Donald T Palmgren (lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu)
Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:08:16 +0100
Hi gang,
Two points, if you will:
Theo, I basically agree w/ you about "sentiant" not meanining
"determanant." The best synonem for "sentiaent" is "aware" and the best
synonem for "determinant is "programed." However, you also said that
static patterns are "completly devoid of dynamic influance" and are
"predictable in every way." What's predictable in every way? Nothing in
nature is predictable in every way. Things happen more or less along
general patterns, but complete predictability? That only exists in the
abstract (meaning: atemporal) world of (call it) the "literary plane."
*Moby Dick* is predictable; it ALWAYS turns out the same way, and you
can
even skip to the end or jump back to the middle... because *reading* a
book is a concrete activity that takes up time, but the book itself is
not. It's all there at once -- abstract.
Anthony and I have previously batted around the question of
time,
which is what this leads into. Metaphysics is all about what counts as
existence -- what does X have to have to be "real." "Does God REALLY
exist?" Well, that depends; what do you have to have in order to exist?
Now, what exists, exists in time, so another way of putting the
question is to ask, "How does something (God, me or *Moby Dick*) get
into
time (get "timed," or get a percievable rhythm/patern)? In other words,
metaphysics is ABOUT, 'What is time?'
I brought this up again now because one way to get a lot of
milege out of this static/Dynamic question is to ask about their
relationship to time. Are static patterns concrete (temporal) and
Dynamic
Q abstract (atemporal) or is it the other way around? Or is all Value,
static and Dynamic, either concrete or abstract?
I also basically agree w/ Magnus when he says that all
quality/reality is sentient -- I think "aware" would be a better word.
The objective world doesn't exist independently of the subjective world
--
Knower and known exist only recipricolly. A good idea is to stop
thinking of "object" as something out there indepent of any knowledge of
it, and insted say that an "object" as an explanation.
Pretend I hold up a quarter in front of you and ask, "What do
you
see?" -"A quarter"- "But what to you SEE?" -"Oh! A silver disk."- Now I
turn the quarter perpandiculer to you, and say "Now what do you see?"
-"A
silver line."- "Well," I say "What you saw changed but it's the same
quarter so what you say couldn't have been the quarter." (P does his own
version in ZMM ch 11, I think, w/ the "a priori motercycle.")
An object, you see, is an explanation. That's it's
function. If I peel off the foil wraper and pop the chocolet "coin" in
my
mouth, you'd say, "Gee, it wasn't a quarter at all; it was a candy." Or
if
said "ALLAH BE PRAISED!" and throw the quarter down and it explodes in a
burst of hellfire and brimstone you'd say, "Why that was no quarter;
that
was a Muslum damnation device!"
An object is an explanation. It creates the continuity of
space-time experience. This is the definition of "object" given by
Imanual Kant. His word is "synthasis" -- the object
connects/synthasizes
our moment-to-moment perceptions to one-another. Before Kant everyone
was asking, "Do objects exists?" Kant turned the question on it's head
and
asked, "What is the function of an object?"
Knower and known both exist (ONLY) together so there is nowhere
a pure knowing nor a pure known; they come packaged. (And, not to
drag-out the point, but that's the basic idea behind "Idealism" as it is
opposed to "Materialis.")
Who was it that suggested "meaning" as a synonem for "quality?"
I
kind of like that...
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:43:21 CEST