In a message dated 07/06/2004 20:48:15 GMT Standard Time,
m.riddoch@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
On Monday, June 7, 2004, at 08:44 PM, GEVANS613@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Malcolm:
> All bare assertions require the power to make them true.
>
> Jud: You are way off beam. The question is what is human nature in the
> context of will to will, and how the concept of their own human
> nature, and the
> human nature of other humans is perceived.
Malcolm:
Yes, and it is precisely in the context of the will to will that all
bare assertions require the power to make them true.
Jud:
Obsequiously speaking, I do really enjoy your writing and your clarity. I
don't mind the odd bit of banter,
and I wish you to know just in case you weren't already aware, that
anything I say is only in fun and is
NEVER to be taken seriously, and is certainly not meant to be hurtful. I
don't know if you have met many scousers in your time
[lots have emigrated to Aussieland] this is the way we are — just a fact of
life like the nose on your face.
No amount of money or 'book larnin' changes us, we always remain scoffing
bastards until just before they hammer down the lid.
Don't be surprised if after my death you discover that my last words were:
'Heidegger was a bastard!' ;-)
And now to business...
Jud:
Surely you mean: 'acquire the power' here?
I'll drop the nominalist thing for a moment and say that it is possible to
'make things happen.'
I' m not sure though that by making things happen one makes things true?
If when young I devote all my energies to becoming a train-driver, and by
dint of dedication and perseverance [a collation of WtP and WtW]
I eventually achieve my objective — what does that make true? My youthful
dreams? Have my dreams come true?
There may when be a miss-match between my youthful dreams and the reality of
adult life on the footplate? The boiler may explode and scald my pretty face
someone might be having an affair with my wife whilst I am away on the
Edinburgh run? The job might affect my lungs and do terrible damage to me
physically?
> There is a consensus that human
> beings are [and this is a generalisation] greedy, self-centred and not
> particularly concerned with the problems of others.
Malcolm:
A consensus of belief in the truth of a bare assertion would be
compelling for me depending on whose consensus it is and the reasoning
behind it.
Jud:
I'm talking PITS-talk here [people on the street] The number of times the
phrase: 'he's only after his own good,'
and similar talk is legion, and the fact that people may be Christians or
Shintoists or whatever doesn't seem to make any difference.
My experience has been that most folks look after number one first, family
and loved ones next ...and then whatever..
Malcolm:
There are lots of beliefs backed by consensus, such as the
belief in the rather pagan Christian god for instance, or in the still
amazingly persistent US belief that Hussein had WMD. Your
generalisation that human nature is founded on greed and self-interest
is nothing other than a bare faced belief, a dogma. There are a
multitude of motivations in constant flux for every peoples all over
this world, from greed, grief, hatred and anger to happiness,
generosity, kindness and love. In a sense human history is this
constant play of feeling or mood and their associated actions, a
consensus of mood is what Nietzsche calls the herd. So far in our
historical struggles greed seems to be predominant but that does not
make it a principle of human nature, on the contrary, I'd say it's a
symptom of our utter collective ignorance.
Jud:
Yeah - I suppose your right now you put it that way — its a very subjective
business anyway I guess.
> What we CAN talk about though are the strands of persistent and
> reoccurring attitudes which manifest themselves as part of our animal
> [human] nature — and the surprising behavioural predictability that
> can be employed
> in the study of human social behaviour conduct. But as Husserl
> correctly
> pointed out — this is sociology — not philosophy.
Depends really on what you mean by 'human nature' and 'attitude.'
Humanity has traditionally been conceived as not merely beastly but
also rational, the animal rationale, a thinking beast. You can go and
do some polls and get back to the list on your sociological research,
and I'd definitely find that interesting, or we can talk
philosophically about what defining humanity as the 'thinking beast'
actually means, how moods are a form of fundamental understanding, and
how will to power functions as the form of historical relations between
peoples. The latter is a phenomenological way of talking about our
current situation, it's certainly a mode of philosophy as I understand
it.
Jud:
I was thinking of the way that psychologists and psychiatrists can slot
patients into various categories
[I'm still sitting on my nominalist hat here] and can more or less predict
certain behaviour extrapolated from
formulaic categories based upon precedent, experience and statistical data.
