[MD] (Fwd) Re: British Emergentism

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Steve

27 Nov.:

Bo before:
> > You and most other seem to believe that language, thinking  ...i.e.
> > "words about ...etc."  expresses some profound insight, but Christ,
> > this IS SOM:  An ineffable reality which comes to us distorted and
> > secondhand by senses, by language, by thinking and all kinds of
> > "filters". IT'S THE SUBJECT/OBJECT MONSTER ITSELF!

Steve:
> You've actually correctly identified the issue in my criticism of your
> claims that "the MOQ IS reality!!!" as the metaphysical
> appearance-reality distinction, but it is you who is buying into this
> platypus. 

I had said that the MOQ is the Quality Reality" and you said it is just 
words about it, I said your position is SOM and that's what it is.     

> You are correct that that there is an SOM notion that reality "comes to
> us distorted and secondhand by senses, by language, by thinking and all
> kinds of "filters"--that we are hopelessly out of touch with reality
> because our language can't capture the essence of reality. The problem
> is that you seem to accept this whole notion but believe that the MOQ
> has finally made it possible for us to get around all these problems.
> You think that you have finally discovered the language in which the
> universe demands to be spoken of and the right words that the universe
> demands we say about it. "The MOQ IS reality!!!!" 

This is a pretty good summary of SOM  ... or the intellectual level as it 
changes into from MOQ's point of view. 

> The way out of the appearance-reality platypus is not to find the
> universe's secret language (MOQese), but to deny that language is all
> about representing reality. 

As said before, language entered the static range with the social era, 
but language and reality as different entities weren't part of the social 
repertoire, why social value - Aretê - looked like Quality itself to 
Phaedrus. This social unity is with us to-day in 3rd.  level-steeped 
cultures as "curses", "prayers", "effigies" ..etc. A  Muslim will rather 
die than desecrate the Koran, while an intellect-steeped (nominal) 
"Christian" may do so with the Bible. It's just words.    

> It (language) doesn't fail to accurately represent reality as the
> SOMist claims because it doesn't represent at all. Language is instead
> a tool for coping with reality. It doesn't need to represent reality to
> be a good tool any more than a hammer needs to represent reality to be
> useful, 

Language is a social pattern (built on biological intelligence) that later 
was employed by intellect to promote ITS values, and there it was 
split by intellect's S/O knife into the words/reality dichotomy. Right 
now language is employed by the MOQ where it is united with reality, 
but not a return to the social "unity", we will not start treating copies of 
ZAMM and LILA as holy scripture.    

> and it (language) can't take us closer to or further from reality any
> more than a hammer could. According to the MOQ, we are always in touch
> with reality which is simply ordinary experience. The MOQ is better
> than a hammer for some purposes, but a hammer is better for others, and
> neither one IS reality. 

Language as a tool .. OK .. I may have used that metaphor too, but - 
again - language is a social pattern and like all patterns of the social  
level it became the platform for the intellectual level and there 
language became part and parcel of intellect (no level knows the level 
context) and its S/O knife split language into a subjective tool for 
describing objective reality. This - along with all intellect's S/Os - 
opened a worm box of paradoxes, hence the MOQ.

Bodvar