[MD] Some historical perspective

Sun Oct 25 16:49:54 PDT 2009

cheers


----- Mensagem de MarkHSmit at aol.com ---------
    Data: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:24:28 EDT
    De: MarkHSmit at aol.com
Endereço para Resposta (Reply-To): moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Assunto: Re: [MD] Some historical perspective
      Para: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org


> I agree, there is some interesting stuff going on there.
>
> I wouldn't choose geometry as truth since provided a
> set of postulates, any form of geometry can be fashioned.
> Euclidean and non-Euclidean for example.
> Geometry therefore would fall under a representational
> paradigm for a given set of rules.   This is what the intellect
> has to do.   An all encompassing world view cannot be
> transferred (explained) through the intellect, it is simply lacking.
>
> Each word represents a personal feeling.   To ascribe Truth
> above all is good until one gets into breaking down what
> you mean.   However, having said that, I know certain things
> to be absolute truth (for me).   Given that Truth is what
> one believes to be absolute, I'm with you.   We break it into
> pieces with intellect and then language.   We create a net
> to hold Truth in but it is impossible to make the mesh close
> enough to contain it.   No matter what we say, the holes
> will be evident to those that wish to find them.
>
> Give me a paper bag anytime.
>
> Willblake2
>
> In a message dated 10/24/09 1:27:00 PM, ridgecoyote at gmail.com writes:
>
>
>> Squonk,
>>
>> Good stuff!
>>
>>
>>
>> > These insights lead Nietzsche to the later realisation that Plato and
>> the
>> > Sophists were trying to ‘out-best’ each other.
>> >
>> >
>> An emotional aspect to dialectical wrangling?  Heaven and Ham forbid.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> > Squonk: This is the way it logically stacks up to me…
>> >
>> > Truth is an aesthetically pleasing relationship between symbols -
>> symbolic
>> > manipulation.
>> >
>> > Symbolic manipulation is what the Intellect is and does.
>> >
>> > Therefore, Intellect must exist in order for the Truth to exist, in
>> order
>> > for it (the Truth) to subordinate the Good.
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Well and truly analyzed and sir.  I agree.  In fact, I've said before that
>> Truth is the highest value of any intellectual pattern.   If we make IT
>> the
>> highest overall value of existence in a  subordination of Quality to
>> intellect; it becomes something bad called by many names, "SOM",
>> Objectivism, Intellectualism, a values-free metaphysic.
>>
>> You nailed it on the head.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > If this is so, then it allows us to contemplate the source of Truth, and
>> > that source is evident in Geometry. Geometry existed hundreds of years
>> > before Plato’s rhetorical battle with the sophists, (Thales, 635
>> >  -543 BC) and in a period of Human consciousness which produced
>> literature
>> > that does not convey SOM.
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > This destroys Bo’s argument that Intellect = SOM.
>> >
>> > Shatters it completely.
>>
>>
>>
>> Yes and it joins a long crowded list.  Leonard Shlain's, Art and
>> Physics<http://www.artandphysics.com/>  offers
>> the most thorough and compelling evidence I've ever seen that intellectual
>> insights evolve in response to aesthetic/spatial (non-linguistic)
>> appreciation far in advance of intellectual formulation.  He goes into the
>> Greeks too.
>>
>>
>> > Squonk: I think you are bang on the money when you recognise that truth
>> > pre-existed SOM. I think it is so clear that one would have to go to
>> quite
>> > extraordinary, if not pathologically arrogant lengths NOT to see it.
>> >
>>
>> Well you yourself need not go to "pathetical arrogant lengths" in search
>> of
>> a motivation, especially as you posit the Occamic solution intuitively at
>> the beginning of your excellent post...
>>
>>
>> "These insights lead Nietzsche to the later realisation that Plato and the
>> Sophists were trying to ‘out-best’ each other."
>>
>>
>> See?  They're all good enough guys in their own rights.  Plato was cool! 
>> So
>> were the Sophists.  But in the struggle to out-best the other guy, they
>> lost
>> sight of the process of dynamic evolution of intellect which occurs
>> emptying out all the old static baggage and re-organizing.
>>
>>
>> I would argue that primary Truth belongs in the realm of pure abstraction.
>> > (In this realm, Truth is actually an aesthetic appreciation of quality).
>> >
>> >
>> Yes, although that last statement can be as confusing as Keats formulation
>> of Truth and Beauty, if you want to really slice and dice you lose the
>> good,
>> so I won't.
>>
>> My thinking on Truth evolved out of Pirsig combined with Ellul.  Jacques
>> Ellul posits that human consciousness has two disparate paradigms as value
>> -
>> Truth (of the word) and Reality (of the image)
>>
>> What I see plainly in front of my face, in a gestaltish whoosh at once and
>> all the time is what I think of as Reality.  What I deduce or induce or
>> imagine intellectually is the realm of Truth.  Seeing a cat cross my path
>> is
>> part of my reality.   Saying that a cat crosses my path is part of my
>> truth.
>>
>>
>> Hmmm... if we start philosophizing about where and how the two realms
>> intersect, wouldn't we be in the intellectual pattern known as
>> "Pragmatism"?
>>
>>
>> Rather than state that rhetorical truth can be abstracted to 'Essence -
>> > Truth', i would say that the notion of an 'Essential Truth' is a Human
>> myth
>> > - its a story.
>> >
>>
>> Yes.  It's not so much that Truth is relative, but more like truth is
>> relational.  It is always "about" something else and is built upon
>> context,
>> narrative and rules.
>> 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/
>>
>
> 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/


----- Final da mensagem de MarkHSmit at aol.com -----