[MD] Words and concepts

[John Carl]

Ron,

I'm wandering a world of big horizons, and have just my own shell to keep me
warm.  So have pity and patience as I undertake to grasp your meaning.

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 8:30 AM, X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> "Definitions are the FOUNDATION of reason. You can't reason without them."
> (Emphasis is Pirsig's. ZAMM, page 214.)
>
>
> "A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't
> any
> metaphysics." (Pirsig in Lila, page 64.)
>
>
>
> Ron:
> Note to interested contributer:
> This response is intended to provoke a dialog on the topic of clarity
> within our
> understanding
> of what these quotes mean to a philosophic position that supports a
> Pragmatic
> point of view.
> It is an attempt to "advance the ball" on what is meant by making the first
> intellectual distinction
> of experience into static and dynamic Quality.
>

John:  Hmmm... we do have a problem with staticity which is always changing,
and dynamism which "is the source of all" and unchanging.  We seem to be
flipped around, somehow.


Ron:


> The primary value distinction, in a metaphysics of value, which is an
> intellectual pattern predicated
> on value distinction (and let us reinforce this statement as to being no
> misunderstanding about what we
> mean) is experience and explanation of experience. In explanation a
> distinction
> may be drawn
> between reflection and non reflection.



John:  But doesn't value itself presuppose a better and a worse?  So isn't
the fundamental distinction then between better explanations and worse?
 That is, a sense of value corresponds to a sense of closeness to "what is
absolutely there".


Ron:


>  Decisions/action based on reflection
> often are more succesful
> than those that are not.


John:

I dunno Ron.  when it comes down to it, I have two arguments against that
proposition:  1, action can wait upon too much reflection, resulting in
ultimate inaction; 2 - there is always a bit of reflection, abstraction,
mentation in every single bite we take of reality.  There is no pure
experience, if pure means the same as mindless.  which it seems to, in the
people I've met.


Ron:



> And when we then again make the distinction between
> what is best in terms
> of reflection we begin to explore concepts and words meaning abstractions,
> the
> consequences of
> reification..ect.
>
> I believe starting the dialog from this point of understanding would lead
> to
> some interesting discussions
> such as the crafting of meaning from concepts and words and what is best
> and
> why.
>
>
John:

Well there, I agree completely.   I mean, it could... if only others would
play along.  but that doesn't always happen.  But I'm sure willing to bite.
  For me, the crafting of meaning is rooted in nature.  Man's understandings
come from his environmental relationships.  I mean, usually.  Lately we seem
to have a new phenomenon where man's cultural programmings are taking off on
a life of their own, divorced from natural reality to a great extent,
well... I've said enough about that before.  I just mention it again because
it still gives me the willies.  I see it as a fundamental problem.

Ron:


> Often the rhetorical device is brought into play of not having to make
> sense in
> a philosophical, reflective
> conversation because what they mean is outside of languages conceptual
> ability
> to entirely, wholy
> and absolutely encapsulate and ultimately define what they mean.
>

John:

To me, the thing about quality thought and expression, is that it just works
on so many levels.  It's poetically, rhetorically and logically true - and
that's how I recognize what is good.  And I think perfect expression, using
all the skills and attributes of the human experience is possible, but rare.
 And I think this happens with language's conceptual ability, and not
outside of it.  Phaedrus thrashed rationality, but he never betrayed or
abandoned it completely.  I'm with him, on that one.

Ron:



> This is regularly confused with explanations of the ineffiable appearing as
> cryptic and enigmatic
> to those not "in the know". Their arguement being more based on the
> consequences
> of
> esoteria rather than the ouright rejection of meaning they believe thay are
> defending.
>
>
> John:

And my theory is that the pattern is becoming more and more prevalent.
 People seem to be more and more stuck all the time, and less and less open.
 Maybe it's just the chock of coming to the northern plains - a whole
'nother world than California openess to new ideas! -  but fanatical
followers of esoteric doctrine, battering each other over the head with
sincerity, seems to be a big fad these days.

Ron:


> And the confusion grows from there.
>
>
Amen, brotha.

John of the North