Re: virus: SM

David McFadzean (david@lucifer.com)
Thu, 25 Sep 1997 12:02:28 -0600


At 01:32 PM 9/25/97 -0400, Reed Konsler wrote:

>It depends on your tradition, doesn't it? Derrida laughs at your feeble attempt
>to separate the signified from the signifier. We are having a philosophical
>conversation. You want to begin of logical positivist turf. I'm postmodern
>Let's negotiate.

Do you really believe things disappear (don't exist) when no-one looks at them?

>The color of T-Rex is IMPLIED by all these things. You are making things
>difficult by confating levels of ontology. The color implied by T-Rex's skin
>is known in a different (not less reliable) way than the color of the apple you
>ate a week ago. The color of the apple made use of your eye. The color of
>T-Rex makes use of your theories about wavelength, chemistry, light, etc.
>to construct and illusion of what the color would have looked like if you
>could have seen it.

When you first brought up this example I wanted to suggest that we
stay clear of using color to make our points. It is so problematic
that is has its own discipline now: the philosophy of color. Why don't
we stick with something simpler, like did T-Rex exist before anyone
had a concept of <T-Rex>? I claim that yes indeed there existed many
of them around 65 million years ago. How about you?

>How does one prove the existince of a reality outside of perception? You're
>beginning to sound like a mystic.

I never suggested you could. Whatever happened to the discipline of
translation?

I am saying that is possible for something to exist before it is detected
(like galaxies before the 18th century).

>Do you mean objective as in:
>
>Identical for all observers using the same definitions.
>
>I don't accept that such a thing exists. I'm particulary worried about words
>like "identical" and "same". The concept of "definitions" and from whence
>they are derived (and if two people can ever agree on them) is also puzzling.

Maybe you should take it up with whoever said that.

--
David McFadzean                 david@lucifer.com
Memetic Engineer                http://www.lucifer.com/~david/
Church of Virus                 http://www.lucifer.com/virus/