Humans DO tend to behave in similar ways
and DO tend to conform to societal mores and rules. It is possible to make
intelligent guesses as to the future behaviour of people if you biff them on
the nose, call them a moron or slag off their wife. Human behaviour in the
workplace is fairly predictable too — competition for promotion, tittle-tattle
about colleagues, sly digs concerning competitors to gain advantage, etc.
Freud claimed that human nature was all about sex - I don't believe that —
although I believe sex plays a major role. Kudos is important — particularly in
young males.
Perhaps we could say that the will to will is reflected in varying types of
human behaviour [a plethora of motivations] but that EVERY human
being manifests some sort variable of the will to will? I can't conceive of
anybody not believing in SOMETHING or not CARING about something enough can
you?
I mean even HABIT is a kind of will to will, like putting the cat out every
night or voting labour year after year.
> Pray inform me what is difficult for you to understand in the
> sentence: 'an
> ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose, ' is only
> metaphysical as part of the cognitive rigidity of metaphysicalists?
Malcolm:
Ok, I can't read it for one ... your use of the language is a bit
stilted for me, and I don't really have any specific idea of what you
mean by 'cognitive rigidity'
Jud:
Analyse the two words then stick it together
'Cognitive' means: Of or being or relating to or involving cognition, which
is the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning.
And rigidity means: the quality of being rigid and rigorously severe.
So cognitive rigidity' means: thinking in a severe unbending way. Sticking
to one's opinion,
So the complete sentence becomes: 'an
'An ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose, ' is only
'metaphysical' as part of the thinking in a severe and unbending way of
metaphysicalists?'
Now slot this back into its context and we get:
'An ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose, ' is only
'metaphysical' as part of the thinking in a severe and unbending way of
metaphysicalists?' ...but try to understand that for a non-metaphysician like me
it is possible to talk of the human beings involved in [say] the production of
animals for the plate without being lumbered like you with an ongoing
metaphysical fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose which... '
Malcolm:
or how you're using the term
'metaphysical' in relation to will as 'an ongoing fixity and persistent
intent of thought or purpose'. As to the latter phrase why not simply
use 'will'? The will to will would then be 'an ongoing fixity and
persistent intent of thought or purpose' whose purpose would be to
intend 'an ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose'.
For me the self-sufficient purposelessness of the 'will to will' is a
much more succinct way of formulating this dynamic notion of willing.
Then you would have: The will to will 'is only metaphysical as part of
the cognitive rigidity of metaphysicalists'. I guess you're saying
something like 'will' is unproblematic except when it is artificially
thematised by deluded academics?
Jud:
No, I am not saying that - I am saying that 'will' is only metaphysical
when it is artificially
thematised by metaphysicalist academics — not deluded ones — for though
all metaphysicalist academics are deluded — some deluded academics are not
metaphysicians. ;-)
Malcolm:
I find you difficult to translate Jud,
but I think your notion that 'will' is something self-evidently
unproblematic is rather problematic.
Jud:
I am not saying that will is 'unproblematic' I am saying that 'will' does
not exist and that only the willer exists.
Just like 'Global Power,' 'will' doesn't exist — its the guys that wield
the Global Power, and the guy or gal that wills that exists NOT THE WILL
ITSELF..
Malcolm:
In Heidegger's terms the will to
will is metaphysical in that it provides its own grounds for being true
and truth becomes something willed, truth becomes self assertion.
Actually your own assertions are a good example of the self assertive
metaphysical will to will and its truths, as are mine.
Jud:
Then Heidegger is speaking a load of nonsense — there is NO SUCH THING as
'metaphysicality' or 'the metaphysical.'
All is physical — the physical willer wills, and the Globally dispersed
power brokers broke.
The whole business of 'Metaphysics' is the biggest con-trick perpetrated by
so few on so many in the history of human thinking.
> The ancestor of the boomerang is the Killing-stick and the
> aboriginals knew the Killing-sticks well before the boomerang.
Depends really, there are a number of 'boomerang' styles used by
various language groups over a long period of time, they all generally
refer to the killing or throwing stick as far as I know. The returning
boomerang is/was a specialised ceremonial throwing stick, it wasn't
traditionally widely in use outside the northern regions if I remember
correctly.
