[MD] The Dynamics of Value

[Alexander Jarnroth]

There are other things to language as well, that is a kind of "logic of
practice" as i Bourdieu. I came to a similar conclusion myself after reading
such tests as the Nag Hammadi-library, The Upanishads, Sepher Yetzira et
cetera. As an example: the Lord of Bonds, is the god of dawn and dusk,
binding day and night. His symbol is a ring, which is a kind of bond. When
marrying, to people are bound together, and thus they put rings on their
fingers.
I've invented such a ritual of my own. I only cut my hair once a year,
during the last week of February. Where I live, that's when the rays of the
sun starts warming again and nature slowly begins to grow again. That's my
personal "new year" and by cutting my hair, letting it grow again, I reform
myself just as nature does.
There is also the logic of poetics, which some semiotic texts consider. In
poetics you associate words by similar pronunciation or spelling, sometimes
by alliteration, sometimes by rhyme, sometimes just by stress and so on. In
that sense the Greek god Chronos/Chronus (time) became Kronos/Cronus (the
son of Ouranos/Uranus), even though the name Kronos originally had no
etymological relationship to Chronos (time). Once the connecting is
established, however, you can't really dissociate them.

Labeling things could be useful, as long are you're conscious of the fact
that the labels are superimposed and mostly arbitrarily chosen, or chosen
for a specific purpose. That's why I prefer looking at such labeling or
categorizations as sets in a set theoretic sense. And then, of course, it
becomes the same as the referents in classic semantics.

I don't know if you've heard about the concept of "memes" being
"intellectual genes" of a culture? Perhaps most of them are, just as much of
the genome, superfluous, but you can't really abandon it. I guess it would
be the same as Pirsig's "mythos".
I know that leaders of Falun Gong have said that the voice of the intellect,
the Freudian superego, is really alien spirits, trying to capture the mind
of human beings to make them produce and serve machines. I wouldn't really
like to take such an anti-intellectual stance. One thing which I liked with
Zen or the art of motorcycle maintenance, was that Pirsig, even when
criticizing modern society, didn't propose the abandonment of intellect or
technology. Rather, we said, we should just try to take conscious
intellectual control and direct it towards dynamical progress (which we by
definition can't know what it is), rather than some laissez fair or Marxist
attitude (which would be each other's opposites).
I agree with that.

/A

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of 118
Sent: den 25 oktober 2010 00:06
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] The Dynamics of Value

Hi A,

I like your approaches, they are similar to mine, although different.
 Indeed a systems approach is useful.

Yes, language does not reflect ones thoughts, in fact they are a vast
simplification of an overall awareness.  But they are the primary tool for
communication of the intellect.  As you say, ones concept of a word is
subjective and words therefore have limits.  I believe due to the high
indoctrination (school and such) that words are provided high importance, to
the point where some believe that they think in words.  I believe that this
is at the root of Subject Object Metaphysics.

Imagine that one day as a boy you wake up and decide to go through the woods
to a creak nearby.  You have been trained, so you take along your sticky
notepad and begin pasting over everything you see a name.  So all the trees,
rocks, grasses, ivy, etc all have these little square notes on them, all the
way down to the creak.  A few days later after having learned some more at
school, you go down again to the creak.  This time you can add
sub-classifications to the notes you had posted, such as what kind of tree,
etc.  After a year, the whole walk to the creak will be just one big mass of
yellow note pads.  You would not be able to see the trees or plants anymore
because they are all covered up.  Yet you would think that you are seeing
them because you see the names.  This is just a metaphor for the impact of
labels which describe objects on our views.

Yes, knowledge transfer, learn from your elders.  I do not think the brain
is any more advanced now (biologically) than it was say 20,000 years ago.
 However, the complexity of thought is, because we have to learn so many
facts.  It is still the same brain, with the same emotions, but layered with
a bunch of sticky notes.  We call this advance, but I believe it simply
covers the subjective with the objective.  We look for solutions without
rather than within.  I read once that for every psychological word in
English, there are ten in German, and one hundred in sanskrit.  I believe
that back many many years, people had a much better appreciation for the
subjective.  Now we watch TV.

Thanks,
Mark