From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Jul 23 2005 - 10:02:51 BST
Platt, you make a good point ...
I'm all for the power of individual creativity and leadership in
making "progress", and am constantly pointing out that groups
(committees) thwart quality (morality) at every turn. (Unless we have
a benevolent dictatorship.)
The point I was objecting to, was the idea that "all" progress
therefore depends on the individual. The ideas and thought leadership
(good and bad) may come from individuals, but their adoption, spread
and acceptance as common truth, depends on the evolutionary behaviour
of populations and the communication processes involved. Bad ideas
(Aristotelian logic for example) tend to be easier to adopt than good
ones (the multi-layered complexities of reality). This is my main
"meme" theme of course.
For every "hero" you list, there were probably a thousand with better
ideas consigned to oblivion, by circumstance and prejudice.
One thing I like about Dawkins and Deutsch and Dennett is that "faith"
in humans to get us out of this (potential) mess, if only we would
listen to (and spread) the "right" ideas, not the dead-end ones.
Ian
On 7/23/05, Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com> wrote:
> Hi Ian,
>
> Ian:
> > Anyway ... your second para graph is full of thinly veiled, but
> > anonymous, crticisms of other MoQ'ers views. Would you care to
> > elaborate as to who is ..
> > "mesmerized by social pattern values, ... to many it appears we're all
> > helpless captives" ?
>
> Except for our mutual admiration of Pirsig, I don't see much championing
> of the individual inventor or artistic genius by the vocal segment of our
> little group, do you?
>
> > Where did you get this idea from "all human evolution depended on
> > unique thoughts by individuals" That little word "all" makes it
> > manifestly not true in so many ways. Your view is just too "atomic"
> > the behaviour of the whole just cannot be explained adequately only by the
> > sum of behaviours of the individuals - even though it clearly has some
> > dependence on it. Substitute "some" for "all" at least.
>
> With the possible exception of the barons of England and the Founding
> Fathers, I don't know of any great leaps forward in civilization that can
> be accounted for by works done by committees. And even the Founding
> Fathers needed a George Washington to make their dream of a better world
> come true.
>
> Especially in your field of science, great individuals stand out --
> Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, Gellman, etc.
>
> In the field of philosophy where would we be today without Plato,
> Aristotle, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer,
> Nietzsche, Bergson, James, et al?
>
> In war you have the great generals -- Caesar, Attila, Washington,
> Napoleon, Nelson, Grant, Pershing, Eisenhower, Rommel, McArthur, et al.
>
> The same goes for any human endeavor you can think of -- religion,
> politics, sports, theater, painting, music, etc.
>
> Platt
>
>
>
>
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