From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Fri Jan 17 2003 - 03:16:26 GMT
Matt,
> Matt:
> Alright, I take the point that their might be a problem, possibly
> unsolvable, in the processing of language. Being as I know nothing about
> cognitive science, what the current mood is in the discipline and the
like,
> I'm sure you'll understand my reticence on falling over to your side.
I've
> only read what you've said. To make a proper choice, I'd have to read a
> bit more. Like you said, it took you years to see the problem. My only
> hope is that, if this is a very problematical anomaly, then a genius will
> arise to reshape the discipline.
Well, they didn't reshape this particular discipline, but geniuses (of a
sort) have solved the problem: the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Shankara, Franklin
Merrell-Wolff...
> Matt:
> Well, I find it disingenuous that you'd force pragmatists into the
position
> of having a metaphysics, whether they know it or not. That's the clearest
> case of begging the question. Rorty is a nominalist. The nominalist
claim
> is that words don't refer to anything essential in the world, they simply
> help us cope with the world. Rorty and the pragmatists aren't assuming a
> metaphysical materialism. They're trying to cope with the world.
> ... [Pragmatists] just
> want to see how different ways of viewing the world helps us cope with it.
> To say that our attempt to cope with the world is a metaphysical stance,
> begs the question because as far as we can tell, we are not debating about
> how the world _really_ is, we are just trying to deal with it.
I agree with all this (except I do not call myself a nominalist, as that is
taking one side of a metaphysical question -- do things have essences? --
that I see as requiring the tetralemma (not yes, not no, not yes and no, not
neither yes nor no)). So what I am saying is that I coped with the world
very much as Rorty does until I ran into a problem that my existing coping
methods couldn't cope with. So I changed them. However, after changing them
I realized how my previous methods (which are still Rorty's) were based on a
certain view of life, the universe, and everything, and so am now able to
see them as being a metaphysical stance. We all have such stances. Part of
my way of coping is to call them metaphysical stances, though I recall that
we use the word 'metaphysics' differently. So what I am saying is that
Rorty's coping methods (which is to say, what leads him to write what he
writes) are based on a particular view of reality, one that I have found
just as limiting as believing that the world was created 6000 years ago.
>
> Also, I don't see how Darwinism only makes sense from a materialist
> perspective. As far as I can tell, whether you think all things are atoms
> in a void, ideas in our mind, or Quality has no bearing on how evolution
> works. Everything still evolves, its just what's _really_ evolving
> changes. Pragmatists want to cut out the middle man and say that stuff's
> evolving, but what that stuff _really_ is will never be solved or widely
> agreed upon.
Darwinism is the belief that evolution happens through chance and natural
selection, meaning that no intelligence, or purpose, or other non-material
factor is needed for evolution to happen, hence a materialist is required to
believe in it (or some similar theory). I am aware that it is logically
possible for things to become more complex in form in this way. But I think
it very unlikely (as Pirsig notes with the chemist left out in the sun).
What I deem to be impossible is that sentient forms could have evolved from
non-sentient forms.
- Scott
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