RE: MD Collective consciousness

From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jul 17 2005 - 10:39:58 BST

  • Next message: ian glendinning: "Re: MD A Moment of Civility"

    Ham, Matt,

    >Somebody (Arlo?) quoted Pirsig:
    >"These fill the collective consciousness of all communicating mankind.
    >Every last bit of it."
    >
    >Ham asked:
    >I have two questions concerning this statement:
    >1) What does "collective consciousness" have to do with any of the
    >"analogues" previously quoted?
    >2) Why did Matt Kundert insist to me that he'd never seen the term and had
    >no idea what it meant? (I guess Matt will have to answer that one.)
    >
    >Matt:
    >
    > <snip>
    >
    >Pirsig's not talking about some
    >big,
    >ephemeral brain or think-tank that all of us pour and pull our thoughts
    >into
    >and out of. Pirsig's talking about books. He's talking about receiving an
    >education. He's talking about learning the language of the historical
    >culture we were born into. He's talking about learning the analogues upon
    >analogues upon analogues which make up the language of our time. That's
    >the
    >collective consciousness that has grown and changed since the time of the
    >creation of language. One can call it "collective" because it wasn't
    >created by a single source. It was created by many sources over a long
    >time. In fact, we all participate in creating it (or, rather, changing it)
    >simply by using it (which we have no other choice but to--well, at least to
    >remain "sane"). We can call it "collective" because our common educations
    >in the language of our time and place is why we all think in a way enough
    >like our fellows that we can understand each other.

    Paul: Exactly. Thanks for spelling this out, Matt. My shorter response to
    Ham at the time was:

    "Agreed, there is no collective mind. You are the one big on the existence
    of "mind," Ham, not I. There is, however, peer review. There is education,
    mathematics, language; without which there is no science."

    Regards

    Paul

    MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
    Mail Archives:
    Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
    Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
    MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net

    To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
    http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Jul 17 2005 - 10:44:07 BST