Richard Brodie wrote:
> This is because it's usually (paradoxically) a very ineffective means of
> communicating a new paradigm to come right out and say what you mean,
> which is why I try other methods. Smart people easily seize upon
> whatever conflicts with their existing world view and
> ridicule/marginalize the new perspective. But go on...
On the other hand, in science rather than in marketing, saying what you
mean is typically looked on in a more favourable light. I'd like to
think what we do on this list is more akin to science than salesmanship.
> Chimps again! Where's Tad when you need him? Of course if I believed in
> the Learning Pyramid as Absolute Truth, you would be right to mock me.
> But what gives you that idea? I guarantee you, when I'm refereeing
> basketball, I see a block or a charge---no Levels required!
For every criticism or question, you respond by suggesting the
questioner is either lesser because he's not Level-3 or `just doesn't
get it,' or `has an obscured relative view.' You apply the concept of
relativism to all arguments but your own. That would seem to proclaim
it loud enough, wouldn't you think?
> If it were so, it were a grievous fault. But since I have a whole
> chapter in VotM (and another one in GPOK) about NOT doing that, you must
> mean that, while I INTELLECTUALLY know not to confuse the two, I'm
> unconsciously doing it anyway. Example?
Be careful ascribing `what I know' if you will, I'm not interested in
setting precedent for that. I can't say what you intellectually know,
its quite possible you intellectually, consciously and intelligently
confuse the two; that's certainly one possible take on the entire Level3
thing.
> No, it's at most enlightening and empowering. I'll concede irritating.
> As George Bernard Shaw said---and I don't have his balls by a
> longshot---"if you can't say something in an irritating way, you might
> as well not have said it at all." Some members of this list are much
> better at such Shavian rhetoric than I. Perhaps I ought to work on my
> buns.
Christianity is `at most enlightening and empowering' even as it led to
the Crusades and suffocation of opposing, and equally valid, modes of
thought.
Personally, I'm not actively trying to be obnoxious, whether or not my
cojones are whole or I want to get a point across. I suppose I still
suffer from the rhetorical conceit of respecting my audience. This may
be a currently unpopular position to take, but I need some old-fashioned
horse sense sometimes.
> No, there's a tangible difference in the process of Level-2 folks who
> become fearful, angry, or defensive at a belief conflict and Level-3
> learners who are agile in their mental repositioning. Level-3'ers do
> have a new process, just as Level-2 folks are able to see the forest for
> the trees while Level-1'ers can't.
The only /tangible/ difference that you have been able to communicate,
however, is one which I see as a matter of degree, not of kind. The
entire Leveling scheme seems more the work of salesmanship than
engineering or science from this point.
> > not realizing that /everyone/ is an executor of that way of
> >thought.
>
> ...but this is not accurate.
Why not? Every person I've ever met is at least capable of learning.
Not every person is capable of comining complex thoughts, synthesizing
something new and producing a new world-shattering thought, but everyone
takes on a part of that process, even if its just a shade-tree mechanic
looking at an engine, smelling some exhaust and putting that together
with the bit he knows about internal combustion engines to divine that
the carborator has a problem.
> Alex, I can't remember the last time that I barked my shins on furniture
> in the dark. Maybe you could learn something from me. =)
You just don't live with people that move the furniture around in the
afternoon's you're not home. Tell you what, drive home today with your
eyes closed. If you get there safely, I'll be reassured I'm barking my
shins on my delusions.
> And it's a good thing cars have an exhaust pipe to expel all the excess
> phlogiston produced by the internal combustion engine!
If reality were subjective, I'd be wearing a philogiston-mask to work;
that stuff is odourous.
--
Alexander Williams {zander@photobooks.com ||Member: Evil Geniuses
thantos@alf.dec.com} ||For a Better Tomorrow
============================================// => Charter Member <=
"Perhaps we should lower our mental trousers and compare the size of
our consciousnesses?"
-- Jan Sands to Marvin Minsky
comp.ai.genetic
====================================================================
<http://www.photobooks.com/~zander/>
Richard Brodie RBrodie@brodietech.com +1.206.688.8600
CEO, Brodie Technology Group, Inc., Bellevue, WA, USA
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie
Do you know what a "meme" is?
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm