At Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:30:58 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 17:16:41 -0500
>>From: "joe dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net>
>>Subject: Re:virus: Nothing
>>
>>To cite is not to cower behind. Do you see farther
>>because you stand on the shoulders of those giants
>>who came before you, or cower behind those
>>shoulders and see nothing but the asses of armpits?
>
>As you related before, it depends entirely on how
>you use the tool of citation. You were saying
>"Not only do I hold this statement to be meaningless,
>but so does my powerful buddy Dan." My reply
>is:
>
>"You don't have a clue what Dan thinks."
Au Contraire; Dan has written many tomes of wisdom in an attempt to tell me exactly what it is that he thinks, and I have read the lion's share of them. I also have been philosophically trained, and have the cognitive tools with which to understand his explanations (even where I disagree with them; Jerry Fodor wins the dispute over the status of visual imagery).
>Furthermore..if he did agree with you, you would
>both be wrong and I'd be disappointed in him..
>becuase I expect someone brilliant enough to write
>the books he does to know better.
You'd be disappointed in his error any time his opinions differed from your own? Methinks your egotistical pudendum is showing here.
>You were using the citation as a shield becuase you
>know that you can't win the argument using logic
>alone. You embody my central point: logic alone
>NEVER wins an argument, because people have
>the inalienable right to ignore it. You can't avoid
>negotiation by asserting a complex of arbitrary
>rules. As our buddy Dan tells us:
>[please imagine "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
>playing in the background..softly at first, but
>building to fierce crecesendo by the end]
>
>"If you want to teach your children that they
>are tools of God, you had better not teach them
>that they are God's rifles, or we will have to
>stand opposed to you: your doctrine has no glory,
>no special rights, no intrinsic and inalienable merit.
>If you insist on teaching your children falsehoods---
>that the Earth is flat, that "Man" is not the product
>of evolution by natural selection---then you must
>expect, at the very least, that those of us who have
>the freedom of speech will feel free to describe
>your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods,
>and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children
>at our earliest opportunity. Our future well being---
>the well being of all of us on the planet---depends on
>the education of our descendents."
>--Dan Dennett
>_Darwin's Dangerous Idea_
>
>Do you think that is about religion? Look deeper!
>It's about dogmatism. It's a about algorithmic rule
>following. Dan has stood up an said:
>
>"Look, you don't have any special access to Truth.
>If you keep saying all these silly things then you
>should expect the rest of us to resist you every
>step of the way. And don't think violence will
>deter us..just becuase we are rational doesn't
>mean we won't do whatever it takes to preserve
>freedom of expression. Our lives and liberty
>are less important to us that the well being of
>the collective. Oh, and don't think that you have
>some special right to preserve the ways of your
>father by imposing them upon your children.
>We are all in this together, and they are our
>children, also, to love, protect, and teach as best
>we can."
>
>Like I said, he is one bad ass philosopher.
>>If everything were a koan, equally nothing would
>>be, for the very word "koan" would lose all definitive
>>power (and yes, I am "cowering behind" Merleau-Ponty's
>>criticism of Sartre's concept of absolute freedom by
>>applying its form to the content of your contention).
>
>Richard has already countered that argument. We are
>all human, does this make the word "human" meaningless?
>Things which we all share are a strength, not a weakness.
>As George Lakoff points out (and Dennett has made
>analagous arguemets) it is a direct result of our incredible
>commonality that we understand each other so well, with
>so little bandwidth to go on. We are each human, and it
>is the basis of this shared experience which is the bedrock
>of communication.
No argument here; but it's irrelevant to my assertions.
>Even so, I really liked:
>
>"If everything were a koan, equally nothing would be"
>
>I'm with you up to there.
>
>>If you believe in error, you will lose.
>
>Interesting..I see your point. That's a dangerous
>statement, though, becuase one interpretation points
>toward light and other towards darkness. It's a test
>of sorts..how will you interpret me?
>
>I interpret it as:
>
>"If you don't have faith in yourself, then you can't
>win."
>
>Right?
>>whether or not you have the necessary cognitive abilities to
>>realize it. Others will realize it for you.
>
>Good. So very true. Feedback is critical to each of us. To be
>isolated from the collective is the road to madness.
>
>>A=True
>>B=False
>>C=Meaningless
>>
>>If A, B or C and if ~A and ~B, then C.
>>Q.E.D.
>
>That's an assertion, not a proof. It is
>inappropriate to say QED unless you establish
>a statement based on a set of premises. To do
>that, you have to take a step back and show
>the premises:
>
>If A then ~B
>If B then ~A
>If C then ~A, ~B
>If A then ~C
>If B then ~C
>
>Those are the premises.
>
>I assert:
>
>If ~A, ~B then either C or ~C
>
>Look, this abstract shit is boring me. I do
>it at work all the time, could we talk about
>people instead?
Sure, but A v B v C, or to say it another way ~(A*B), ~(B*C), and ~(A*C), were assumed (that truth, falsehood and meaninglessness were mutually exclusive categories), and that ~D (there is no statement which is neither true nor false nor meaningless). I should have restated these in the premises, but if you disagree with them, it is up to you to provide a disproving counterexample, or admit that you can't.
>>>You do understand! That was great!
>>
>>I have understood for quite a while now;
>>the contention is about the things you do
>>not yet understand.
>
>Cool. What are they?
We're discussing them as these posts proceed.
>>>The isn't over yet, is it? I still warming up.
>>
>>Not until you submit or quit.
>
>"You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down,
>I shall become more powerful than you can
>possibly imagine." -Obi Wan Kenobi
> "Star Wars"
> George Lucas
>
>Reed
"Come over to the logical side, Luke! I am your father!"
(Darth vader, paraphrased)
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
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Joe E. Dees
Poet, Pagan, Philosopher