Jud:
That reminds me [seriously] someone who used to be on this list went to
deliver a lecture in Australia and brought me back a present of a purse made out
of a kangaroo's scrotum. You being an Aussie and all, and the only one I
know, I always think of you when I'm rooting for small change. ;-)
> The point
> remains that it is a piece of technology that can be used to kill or
> for
> play. You can't blame the boomerang or the killing-stick if it used
> for evil
> purposes — its the guy who throws it — the ONTIC human being who
> throws the
> ONTIC boomerang or ONTIC killing stick.
Malcolm:
Sure, but the killing stick is one implement that itself is only
meaningfully useful in relation to the whole toolset and way of life of
traditional Aboriginal peoples. Take it out of that lived context and
you've got a couple of Wodgellas babbling about museum pieces or banana
shaped nylon frisbees. I guess you'll insist that your utilitarian
interpretation of the killing stick is the most relevant one, but what
I'm interested in is how this notion of 'utilitarianism' already frames
how you understand an everyday implement like the boomerang. That's a
philosophical question by the way, straight out of 'Being and Time'.
Jud:
My relationship with objects comports with my nominalistic phenomenology.
Because I hold that they are the only things that actually exist in the
world - I generally
have a very close relationship with them and can become easily emotionally
attached to them.
I loved my yacht [now gone] [see my webpage - 'Living on a Boat,
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/florry019.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/florry019.htm)
I am very attached to my car.
As well as old books, I see familiar objects as old friends - I'm a hoarder
of items of memorabilia.
I have a respect for tools [I do a lot of DIY] and look after them and
prefer to fix them if they break rather than replace them.
The pen I use [an old Parker] I've had for over 50-years. Apart from
paintings and a few other works of art [sculptures, ceramics etc., I don't have
many things
of beauty in my home. The walls are all painted white [in every room] and
the objects and artefacts I value are all things that can be utilised for a
purpose.
My walls groan with the weight of books and I am sure that one day the
ceilings will collapse and the contents of the loft will come crashing down [all
books].
> What are we supposed to do? Go around smashing the looms and putting
> hammers through monitor screens? Rip up railway tracks and throw
> dentist chairs on
> the rubbish heap — pull all the plugs that feed the stock exchange and
> burn
> the moguls at the stake?
Malcolm:
The notion that technology sets up the meaningful context within which
we live and use technological things to manipulate nature doesn't
require that we all become Luddites. It's a misreading of Heidegger to
suggest that he was anti-technology. The problem concerning technology
is all about trying to understand how modern globalising technological
civilisation is founded on a modern understanding of the world that is
not simply rational and utilitarian. It's Heidegger's contention that
our modern understanding is itself framed by the world disclosed
through technology and its complex networks, what later Heidegger
called the cybernetic order.'
Jud:
The technological world in which we find ourselves is TWTWI [the way the
world is]
The world is not rational and utilitarian because PEOPLE are not rational
and utilitarian.
There IS NO 'modern understanding of the world that is not simply rational
and utilitarian'
THERE ARE ONLY human beings who abide in the world who are simply not
rational and utilitarian in their understanding of the world.
Heidegger turns everything wrong way up like it was Alice in Wonderland or
something?
The world doesn't make us — we make [shape] the world. In the last 69 years
that I've been around, the world has changed tremendously
but it not THE WORLD that has done the changing - IT is me [to a minuscule
extent] and the billions of my generational human contemporaries all over the
globe. 'America' didn't attack Iraq - it was THE AMERICANS.
> The man was a headbanging looney! There will be
> reason and unreasoned use of technology in any age [Greek fire, siege
> engines,
> beaked Triremes, etc.].
Malcolm:
Neither is this a question of the reasonable or unreasonable use of
technology, especially given that 'unreason' is merely another form of
reason, just as irrationality presumes rationality. It's about that
understanding of the world that sets up the non-rational meaningful
context within which we can make reasonable use of technological things.
Jud:
Now you are talking sense by identifying that it is the way that HUMANS
understand/misunderstand the world
that sets up the non-rational meaningful context within which we can make
reasonable/unreasonable use of technological things.
All this Global Power and will to will business is a load of old malarkey —
it's all down to the way that humans think and act.
