[MD] Social Intellectual

[david buchanan]

Marsha said:
... A pattern is not limited to finite definition.  Patterns can be amorphous and still be stable.


dmb says:

Amorphous means "shapeless" or "without form". So you are saying, in effect, that patterns are shapeless and without form. This is simply a contradiction of the definitions of the terms.  Again, that's why they're called STATIC patterns. They're ordered and stable and finite.


Marsha said:
They are not finite!  Finite would be a thing-in-itself.  Patterns are repeated or memorized events or processes.  Habit. ... Ordered and stable is not a problem; finite IS a problem.


dmb says:
To say something is finite only means that it has limits, that it's not infinite. This has nothing to do with being a thing-in-itself, which is a Kantian idea about the objective reality apart from our perceptions of it. In the MOQ, there are no things-in-themsleves. The idea is just that concepts and words have meaning by virtue of their deFINITions. See the word "finite" in there? A definition serves as a definition precisely because it has limits. Words and concepts mean what they mean in relation to other words and concepts in the whole system of language or thought. For example, amorphous means "not structured" and structured means "not amorphous". They give each other meaning by virtue of not being the other, like so many other pairs of opposites. This is not to say that each word or concept can only ever mean one specific thing but it certainly means that words have limits and can only be stretched to a certain point, beyond which they start to become meaningless. Using the term "amorphous" to describe "patterns" would be such a case. Using the term "ever-changing" to describe "static" would be another.

You are torturing these ideas without mercy, not to mention the english language. That's what I mean by intellectual vandalism and I think it's a totally valid philosophical criticism.

Thanks.

 		 	   		  
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