PUZZLED ELEPHANT TO KENNETH
I still have worries about "idea"....
KENNETH:
> PzEph you wrote,
>> There are all sorts of dangers in talking about 'idea' and
>> 'concept' here, not to mention 'foundations', connected with the fact that
>> such words can carry a huge baggage of assumed distinctions, when what we
>> want to say might rejects those ways of cutting up the world, or apply
> them
>> differently.
>
> << Very true, that was why I have put " the concept of quality " between
> quotation marks, it all comes down to meaning, definition and response.
> My point was/ is, if Quality runs throughtout the Universe as Dynamic
> Quality that is, than in my opinion it is " an idea ", " a ( evolutionary)
> con-
> cept by which the Universe shows itself or by which we experience the
> Universe. But what Quality exactly is we can 't described, we can' t see,
> can 't hear it, can 't taste or smell it.
>
>> Ideas are (in English at least - forget Platonic Greek) things that minds
>> have: the world can't have an 'idea' all on it's own.
>
> Mayby I am running up your garden here, but the idea of Gaia, a New
> Age concept about the world, would opposite such remarks. In that, the
> world is viewed as one living organism and if the times were ripe it will
> dispose of us. Nature will get its way, that is, somehow Quality will win!
ELEPHANT:
Well, James Lovelock (who invented the Gaia concept, not as a new age
religion, but as a scientific hypothesis that explains some strange
feed-back loops rather beautifully) doesn't take kindly to the notion that
Gaia has ideas. It won't be Nature who gets rid of us when the time comes,
because Nature isn't an agent in the relevent (moral) sense. No, it will be
ourselves: 'shooting yourself in the foot' is the relevant expression here,
and whoever heard of calling a bullet 'conscious'?
Also, I don't think it is right to think of Quality as itself a personal
force which always get's it's way. Anybody who want's to say something
about Quality and the problem of evil can jump right in. The triumph of
Quality, like the triumph of Good, depends on the decisions we take, doesn't
it?
Over and out,
Pzeph.
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