From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Sat Aug 06 2005 - 18:51:34 BST
Hi Mark,
> msh:
> You can also point to his ideas and say they are original only
> insofar as you understand them to be, within your own necessarily
> parochial domain of experience.
Hmmm. Smacks of relativism to me. What might 'original' mean if not, by
definition, 'within my own parochial domain' etc. If Liebniz comes up with
calculus, and so does Newton - independently - then why doesn't both work
count as original? taking original to mean - not known (around here) before.
> People claim that human fingerprints
> and snow flakes are unique; this is weak inference stemming from the
> fact that no two sets of prints or snowflakes have been found
> identical. Same deal applies to ideas.
Hmmm again! Shades of Hume saying that we don't know that the sun is going
to rise tomorrow, we just have more or less dependable shades of inference.
A logically defensible position, but I'm not sure it's one that you want to
hold is it? I'd be happy to say that we can hold 'originality' with the same
sort of confidence that we can expect the sun to rise.
> <snip Witt stuff, cause even he is no more original than a
> snowflake.>
Hmm for the third time!
>
> But it doesn't stop it being true that the source of a new idea comes
> through a single person. Which is what I take Pirsig to be saying
> about the brujo.
>
>
> msh:
> That new ideas must come from a single person has already been shown
> to be false. New ideas evolve out of a culture and, as shown by the
> examples of Newton-Leibniz Darwin-Wallace Salk-Sabine, can arise
> simultaneously from within different people. There was no "first"
> walking fish; I see no reason to expect cultural evolution to occur
> differently.
I must have missed the posts where that was established. Can you remind me
of where it was, or re-summarise the argument? coz I think I disagree with
about 100% of it or so (roughly speaking ;-)
> As for the brujo, his ideas were new within Zuni, but old hat among
> the Plains Indians, say. I think Pirsig agreed with Benedict here.
> See my 7-29 post starting this thread. Or carefully re-read the
> relevant 8 pages from LILA-9.
>
> I think it's worth repeating here that I'm not claiming there are no
> individuals; my claim is that no one individual is intellectually
> unique and, therefore, worthy of special celebration. Where such
> celebration occurs, it is a public relations con job catering to an
> apparently common human need to idolize.
Well, this I think doesn't tie in with the framework of the MoQ (leaving
aside the fact that 'individuals' don't either). How about this as a sketch
for a syllogism:
1. DQ acts upon static patterns to drive evolution towards higher quality.
2. The static patterns of the intellectual level need to be expressed by an
individual human being before they can be latched.
3. Therefore dynamic breakthroughs at the intellectual level require
expression by individual human beings.
4. Therefore it is legitimate to call such human beings a 'stand alone
genius'.
Paralleling some other threads, we could add in 3b: The expression of
dynamic breakthroughs by an individual human being is dependent upon their
openness to, or awareness of, DQ.
Which clauses do you disagree with (if not all)?
Or - on re-reading what you're saying - are you saying that no 'individual'
is (intellectually) unique, but that particular ideas can be? So
Wittgenstein isn't unique, but the idea of, say, the private language
arguments are? I probably still wouldn't agree with that, but it seems more
defensible.
> Finally, and most important, though individuals exist, none take
> precedence over society. Only ideas take precedence over society.
This is what I think is terrifying (and was the original cue for me
rejecting the standard account of the MoQ). Isn't this a justification for
flying planes into skyscrapers? (Western ideology is a bad idea; it's
threatening the social group of Islam; let's destroy it any way we can.....)
Cheers
Sam
Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song
(Leonard Cohen)
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