From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Nov 25 2005 - 06:27:59 GMT
[Arlo previously]
Others include, the law of gravity, calculus, Quantum Physics, semiotics, etc.
Hardly "individual vs group" values. Indeed, they are the collective product of
group activity, essentially socially constructed ideas. Hardly "individual
values".
[Platt]
These are "collective" socially constructed ideas? Hardly. Someone, an
individual, was first. The rest, often reluctantly, followed.
[Arlo]
And without the "collective consciousness of all communicating mankind" (Pirsig)
coming before (or perhaps better, "co-occuring") the "individual", without the
historical dialogue that is language, that individual would hardly be able to
do anything, let alone create Calculus.
Calculus is a socially constructed idea, created over historical time by
"individuals" immersed in the "collective consciousness", accessing its stored
treasures, engaging in temporal and local dialogue, and appropriating its
filters (or "grid") to conceptualize and categorize experience (through the
ventriloquation of historical dialogues).
Without this, your Randian "individual" is naught but a lump of cells. No
calculus, no MOQ, no Platt, no Arlo. Unless "you" are nothing more than your
body. Everything you are in your head you are because of dialectical blending
of the "collective consciousness" and your "proprietary experience". From this
"blending" emerges Intellectual level ideas such as Calculus and Quantum
Physics.
As Pirsig says, "Descartes' "I think therefore I am" was a historically
shattering declaration of independence of the intellectual level of evolution
from the social level of evolution, but would he have said it if he had been a
seventeenth century Chinese philosopher? If he had been, would anyone in
seventeenth century China have listened to him and called him a brilliant
thinker and recorded his name in history? If Descartes had said, "The
seventeenth century French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am,"
he would have been correct.""
"The seventeenth century French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I
am," he would have been correct."
Absolutely.
Arlo
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