From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Thu Nov 17 2005 - 21:14:40 GMT
Erin,
Erin said:
I don't understand the tetrathingy clearly but
something you said really resonated:
The key is the fourth point. The LCI is, by and
> large what one CAN say, or
> at least, try to say. For instance, that the more
> one puts X under the
> microscope, the more it starts looking like Y, and
> vice versa, and that X
> and Y create each other in mutual opposition
Scott:
Well, I don't understand it "clearly" either. Here's an example of it as
insofar as I do understand it (in the example, X is duration, Y is change,
and Z is consciousness) (this is from an old post to Platt):
"The closest I have been able to come to what I think [Merrell-Wollf] is
referring to is when I think about consciousness, in particular to its
durational and changing aspects. To be aware of a change (say one note to
another in a melody), something had to endure across the change. But to be
aware of the enduring (both notes as one melody, or even one continuous
note), something had to change. So conscious is not changing because it is
changing, and it is changing because it is not changing. One can't get out
of this contradictoriness with the idea that a part is staying the same
while a part is changing, since that just pushes the problem back to the
part that is staying the same: how can it be aware of change without
changing, and if it is enduring through the change, how can it be changing?"
Erin said:
This reminds me about the discussion of
intellect...... I feel the moq treats value as
"desire" for the first three levels and then "value"
at the fourth level becomes "belief".
To me this is creating a belief/desire division. But
as the above says the more you put belief under the
microscope the more it resembles desire and vice
versa. So to me if it is "value" at one level and
"value" at another level then it is the same.
I was just wondering if you thought belief and desire
could be seen as contradictory or not..that is I see
values as 'desire/belief'
Scott:
I find this very interesting, but I don't see it as a CI. The two terms,
belief and desire are at the least mutually implicative, but I don't see
them as mutually contradictory, as 'enduring' and 'changing' are in the
example above. However, I think there is a CI involved, but not between
desire and belief. See below.
Erin continued:
I think this helps me with all the pre-intellectual
stuff too.... I feel people act that their desires are
being filtered through beliefs and so are not living
as passionately as they would "pre-intellect/beliefs".
If you recognize "values" on all the levels the
division of desires/beliefs becomes just a matter of
degree....whereas we use desire for lower level of
values and beliefs for higher level of values.
Scott:
I see the relation between beliefs and desires differently. As I see it,
desire is the value that occurs when a sign invokes a belief (or the desire
contributes to the value involved in actuallizing a belief). The amoeba has
a belief (more carefully stated: the species amoeba has the belief, called
an instinct) that vinegar is harmful, so on encountering vinegar, the amoeba
has the desire to withdraw. Neither the encounter nor the belief on their
own constitutes value, but the encounter with vinegar is a sign that invokes
the belief about vinegar, and that results in the desire, or value. The
amoeba has filtered the encounter with vinegar through the belief. So we
have: no belief, then no desire, and no encounter, then no desire, in both
cases, implying no value, implying no experience.
There is no difference in this with the human case, except that each
individual human has the freedom to question the relevant belief, and so
overcome the desire. The hot stove example is not a case of a "pre-belief"
experience subsequently filtered by a belief, but of two filtered
experiences: the biological one that gets one off the stove reflexively
(same as the amoeba encountering vinegar) and a fourth-level one of thinking
about the biological encounter. It is conceivable that a human would
dynamically *stay* on the stove, that is, question the belief that s/he must
get off immediately.
So if there is a CI here, it would be: X is the encounter, Y the belief, and
Z the desire. This is a variation on signifier/signified/meaning, though
showing how the signifier and signified are mutually opposed while mutually
constitutive, and how they "turn into one another" is a bit of a chore (it
is discussed in part I of Magliola's "Derrida on the Mend", though he
doesn't use the phrase "contradictory identiy", instead he is talking about
Derridean *differance*, which I believe to be the same thing.)
- Scott
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