From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Sun Dec 04 2005 - 05:46:04 GMT
You are now, I'm convinced, just playing games.
[Platt]
Yes, but someone, an individual, responding to DQ, created each and every
idea that was later passed on from individual to individual.
[Arlo]
An "individual", to be sure, who exists by virtue of the social dialectic, by
virtue of the collective consciousness. You keep trying to separate the
inseparable. Like the good red blood cell who continues to argue that "without
ME nothing else would exist, I'M THE GREATEST! Worship ME!" This is fine, you
go on worshiping your red blood cells.
No "individual" created any idea. Only through the social level, the collective
consciousness are individuals emergent, and then structured by that collective.
"Ideas" are socially constructued, through and by virtue of the collective
consciousness. The individual whose voice emerges by virtue of this choir, and
who (as Pirsig says) responds to Quality, does so (1) through a socially
appropriated voice, and (2) as part of a historical dialogue, the Great
Collective Consciousness Pirsig speaks of, from which emerges intellectual
patterns greater than any one "individual".
[Arlo]
That "social mediation", that you so deliberatly wish to profess
independece from, something Pirsig rightly sees as the critical link
between intellectual patterns and the world of matter. It was this "social
mediation" that enabled the individual Diana, herself a socially
constructed voice, to sing the MD.
[Platt]
To say an individual is surrounded by other individuals is to say no more
than a tree is surrounded by other trees. I don't find that especially
enlightening or even noteworthy. A typical reaction to such truisms is
"Duh."
[Arlo]
Just more Randian charlatanism. Maybe you should do some research into "social
mediation". Pirsig is a smart guy. He knew what he was saying. And it wasn't
your woefully inadequate Randian distorition.
To say that mental patterns are derived from social mediation, as Pirsig
rightfully says, is to say that social patterns are dialogic, and emerge from
social interaction, not from some Randian individual.
[Arlo previously]
I see no reason why he would not say the same thing about intellectual patterns,
which after all, he says are related to social patterns the same way social
patterns are related to biological patterns. This "social pattern organism" is
a metaphor Pirsig uses six times in Lila, by the way.
[Platt]
You "see no reason why" Pirsig didn't say something. If you try to get
away with that evidence in court, the judge will die laughing.
[Arlo]
This is your battle? Fine. According to Pirsig, social patterns are metaphoric
"organisms". Although he never says this about "intellectual patterns", he does
say intellect is related to society as society is related to biology. But, if
you want to base all your arguments on the specific words used by Pirsig, it'll
be helpful if you stop ignoring those metaphors that disprove your Randian
nonsense. After all, fair is fair.
[Platt]
How can someone's thoughts echo thoughts that haven't been thought yet?
And where can I go to hear this "collective voice" of yours. At a rock
concert perhaps? Or maybe at a party rally of liberal Democrats?
[Arlo]
Yes, I am grateful to converse with conservatives who loathe ad hominem attacks,
and stick to debating the argument at hand...
Or wait, damn, see, I'm wrong again, only "liberals" are capable of "ad hominem"
attacks. Conservatives, as righteous as they are, are incapable of sinking to
those depths.
All you continue to do, Platt, is show that your world is so distorted by Rand
that you can't see that what I am saying is not some Randian-imaginary
dichotomy to what you are saying. I don't demean your fabled "individual".
But, before I address this again, are you saying there are "thoughts that
haven't been thought yet"??? I thought (pun intended) it was "all there from
the beginning"? My consciousness, yours, Pirsig's... all there just waiting for
evolution to unfold so it could manifest itself in our gloriously human,
supreme bodies?
[Arlo previously]
At least you admit that calculus did not emerge from one individual, but
evolved over social time as social collective activity.
[Platt]
No. It wasn't created by a bunch of nameless, faceless people. Wikipedia
names names, each of whom, on their own and in their own way, came up with
something new.
[Arlo]
See... more Randian charlatanism. You gotta drop that bunk, Platt. Or at least
give up the hope of using such distortive tactics on me. Maybe Limbaugh has
success with his screened callers, but here, well, I think it becomes obvious
that your doing it.
Who said anyting about "nameless, facelss people"? Me? Nosireebob. I am quite
aware that specific "individuals", given voice through the collective
consciousness, and contributing the social dialogue of "calculus", have
collectively given emergence to a pattern of thought greater than any "one"
voice.
[Platt previously]
One question: Who wrote "Lila?"
[Arlo replied]
Pirsig was the keystone species, as I've said. But the thoughts and ideas
contained therein echo the voices of Plato, the Sophists, Kant and James,
not to mention the Chairman, the students of rhetoric in Bozeman, Chris,
and certainly the Sutherlands. It is from all these voices that Lila
emerged, with Pirsig certainly keystone, but without these others voices,
Pirsig would have nothing to say.
But the MOQ is bigger than Lila. Once "given birth to", the MOQ became
immediately social (although it was before as well). It will (and should!)
undergo social evolution (as does calculus), become like Wikipedia a
collective of voices, working together in historical dialectic activity.
Lila's Child, and the PhD work of Ant (both socially constructed latches,
owing to particular keystone species, but not emerging from one lone
voice), are part of the social dialogue that will shape the MOQ over
historical time, to grow it into a voice of the collective, not the voice
of one.
[Platt]
Then why not give everyone who has contributed to the MD a PhD? Lots of
"keystone species" on this site wouldn't you agree?
[Arlo]
Actually, yes, Platt, I agree. There are a lot of "keystone species" in the
evolution of the MOQ on this list. Whether or not that's "everyone", well, I
humbly exclude myself.
But yet still again... you continue to demonstrate that Randian charlantism, as
if somehow any move away from glofifying the ficticious Randian "individual",
is a move towards disavoing any "individuality" whatsoever. Let me tell ya
something, Rand's woefully simplisitic conception of the "individual" is not
all there is. One can be capable, for example, of recognixing individual
achievement in parallel with the social support that made such achievement
possible. Only Randian nonsense marks this as demeaning.
But ask Pirsig if he thinks the Sophists, and Kant, and Chris, and the
Sutherlands and James and Wendy and all the other historical/immediate voices
in his social dialogue were inconsequential to his "I did it all by myself"
creation... Honor Pirsig, honor the social dialectic that enabled and supported
the emergence of "his" thinking, honor the "collective consciousness" that his
voice is a part of.
Drop that Randian nonsense, and stop the foolish "if it ain't only Pirsig, it
ain't Pirsig at all" bunk. Please?
Arlo
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