From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Nov 26 2005 - 17:17:49 GMT
> [Platt]
> Well, at least you admit the existence of individuals. That's a start.
>
> [Arlo]
> Never denied it. You're the only one who makes it an "either or"
> discussion.
Good. It would be nice if you gave the creators their due.
> [Platt]
> Now there's a mouthful from an individual named Arlo, who I dare say, spoke
> thus like no one else in the history of mankind.
>
> [Arlo]
> Not at all. In my words one can hear the echo of all the historical voices
> I've been able to appropriate, from Peirce to Pirsig, from Incan myths to
> Quantum Physics. Without these, Arlo would not only not have anything to
> say, but would not be able to speak.
>
> Every time you speak, I can hear Rand, and Pirsig, and the countless voices
> that make up the little dialogue in your head. You think you think in
> isolation and with no one elses words, but you are quite wrong.
Well, it's big of you to admit you never had a original thought in your
head and that you are merely an echo of other individuals who did have
something new and different to say.
> [Platt]
> As yes, the magical "emergent," the great "oops" of the inexplicable.
> Reminds me of "It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly there was a
> scream."
>
> [Arlo]
> If you are so anti-emergence, why are you so fond of an emergentist
> metaphysical hierarchy?
Because it was all there from the beginning and simply took time to
flower, whereas for you it just emerged out of the blue..
> [Platt]
> Surely you can do better in telling your story about how ideas materialize
> than Snoopy. And while you're at it, perhaps you can tell me what
> collective mind first drew the curves that defined Snoopy on a piece of
> paper.
>
> [Arlo]
> And without the culture, and the historical legacy of the collective
> consciousness, not only would Shulz have had no voice to conceptualize
> Snoopy, but no paper, no pen and no social dialogue for his characters.
Somebody (not a commune) invented paper, pen and the language that
comprises your "social dialogue." For instance, the pen was invented by a
Croatian scientist, Slavoljub Penkalao. (Wikipedia)
> Snoopy exists not because Shulz existed, but because the 20th century
> American collective consciousness existed, in which Shulz emerged, and
> through collaborative activity with others around him was Shulz able to
> actualize Snoopy.
>
> Glorify Shulz in Randian icing all you want, its like glorifing a red blood
> cell for creating the human body. Without "individual red blood cells" the
> human body would not exist, sure, but without collectivization on the part
> of those cells, the emergent human body, a higher organism than the red
> blood cell, the human body also would not exist.
No, it's not like glorifying blood cells. They are at the biological
level, discrete from human social and intellectual levels.
> [Platt]
> But you cannot escape the fact that Descartes said it, not a committee,
> bureau, department, council, commission, jury, conference, convention,
> fraternity, parliament, commune, pow wow or group of any kind. One man,
> alone, declaring independence from the social level, just as Pirsig, one
> man alone, burning the midnight oil in his study, accompanied only by his
> faithful dog, Rigel, asleep at his feet, putting pen to paper to declare,
> "A tribe can change its values only person by person and someone has to be
> first." (Lila, 9).
>
> [Arlo]
> Sure Descartes said it. But not alone. Only through the appropriation of
> the a socially constructed collective consciousness that was 19th century
> French culture. It takes two to tango, and without the collective Descartes
> would have nothing to say.
>
> You keep misrepresenting the "collective consciousness" as something like a
> "group of people". Thankfully, Pirsig proved he knew what it truly is,
> saying, "Religion isn’t invented by man. Men are invented by religion. Men
> invent responses to Quality, and among these responses is an understanding
> of what they themselves are. You know something and then the Quality
> stimulus hits and then you try to define the Quality stimulus, but to
> define it all you’ve got to work with is what you know. So your definition
> is made up of what you know. It’s an analogue to what you already know. It
> has to be. It can’t be anything else. And the mythos grows this way. By
> analogies to what is known before. The mythos is a building of analogues
> upon analogues upon analogues. These fill the collective consciousness of
> all communicating mankind. Every last bit of it."
>
> You can keep saying "A man said it and not a committee", but all that does
> is show you don't understand what Pirsig was getting at. That "man" is an
> dialectic participant in the historical and temporal dialogue that is the
> collective consciousness. Descartes said it only by virtue of this
> collective.
>
> Without the 19th century French culture (the collective consciousness
> appropriated by Descartes), Descartes would have been able to say nothing,
> let alone have "an idea".
All to which my answer is: "A tribe can change its values only person by
person and someone has to be first." (Lila, 9)
> [Platt]
> My hero, the "someone," the "active catalytic agent."
>
> [Arlo]
> Who in isolation from the collective consciousness of all communicating
> mankind is "noone". With no voice. With no thoughts. With no words. Hardly
> capable of being anything other than a biological entity.
>
> You worship the day, I worship the circadian rhythm that is sunrise-sunset.
> You worship a note, I worship the symphony. You worship the red blood cell,
> I worship the emergent product of cell collective activity.
> Individual-collective. Forever intertwined and only separable by illusion
> and charlantism. Whose dialectic gives rise to emergent higher-level
> organisms, who we then call "individual" (at that level), who again through
> a dialectic activity with the collective gives rise to yet another level.
I know. You worship the commune, I worship the individuals in it, the
creators, the responders to DQ, the Shakespeares, the Mozarts, the Wyeths,
the Luthers, the Carnegies, the Fords, the Wrights, the Einsteins, the
Edisons, the Platos, the Jameses, the Pirsigs and all the movers and
shakers who brought us out of the caves into the light of civilization.
Platt
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 : Sat Nov 26 2005 - 22:28:04 GMT