From: No name given (vampier@mac.com)
Date: Thu Feb 28 2002 - 07:19:55 MST
On Wednesday, February 27, 2002, at 07:54 PM, Kalkor wrote:
> [Kalkor 1]The discussion of, creation of, practice of, and whatever you
> want
> it to be. Development of those
> abilities/characteristics/understandings/anticipations will not just
> happen
> through discussion of them, but rather by putting them into practice in
> this
> forum for rational discourse, and in all other RL interaction. Which I
> think
> is what both you and Hermit are trying to say above ;-}
Ok.
> [nng]Yes, I concur that the definition of self-reliance, as provided
> there,
> is well argued. But it seems about as useful to achieving self-reliance
> as the peano postulates are to proving Fermat's last theorem - there's a
> lot more to go before one can take those words and turn them into
> reality and "cope" with that reality. Which leads me to the coping
> aspect....
>
> [Kalkor 1]If you're looking for a checklist, you've come to the wrong
> place.
> Catch-22, you have to be self-reliant enough to put those ideas into
> action
> to achieve self-reliance. Or, to simplify, try examining the memes
> behind
> your actions, and discard or alter the meme or the action if you suspect
> you're practicing hypocrisy. Something that must be DONE rather than
> discussed, and I am merely an amateur at it.
I once heard of a notion amongst evangelicals of "presence witnessing"
or truly living the phrase "they'll know we are Christians by our love".
Unfortunately I have seen few follow it.
Is this what you're advocating? Learn by observation rather than via
cognitive understanding?
> [nng]Kalkor states that coping is best achieved via acceptance of those
> two
> points:
>
> [Kalkor]
> 2)Doing only things that benefit me, immediately and in the long term,
> is the surest way to cope with
> having done badly or been done wrong.
>
> [nng]
> I also claim that (2) begs the question - it is too shrouded in notions
> of "benefit", "badly", and "wrong" to be immediately obviously
> applicable.
> A more thorough discussion of those terms is relevant before (2) can
> have any meaning.
>
> [Kalkor 1]Along this same line of reasoning, the entire question SHOULD
> be
> begged. What is "coping"? Who's coping? With what? The implication is of
> some emotional or physical difficulty to be surmounted.
And what is a difficulty is a matter of perspective, which may very well
be off.
> The person doing the
> coping will usually be aware of, in context, what is meant by "benefit",
> "badly" and "wrong".
I doubt that.
> Or should be, lest the interpretation and action which
> result are NOT beneficial.
This happens a lot.
> Oh, wait, unfortunately we as humans do this
> already. Which brings us back to religion again ;-}
Even outside of religion.
> [Kalkor 1]I claim that the statement [quote](1) is a belief that could
> quite
> possibly be overturned with the advent of time-travel, and so therefore
> is
> not acceptable to a person with the virtue of "vision".[/quote]
> suggests a
> postulate which is not currently falsifiable, that time-travel could or
> may
> become possible. Vision, to me, is the ability to conceptualize
> falsifiable
> postulates outside of the currently accepted model. Part of "reason" is
> then
> attempting to falsify them through experimentation. Conceptualizing
> non-falsifiable postulates is, imho, to have a "pipe dream". Which
> brings us
> back to religion again ;-} And don't worry, I've tossed a few pipe
> dreams
> into this forum myself, and the other members are doing a good job of
> keeping me in check.
"pipe dream" is what motivates us to make progress.
I saw on someone's sig:
"The rational man accepts things as they are. The irrational man
attempts to change them to how he wants them to be. Therefor all
progress is dependent on the irrational man."
I'm sure everyone watching Dick Tracy back when it first aired thought
that the wrist-watch walkie-talkie was a pipe dream. Likewise I'm sure
that when Bill Gates said that "640k" should be enough that the idea of
640MB was a pipe dream.
pipe-dreams are what motivate and inspire us to new heights. Without
pipe-dreams, there is no goal, not direction, no "hope for a better
future" because they are always non-falsifiable postultes.
Feel free to provide a better mechanism than pipe-dreams for the above,
if you can.
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