Britain didn't drop a bomb on Baghdad - British human pilots did, and if
there were any unmanned technological flying bombs that
killed the Iraqi citizens, they were ordered, manufactured, and guided to
their targets by Britons - not by Britain.
> You can't blame the technology all the time, in spite of the fact that
> it cannot answer back, because technology DOESN'T REASON - HUMANS DO.
Malcolm:
Well done, and I agree so long as we don't reduce the notion of reason
down to pure calculation and the algorithms used in AI and robotics
research. Things don't think, humans do, and we also feel, and these
feelings and thoughts are always meaningful in one sense or another
depending on the lived context. It's that lived context that's
interesting though don't you think? This material world of
technological things and ways of doing business within which we live
out our busy lives. What would reason be without this lived world that
makes one reasoned response more or less meaningful than another?
Jud:
I totally agree.
> Henry's: 'narrative which weaves itself into the popular
> consciousness' is a
> HUMAN narrative — not a 'technological' one — you cannot blame the
> technological medium for the human message.
Malcolm:
Maybe we live in a technological medium that frames the meaning of the
messages we send to one another?
Jud:
No, speaking for myself my content and modus operandi hasn't changed much
from my snail-mail days, I had an d still have many correspondents all over the
world, though most have now got computers. I still prefer a solid bit of
paper in my hand though and the thought that the person licked the stamps and
sealed the envelope endows the letter with a more human dimension, a certain
tactility that is missing from the cybermail. There are certain 'conventions'
concerning net behaviour — and the anonymity does impart a certain security
which sometimes results in laxity of gentlemanly behaviour and basic human
politeness. [Yes, I am guilty too.]
Malcolm:
That's an open ended question again,
no doubt for you we're just using this internet to communicate about a
world that is self evidently just a bunch of stuff being kicked around
by masses of thinking animals, us manic predator apes. And you'd be
right of course, I'm just interested in what that objectively
self-evident world view actually means.
Jud:
Constant reassurance, confirmation and substantiation that my nominalistic
stance is the only correct one. ;-)
Cheers,
Jud.
Nullius in Verba
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
JUD EVANS - XVANS XPERIENTIALISM
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--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
m.riddoch@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
On Monday, June 7, 2004, at 08:44 PM, GEVANS613@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Malcolm:
> All bare assertions require the power to make them true.
>
> Jud: You are way off beam. The question is what is human nature in the
> context of will to will, and how the concept of their own human
> nature, and the
> human nature of other humans is perceived.
Malcolm:
Yes, and it is precisely in the context of the will to will that all
bare assertions require the power to make them true.
Jud:
Obsequiously speaking, I do really enjoy your writing and your clarity. I
don't mind the odd bit of banter,
and I wish you to know just in case you weren't already aware, that
anything I say is only in fun and is
NEVER to be taken seriously, and is certainly not meant to be hurtful. I
don't know if you have met many scousers in your time
[lots have emigrated to Aussieland] this is the way we are — just a fact of
life like the nose on your face.
No amount of money or 'book larnin' changes us, we always remain scoffing
bastards until just before they hammer down the lid.
Don't be surprised if after my death you discover that my last words were:
'Heidegger was a bastard!' ;-)
And now to business...
Jud:
Surely you mean: 'acquire the power' here?
I'll drop the nominalist thing for a moment and say that it is possible to
'make things happen.'
I' m not sure though that by making things happen one makes things true?
If when young I devote all my energies to becoming a train-driver, and by
dint of dedication and perseverance [a collation of WtP and WtW]
I eventually achieve my objective — what does that make true? My youthful
dreams? Have my dreams come true?
There may when be a miss-match between my youthful dreams and the reality of
adult life on the footplate? The boiler may explode and scald my pretty face
someone might be having an affair with my wife whilst I am away on the
Edinburgh run? The job might affect my lungs and do terrible damage to me
physically?
> There is a consensus that human
> beings are [and this is a generalisation] greedy, self-centred and not
> particularly concerned with the problems of others.
Malcolm:
A consensus of belief in the truth of a bare assertion would be
compelling for me depending on whose consensus it is and the reasoning
behind it.
Jud:
I'm talking PITS-talk here [people on the street] The number of times the
phrase: 'he's only after his own good,'
and similar talk is legion, and the fact that people may be Christians or
Shintoists or whatever doesn't seem to make any difference.
