us
> > > separate what's important from what's not. In this case we are usually
> > > scanning for dynamic foreground against a static background.
> >
> >[Marsha]
> >First, what's that 'we' white man?
> >
> >[Krimel]
> >Us, all of us with nervous systems sufficiently complex to manage it.
>
>[Marsha]
>"Concepts are filters that we cultivate".  Concepts are filters that
>first the theologians and now the scientists "cultivate over time to
>help" themselves "separate what's important from what's not".
>
>[Krimel]
>The intellectual level is nothing less than rich fertile fields of concepts.
>Some of been nurtured for centuries. Thick cypress trees sprouted the
>marshes of the Axial Age. Others thrive like kudzu. Hateful vines that
>strangle and swallow up everything they touch. Ideas, concepts are our
>shared heritage. There are plenty to choose from. Conceptual systems come
>with all manner of pedigree. There are ancient bloodlines and the neuvo
>rich.
>
>Those conceptual fields of the intellectual level are not just Platonic
>Ideals they are manifest in stone and steel. We measure the ages of man as,
>stone, copper, bronze and iron. The intellectual level is an ecology of
>ideas and systems of ideas. Rather like what Dawkins says about memes and
>Pirsig gets at by viewing societies and the Giant as living systems.
>
>What is important and what is, not are questions each of us has to answer
>for ourselves each and every second. But that cross is much lighter to bear
>when you are dragging it though a rainforest.
>
> >[Marsha]
> >Anybody starving in this scientific tech'd-up world?
> >
> >[Krimel]
> >I am not sure why it matters but yes.
>
>[Marsha]
>While you are busy patting yourself on the back, I notice many
>peoples (women and children) in the world are starving and dying, and
>many others (men) are fighting and killing each other for power to
>decide on which filters will define "reality".  The whole thing seems
>a failure.
>
>[Krimel]
>Assigning Quality on the basis of gender makes about as much sense to me as
>measuring it via body count. Is that what that makes it easier for you to
>see nothing but failure.
>
>Two hundred years ago the things that bother you weren't even high on the
>list of concerns. They were not understood as problems that could be solved.
>They were acts of God, Shit Happening. Things to be endured not things that
>could be cured. Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death; history is written in
>the hoof prints of the horses of the four riders of apocalypse.
>
>The very fact that you even think in terms of success or failure is clear
>evidence of progress. It is a step upward on Maslow's Hierarchy of Need. We
>know how to corral those horsemen we are now working on finding the "right"
>way to do it. But again it is much easier when we can build fences with
>lumber from trees of knowledge and relax in the coolness of their shade
>sipping the nectar of their fruit.
>
> >[Marsha]
> >Cockroaches have proved successful at survival, humans have proved nothing.
> >
> >[Krimel]
> >What have cockroaches proved? What needs proving?
>
>[Marsha]
>I thought you might decide to hawk the success of human survival (you
>have used that strategy before) and the idea of protecting your tribe.
>
>[Krimel]
>We are surviving and we have the potential to become something
>extraordinary. Agent Smith talked about the stench of humanity as a virus in
>the system. I think we are more like an immune system. We are developing the
>ability to manipulate all of the forces of nature from the tiny to the
>immense; among the quick and the dead.
>
>Does it matter? It does to me. But it's ok with me if it doesn't to you.
>
>[Marsha]
>I'm sure you are very kind to everyone you meet, a really great guy,
>but by some of the talk you seem to me to be scientifically arrogant
>and totally heartless.
>
>[Krimel]
>I want you think about what you just said.
>
>The kind of guy I am is irrelevant. But you have sampled enough of my posts
>over a long enough time to be qualified to pass that kind of judgment on
>them.
>
>Do you really mean that?
>


Scientifically arrogant:  YES!

Heartless:  no, no, no.

Do you remember the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind?  Try 
watching it again with a little bit of heart for a kind of knowing 
that is outside of Science.


Marsha








_____________

"He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has."
   (Friedrich von Schiller)