[MD] Ah-ha Qua Ah-ha

[118]

Hi Matt,
I agree with what you say below.  It is the notion of uncovering a truth
which could be an endless pursuit since we create it as we go along.  The
difference between the abstraction and that from which it is abstracting is
important.  We can create constellations out of the stars and call them
true, or we can say they are pretty.  We can create many meaningful and
beautiful abstractions or concepts.  That is the power we have.  I like to
think of science as creating what is most useful, it can be beautiful (or
sinister) in that sense.

Mark

On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 10:20 AM, Matt Kundert <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com
> wrote:

>
> Hi Mark,
>
> Matt said:
> To _abstract_ is to make _independent_.  It is, in a word, _to isolate_.
>
> Mark said:
> Personally I see it much easier to view intellectualizing as creating.  I
> believe the Western world has the notion that something is being
> uncovered through the process. This is most common in the
> intellectualizing involved in science.
>
> Matt:
> Yeah, that puts the point as I would want to, but the relationship
> between abstraction and creation is still too distant to be quickly or
> easily understood.  It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
> When you isolate property A from object X, you are actually creating a
> new object (i.e., A), which has its own context and qualities and
> whatnot.  Western philosophy has been working itself in this direction
> (you can see it in Wittgenstein when he says in the Philosophical
> Investigations that philosophical problems are created by the
> transportation of perfectly serviceable concepts into different contexts),
> but it is still held back, as you point out, by the notion that "truth is
> an
> uncovering" (which is one way to translate the Greek word for truth,
> "aletheia") that is still encouraged by most of the rhetoric surrounding
> science.
>
> Matt
>
> 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/md/archives.html
>