My experience has been that most folks look after number one first, family
and loved ones next ...and then whatever..
Malcolm:
There are lots of beliefs backed by consensus, such as the
belief in the rather pagan Christian god for instance, or in the still
amazingly persistent US belief that Hussein had WMD. Your
generalisation that human nature is founded on greed and self-interest
is nothing other than a bare faced belief, a dogma. There are a
multitude of motivations in constant flux for every peoples all over
this world, from greed, grief, hatred and anger to happiness,
generosity, kindness and love. In a sense human history is this
constant play of feeling or mood and their associated actions, a
consensus of mood is what Nietzsche calls the herd. So far in our
historical struggles greed seems to be predominant but that does not
make it a principle of human nature, on the contrary, I'd say it's a
symptom of our utter collective ignorance.
Jud:
Yeah - I suppose your right now you put it that way — its a very subjective
business anyway I guess.
> What we CAN talk about though are the strands of persistent and
> reoccurring attitudes which manifest themselves as part of our animal
> [human] nature — and the surprising behavioural predictability that
> can be employed
> in the study of human social behaviour conduct. But as Husserl
> correctly
> pointed out — this is sociology — not philosophy.
Depends really on what you mean by 'human nature' and 'attitude.'
Humanity has traditionally been conceived as not merely beastly but
also rational, the animal rationale, a thinking beast. You can go and
do some polls and get back to the list on your sociological research,
and I'd definitely find that interesting, or we can talk
philosophically about what defining humanity as the 'thinking beast'
actually means, how moods are a form of fundamental understanding, and
how will to power functions as the form of historical relations between
peoples. The latter is a phenomenological way of talking about our
current situation, it's certainly a mode of philosophy as I understand
it.
Jud:
I was thinking of the way that psychologists and psychiatrists can slot
patients into various categories
[I'm still sitting on my nominalist hat here] and can more or less predict
certain behaviour extrapolated from
formulaic categories based upon precedent, experience and statistical data.
Humans DO tend to behave in similar ways
and DO tend to conform to societal mores and rules. It is possible to make
intelligent guesses as to the future behaviour of people if you biff them on
the nose, call them a moron or slag off their wife. Human behaviour in the
workplace is fairly predictable too — competition for promotion, tittle-tattle
about colleagues, sly digs concerning competitors to gain advantage, etc.
Freud claimed that human nature was all about sex - I don't believe that —
although I believe sex plays a major role. Kudos is important — particularly in
young males.
Perhaps we could say that the will to will is reflected in varying types of
human behaviour [a plethora of motivations] but that EVERY human
being manifests some sort variable of the will to will? I can't conceive of
anybody not believing in SOMETHING or not CARING about something enough can
you?
I mean even HABIT is a kind of will to will, like putting the cat out every
night or voting labour year after year.
> Pray inform me what is difficult for you to understand in the
> sentence: 'an
> ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose, ' is only
> metaphysical as part of the cognitive rigidity of metaphysicalists?
Malcolm:
Ok, I can't read it for one ... your use of the language is a bit
stilted for me, and I don't really have any specific idea of what you
mean by 'cognitive rigidity'
Jud:
Analyse the two words then stick it together
'Cognitive' means: Of or being or relating to or involving cognition, which
is the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning.
And rigidity means: the quality of being rigid and rigorously severe.
So cognitive rigidity' means: thinking in a severe unbending way. Sticking
to one's opinion,
So the complete sentence becomes: 'an
'An ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose, ' is only
'metaphysical' as part of the thinking in a severe and unbending way of
metaphysicalists?'
Now slot this back into its context and we get:
'An ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose, ' is only
'metaphysical' as part of the thinking in a severe and unbending way of
metaphysicalists?' ...but try to understand that for a non-metaphysician like me
it is possible to talk of the human beings involved in [say] the production of
animals for the plate without being lumbered like you with an ongoing
metaphysical fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose which... '
Malcolm:
or how you're using the term
'metaphysical' in relation to will as 'an ongoing fixity and persistent
intent of thought or purpose'. As to the latter phrase why not simply
use 'will'? The will to will would then be 'an ongoing fixity and
persistent intent of thought or purpose' whose purpose would be to
intend 'an ongoing fixity and persistent intent of thought or purpose'.
