XPost: alt.philosophy, alt.atheism
From: spam@hotmail.com
Michael Gray wrote:
> On 5 Apr 2006 06:21:35 -0700, "Chameleon" wrote:
>
>> Michael Gray wrote:
>>
>>> "Joseph H" wrote:
>>>
>>>> Michael Gray wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> "Joseph H" wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Truth has no legs. It doesn't run. It has no
>>>>>> narrative. It doesn't stir the heart. It doesn't
>>>>>> insist or demand. It doesn't dream. It has no form
>>>>>> or beauty. It doesn't offer hope or redemption. It
>>>>>> has no flags or anthems. It has no symbols.It
>>>>>> doesn't market itself well. It just is.
>>>>>
>>>>> I bet you are the life and soul at parties!
>>>>
>>>> To equate a man's beliefs, or lack of beliefs, with his
>>>> personality is somewhat trite, is it not?
>>>>
>>>>> (Ah, I see, you are a "philosopher". That explains
>>>>> your absolute statements of quite unsupportable and
>>>>> erroneous personal opinion, as though they were
>>>>> somehow universal immutable facts.)
>>>>
>>>> I thought I was making a quite reaonable point: that the
>>>> creations of the human mind, driven as they are by
>>>> considerations of form or hope or entertainment or
>>>> salvation, are innately more attractive than mere
>>>> iterations of the truth.
>>>
>>> Hold everything Dick Tracy!
>>>
>>> Examples please. You can clarify what you are driving at
>>> with simple examples. You could be referring to a zillion
>>> things, some combinations of which contradict your
>>> assertions outright, some that fit in correctly, and the
>>> bulk of them in-between, thus rendering your above
>>> statements quite useless.
>>
>> You want a zillion examples? All the holy books of the world
>> which depict in hyper-realistic mode myriads of miracles and
>> hosts of hopes for our future well-being; all the novels and
>> myths and epics and sagas and wandering tales since the
>> beginning of time which give credence to heroic deeds and
>> happy endings; all the...
>
>
> Are you Chameleon, or Joseph? It makes no difference, as your
> above reply is not English. I consider my skills at grammar
> and parsing to be well above average, but I cannot make
> "head-no-tail" of your word soup. I can only assumed that this
> is a defence tactic of Philosophers.
>
> I cannot comment, other than to say that my request for
> clarification resulted in nonsense jibberish.
>
> I get the very strong feeling that you are "having me on".
>
>
>> But, really, I would've thought the contention was
>> self-evident. The human mind, guided by principles of form
>> and beauty and happiness and hope, possesses charm to soothe
>> those of us - i.e. all of us - who find reality dispiriting
>> and grim.
>
>
> More non-English.
>
>
>> Nothing revolutionary there - except that the saying or the
>> seeing of it might be revolutionary.
>>
>>> Examples please, so that I can nail down what it is that
>>> you are attempting to say, with some greater clarity.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I see this as a problem for humanity. Our creations
>>>> determine and colour so much of our existence - our
>>>> beliefs, our attitudes, our outlook, our responses to
>>>> others. If a creature has the constant capacity to
>>>> create a sustainable - though ersatz - reality that is
>>>> far removed from the actual state of affairs then that
>>>> creature runs the risk of never really facing reality.
>>>> My counters to that risk would be (a) to strive to
>>>> create a depiction of reality that would satisfy the
>>>> various human needs for form and satisfaction and (b) to
>>>> insist that reality offers the hope of such a
>>>> resolution.
>>>>
>>>> I am sure that you are quite certain in your own
>>>> self-effacing way that this is all wrong.
>>>
>>> I cannot extract any coherent meaning from it, taken as a
>>> whole, so am unable to judge it's correctness.
>>
>>> (You also need to define "reality", and "truth", amongst
>>> other things. I am a scientist, and so those words have
>>> very strict meanings to me, in Relativistic Quantum
>>> Mechanics even more so, and your definition of what you
>>> mean by these terms may wish to take this into account.)
>>
>> To seek to define reality is to seek to impose a very
>> limited form of words - themselves mere constructs - upon
>> the vast complexity of existence. Indeed, the insistence on
>> such definitions is part of the falsification I speak of.
>> Reality is independent of our definitions. Matter exists;
>> the universe exists; energy exists; earth exists; life
>> exists; human beings exist. Our knowledge of all of these
>> entities and locations is increasing daily. The question of
>> the existence of the reality of which we are a part should
>> not delay us. The quest for further knowledge of this
>> reality is another matter. My contention is that (a) in our
>> ignorance and in our eagerness for meaning we imposed
>> categories on the unknown flux of existence and (b) that
>> even if in some near future time we might claim to know most
>> of what there is to know about the conditions of existence
>> we would still find the creations of the mind inherently
>> more attractive than lumpen reality. But - and this, I
>> suppose, is what I'm coming to - as we go on to create a
>> global enfranchised society, one in which the individual
>> will have more and more freedom and opportunity, it is
>> surely important that we can agree on certain fundamental
>> precepts about existence; it is important that we can agree
>> on a narrative that will enable us to share meaning with
>> each other (instead of, as we do now, lapsing back into
>> ancient nationalisms and religions). To do this we will need
>> to learn how to present reality - i.e. what we are, how we
>> evolved; what we can do etc - in a manner that will appeal
>> to all the people of the globe.
>
> Are you able to respond coherently and clearly? If not, you
> may consider our interaction closed. --
I could have told you. The guy substitutes verbiage for intelligence.
--
Dave
"Sacred cows make the best hamburger." Mark Twain.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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