From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Thu May 26 2005 - 17:30:49 BST
Ian,
Scott said
The phrase "intellectual convenience" presupposes the modernist, nominalist
point of view to which I object ... The word for [creating value-based
distinctions] is intellect.
Ian said:
Not sure why you say modernist, but nominalist yes - it's about
taxonomy - choosing to name some sub-set of everything. Where you
reject it - I say use with caution (cos it's never black and white).
But, if I've summarised you correctly in [..] above, then we agree
about what intellect is.
Scott:
Well, here we are at a 'tis/'taint impasse, namely, it appears that you hold
with the modernist belief that consciousness and intellect emerged from a
universe without them, while I reject that. Here, again, are my reasons for
rejecting it:
1. The irreducibility of a semiotic event (necessarily ternary: sign,
interpretant, and referent) to some combination of non-semiotic events
(binary, e.g., force acting on a particle).
2. That the experience of "now" is extended in space and time, and there is
no way that a fundamentally spatiotemporal universe could produce such an
extended experience, given the separation in space and/or time of each
fundamental event from every other event. Hence, given that we already know
that color, boundaries, tones, touch are produced in the perceptive act, it
makes sense to include space and time as also produced in the perceptive
act. Hence, the fundamental level is eternal (non-spatiotemporal), which
makes the modernist view untenable.
3. (1) and (2) are, in themselves, not proofs, but just arguments or
intuitions. However, in the experience of mystics (e.g., Plotinus, Rudolf
Steiner, Franklin Merrell-Wollf), they are givens, not arguments. Add to
this Barfield's arguments that the modernist consciousness is something that
is evidentially different from pre-modern consciousness (original
participation), and that for the pre-modern consciousness, the Intellect
behind the wordly appearances was experienced, then one can conclude that
modern consciousness is a stage toward further development, so what is now
called mystical becomes normal (final participation).
So those are my reasons. Unless you can counter them, I'll stick to them,
and consider your position that of a poor deluded modernist.
Ian said:
Not sure how we got from intellect to intelligent creation. The
intellect (of intelligent participants in the world) is simply
classifying the messy world (out there) for pragmatic reasons - to
live life - creatively.
Scott:
I would say we get from creativity to intellect (and value and awareness).
Intellect creates new forms as well as classifying existing forms. You
apparently believe in something like Northorp's "undifferentiated aesthetic
continuum" that exists prior to classification. I would argue that that is a
contradiction in terms, in that there is no aesthetic without
differentiation.
Ian said:
In the DQ (formless) / sq (form) split you quote
"form is not other than formlessness, formlessness is not other than form."
I say - is / is not - this is the doubt in my shades of grey. Things
have form and formless aspects, but apart from intellectual
constructions, no one thing is entirely one or the other.
If you think LCI is a better model than MoQ - then I'd better shut up
for a bit and read about it.
Scott:
Just for example, the LCI, recall, is a rephrasing of the age-old Buddhist
tetralemma, which you violate above. It would go:
One cannot say it (whatever) is form
One cannot say it is formless
One cannot say it is form and formless
One cannot say it is neither form nor formless.
So when you say "Things have form and formless aspects" you are violating
the third horn of the tetralemma.
Ian said:
(Although I espouse classification - I'm very wary of the destructive
power of the analytic knife - things fall apart in your hands under
analysis. I prefer to be synthetic rather than analytic - to build
something better, from the best bits of what we already have - not
discard or destroy something because it's not 100% perfect to start
with - ie I hope I'm a constructive pragmatist - like evolution
itself.)
Scott:
Right: intellect is creative. Hence the MOQ is wrong to say that intellect
merely "responds" to DQ. As creativity it *is* DQ/SQ.
- Scott
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