For me the self-sufficient purposelessness of the 'will to will' is a
much more succinct way of formulating this dynamic notion of willing.
Then you would have: The will to will 'is only metaphysical as part of
the cognitive rigidity of metaphysicalists'. I guess you're saying
something like 'will' is unproblematic except when it is artificially
thematised by deluded academics?
Jud:
No, I am not saying that - I am saying that 'will' is only metaphysical
when it is artificially
thematised by metaphysicalist academics — not deluded ones — for though
all metaphysicalist academics are deluded — some deluded academics are not
metaphysicians. ;-)
Malcolm:
I find you difficult to translate Jud,
but I think your notion that 'will' is something self-evidently
unproblematic is rather problematic.
Jud:
I am not saying that will is 'unproblematic' I am saying that 'will' does
not exist and that only the willer exists.
Just like 'Global Power,' 'will' doesn't exist — its the guys that wield
the Global Power, and the guy or gal that wills that exists NOT THE WILL
ITSELF..
Malcolm:
In Heidegger's terms the will to
will is metaphysical in that it provides its own grounds for being true
and truth becomes something willed, truth becomes self assertion.
Actually your own assertions are a good example of the self assertive
metaphysical will to will and its truths, as are mine.
Jud:
Then Heidegger is speaking a load of nonsense — there is NO SUCH THING as
'metaphysicality' or 'the metaphysical.'
All is physical — the physical willer wills, and the Globally dispersed
power brokers broke.
The whole business of 'Metaphysics' is the biggest con-trick perpetrated by
so few on so many in the history of human thinking.
> The ancestor of the boomerang is the Killing-stick and the
> aboriginals knew the Killing-sticks well before the boomerang.
Depends really, there are a number of 'boomerang' styles used by
various language groups over a long period of time, they all generally
refer to the killing or throwing stick as far as I know. The returning
boomerang is/was a specialised ceremonial throwing stick, it wasn't
traditionally widely in use outside the northern regions if I remember
correctly.
Jud:
That reminds me [seriously] someone who used to be on this list went to
deliver a lecture in Australia and brought me back a present of a purse made out
of a kangaroo's scrotum. You being an Aussie and all, and the only one I
know, I always think of you when I'm rooting for small change. ;-)
> The point
> remains that it is a piece of technology that can be used to kill or
> for
> play. You can't blame the boomerang or the killing-stick if it used
> for evil
> purposes — its the guy who throws it — the ONTIC human being who
> throws the
> ONTIC boomerang or ONTIC killing stick.
Malcolm:
Sure, but the killing stick is one implement that itself is only
meaningfully useful in relation to the whole toolset and way of life of
traditional Aboriginal peoples. Take it out of that lived context and
you've got a couple of Wodgellas babbling about museum pieces or banana
shaped nylon frisbees. I guess you'll insist that your utilitarian
interpretation of the killing stick is the most relevant one, but what
I'm interested in is how this notion of 'utilitarianism' already frames
how you understand an everyday implement like the boomerang. That's a
philosophical question by the way, straight out of 'Being and Time'.
Jud:
My relationship with objects comports with my nominalistic phenomenology.
Because I hold that they are the only things that actually exist in the
world - I generally
have a very close relationship with them and can become easily emotionally
attached to them.
I loved my yacht [now gone] [see my webpage - 'Living on a Boat,
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/florry019.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/florry019.htm)
I am very attached to my car.
As well as old books, I see familiar objects as old friends - I'm a hoarder
of items of memorabilia.
I have a respect for tools [I do a lot of DIY] and look after them and
prefer to fix them if they break rather than replace them.
The pen I use [an old Parker] I've had for over 50-years. Apart from
paintings and a few other works of art [sculptures, ceramics etc., I don't have
many things
of beauty in my home. The walls are all painted white [in every room] and
the objects and artefacts I value are all things that can be utilised for a
purpose.
My walls groan with the weight of books and I am sure that one day the
ceilings will collapse and the contents of the loft will come crashing down [all
books].
> What are we supposed to do? Go around smashing the looms and putting
> hammers through monitor screens? Rip up railway tracks and throw
> dentist chairs on
> the rubbish heap — pull all the plugs that feed the stock exchange and
> burn
> the moguls at the stake?
Malcolm:
The notion that technology sets up the meaningful context within which
we live and use technological things to manipulate nature doesn't
require that we all become Luddites. It's a misreading of Heidegger to
suggest that he was anti-technology. The problem concerning technology
is all about trying to understand how modern globalising technological
civilisation is founded on a modern understanding of the world that is
not simply rational and utilitarian. It's Heidegger's contention that
our modern understanding is itself framed by the world disclosed
through technology and its complex networks, what later Heidegger
called the cybernetic order.'
Jud:
The technological world in which we find ourselves is TWTWI [the way the
world is]
The world is not rational and utilitarian because PEOPLE are not rational
and utilitarian.
There IS NO 'modern understanding of the world that is not simply rational
and utilitarian'
THERE ARE ONLY human beings who abide in the world who are simply not
rational and utilitarian in their understanding of the world.
Heidegger turns everything wrong way up like it was Alice in Wonderland or
something?
The world doesn't make us — we make [shape] the world. In the last 69 years
that I've been around, the world has changed tremendously
but it not THE WORLD that has done the changing - IT is me [to a minuscule
extent] and the billions of my generational human contemporaries all over the
globe. 'America' didn't attack Iraq - it was THE AMERICANS.
> The man was a headbanging looney! There will be
> reason and unreasoned use of technology in any age [Greek fire, siege
> engines,
> beaked Triremes, etc.].
Malcolm:
Neither is this a question of the reasonable or unreasonable use of
technology, especially given that 'unreason' is merely another form of
reason, just as irrationality presumes rationality. It's about that
understanding of the world that sets up the non-rational meaningful
context within which we can make reasonable use of technological things.
Jud:
Now you are talking sense by identifying that it is the way that HUMANS
understand/misunderstand the world
that sets up the non-rational meaningful context within which we can make
reasonable/unreasonable use of technological things.
All this Global Power and will to will business is a load of old malarkey —
it's all down to the way that humans think and act.
Britain didn't drop a bomb on Baghdad - British human pilots did, and if
there were any unmanned technological flying bombs that
killed the Iraqi citizens, they were ordered, manufactured, and guided to
their targets by Britons - not by Britain.
> You can't blame the technology all the time, in spite of the fact that
> it cannot answer back, because technology DOESN'T REASON - HUMANS DO.
Malcolm:
Well done, and I agree so long as we don't reduce the notion of reason
down to pure calculation and the algorithms used in AI and robotics
research. Things don't think, humans do, and we also feel, and these
feelings and thoughts are always meaningful in one sense or another
depending on the lived context. It's that lived context that's
interesting though don't you think? This material world of
technological things and ways of doing business within which we live
out our busy lives. What would reason be without this lived world that
makes one reasoned response more or less meaningful than another?
Jud:
I totally agree.
> Henry's: 'narrative which weaves itself into the popular
> consciousness' is a
> HUMAN narrative — not a 'technological' one — you cannot blame the
> technological medium for the human message.
Malcolm:
Maybe we live in a technological medium that frames the meaning of the
messages we send to one another?
Jud:
No, speaking for myself my content and modus operandi hasn't changed much
from my snail-mail days, I had an d still have many correspondents all over the
world, though most have now got computers. I still prefer a solid bit of
paper in my hand though and the thought that the person licked the stamps and
sealed the envelope endows the letter with a more human dimension, a certain
tactility that is missing from the cybermail. There are certain 'conventions'
concerning net behaviour — and the anonymity does impart a certain security
which sometimes results in laxity of gentlemanly behaviour and basic human
politeness. [Yes, I am guilty too.]
Malcolm:
That's an open ended question again,
no doubt for you we're just using this internet to communicate about a
world that is self evidently just a bunch of stuff being kicked around
by masses of thinking animals, us manic predator apes. And you'd be
right of course, I'm just interested in what that objectively
self-evident world view actually means.
Jud:
Constant reassurance, confirmation and substantiation that my nominalistic
stance is the only correct one. ;-)
Cheers,
Jud.
Nullius in Verba
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
JUD EVANS - XVANS XPERIENTIALISM
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