VARIOUS EXTRACTS - SECTION 10
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email me Notation: I've repeated some of Adam's C3 and added my comments in brackets. I'm not defending EvG for he can defend himself. I'm defending a normal comprehension of TA73, and attempting to show Adams’ C3 is an abnormal understanding. <1> ... Apparently EvG did not have much impact on mainstream thinking, especially in the context of memory. <2> ...Von Glaserfeld...still clings to a storage and retrieval metaphor.[GW: I think storage for EvG means reservoir, and recall is re-call, and this isn't in conflict with psychopathic cases in KJ's General Psychopathology]... <3> Isn't the stored and retrieved cognitive process still a representation of the object? [GW: That's why it's called "re call" process, at least how I read him.] It is not a simulacrum [GW: image or semblance of something] or a verbal encoding of the object, [GW: this is an absolute statement and participates in as much error (Consider Korsakow -syndrome). It shows Adams cannot say clearly what it is not. The Patient converts, encodes, the whole field of current experience into a past field] but it stands in a tightly correlated relationship with the object. Eric Baum, in his book, "What is Thought?" (MIT Press), calls such an operation, or algorithm, a representation of the "compact structure" of the object, rather than a representation of its perceptual features. Baum is a traditional realist, an "input" guy, so for him, a cognitive algorithm [GW: This word refers to a process like repeated enough to find a common denominator] is for assimilating sensations, but the same logic applies to von Glaserfeld's constructivist processes. The algorithm itself becomes a representation of the object [GW: The space-time a priori of perception and conception is not separable from the operation, they are potential constants in search for constants in content]. <4> ... Glasersfeld's "mental operations" version of representation is still a storage and retrieval affair, here is a pertinent quotation from his article: [E32] is omitted but essential uses tennis playing as example. <5> Any storage and retrieval model of memory, regardless of what units are stored and retrieved, is problematic. For example, a storage medium has finite capacity, [GW: Well, here the use of the word "medium" is inadequate while not admitted as such, then applied to the EvG model.] so there must be provision for systematic purging of content.[GW: No, not an absolute system, for EvG can claim, as he does, a sort of infinity of the finite complex while simultaneously discarding a transcendental complex unity (Jaspers).] Contents must be indexed in some way for any useful retrieval to be possible. The index must be maintained. Duplicate entries must be detected and prevented or corrected. Similar entries need to belinked or combined. [GW: But that's a mystery more than not which EvG affirms--I think.] On the retrieval side there are also problems, such as knowing where to look for a particular content, what to do if it is not found, comparison of retrieved content to a standard of correctness, error handling, and transforming the content into a communicable, or at least re-conceptualizable format. [GW: This is a demonstration of conjugation of paradigm ...] Each of these details requires an intelligent homunculus with its own memory. [GW: Apparent rationalization here, an escape into the simplicity of an image of a little entity, an anthropomorphism I can't see in TA73] ... <6> Can we divorce ourselves from the storage and retrieval model of memory? Von Glaserfeld's proposal does not do so. He says that memory is a reconstruction. [GW: KJ in GP refers to recall as reproduction which is similar, and for practical purposes seems as effective as the word reconstruction depending upon which side of concept and performance one is standing.] A mental process is a re-construction if it is judged similar to a prior mental process. [GW: Again, depends on which side of concept your 1st or 2rd "person" is standing. It might be a posteriori] Otherwise it would count as "new construction" [GW If the twin towers were reproduced using same the materials it would be reconstruction, if new materials it would be reproduction, but either way it participates in construction and production. Using language the way you’re using it would be stifling to patients too.] rather than reconstruction. The idea of memory as reconstruction still depends upon the storage and retrieval of the mental process, and all the problems that go with that metaphor. But why does it have to be a RE-construction ? [GW: because the resource is taken from a pile of remote and recent past experience.] Think of each tennis stroke as a new, creative act, rather than as a reiteration. If each stroke were a repeat of an earlier stroke, the game would be boring. [This seems like a misinterpretation of EvG. It seems pedantic.] <7> The seemingly ineluctable siren of storage and retrieval may arise from a simple mix-up in point of view. [GW: Yes, but who mixed it up...William, did you do that?] Using a grammatical metaphor, a third person (3p) point of view refers to an object as an "it" or a "you," as distinguished from the speaker. In the first-person (1p) point of view the speaker and the referent are the same, as in the pronoun, "I". [GW: yes, yes, go on...] <8> When one introspects on a mental process, one's point of view is a virtual 3p. The observer and the observed are literally the same person, [GW: You mean the self, the "I" as observed? The balanced self never let's go of being suspended between itself and the transcendency of experience. That's Existenz. Existence is never reduced to that point and then forgotten. I think I gave EvG the benefit of trust here rather than doubt.] but we can readily [GW: Except for EvG? If it's that clear and distinct why did it just come to you now?] discriminate between the introspector who is using certain introspective mental processes, and the objectified mental processes that are being introspected. [GW: Surely that's a given as much to EvG as to me. Is this a recent bit enlightenment to Mr. Adams?] <10> But with a 1p point of view, the situation looks different. We find that point of view by considering a larger mental sequence, then objectifying it all for analysis. [GW: I don't see a less than functional objectification for analysis anywhere in TA 73 -- Guess I could if I tried while repressing the empathetic mode.] From the 1p point of view, suppose a person pointed at an egg and said "Egg." That counts as discrimination of an egg in some context, say egg1 in context1. Then a nearby egg is identified. It can't be "the same" egg, since it has spatiotemporal uniqueness, which is to say also that the mental process cannot be identical to the one just used. So mental process2 is discrimination of egg2 in context2. And so on for a collection of eggs. There is no re-presentation, only a sequence of mental acts. [GW: A deeply reflective person comprehends the apperceptive process which is in essence representation in process] Just as no two things are identical (by definition), no two mental processes are identical [GW: Here's the definitive process: identity is the paradigm (para), and differentiation follows but not at the expense of losing the ground, the seminal of paradigm]. <11> If context1 and context2 are overlapping, for example if they occur within a few minutes of each other, in a single room, in the presence of the same people, and since egg1 and egg2 share many invariant features such as color, size and shape, then a 3p homunculus can abstract the invariant features of the situation and say that "a single" mental process occurred repeatedly, constituting a re-presentation. But that is only a conceptualization by the 3p philosopher/ introspector. In terms of first-order experience, there was no storage and retrieval and no re-execution of a unitary mental process [GW: However the whole person is aware of something like storage and retrieval and a circularity of a mental process within a constellation of consciousness. A patient can be aware of this and communicate it. Again, the value of KJ's psychopathology and case examples shows this clearly.]. <12> 1p and 3p points of view are equally legitimate. One is not inherently more valid than the other. In fact they are complementary. However, when it comes to the analysis of memory and representation, exclusive reliance on the 3p point of view leads to the quagmire of the storage and retrieval model. That is not the case for the 1p point of view, taken in a large scale and objectified for 3p analysis. The homuncular self that performs the 3p analysis is not itself a stored mental process, nor a storage and retrieval system. It objectifies the unique, non-repeating, 1p mental processes and (figuratively) says, in a creative move, "Aha! I see a pattern there." But it is an after-the-fact pattern, an attributed pattern, a gestalt formation overlain on 1p experience. [GW: Needless to say. The obvious here is repeated. Gestalt means configuration -- KJ "Disturbance of gestalt is always there, a concept general to all performance, as general as the concept of intelligence and valid thinking. Description of the gestalt-changes in the psychic structure is always a good method, but deductions from gestalt-formation as a basic function are meaningless, because far too general." KJ goes on to say that the investigator using gestalt "goes on saying the same thing once more."] In that sense, memory as storage and retrieval is a conceptual and linguistic construction, rather than a first order cognitive fact. [GW: There's no such animal as first order cognitive fact, except maybe in the sense of striking an arc in establishing an initial polarity. That's a given.] <13> As a practical matter, in discussion of memory, carefully marked distinctions between 3p and 1p points of view help to avoid conceptual confusion. For example, we probably should not bother looking for neurological cell-assemblies that encode ovoid shapes, as von Glaserfeld would agree, but we should also not look for cell-assemblies encoding unique mental processes for recognizing ovoid shapes. Those assemblies won't be there if the storage and retrieval model of memory is invalid. [GW: They wouldn't be detectable in your model either -- which is yet to be revealed] <14> We still must explain [GW: has something been clarified?] the feeling [GW: what has been done to qualify for greater comprehension of feeling states?] of familiarity we have about certain objects or mental processes. But that might be an easier question after we have shrugged off the yoke of the storage and retrieval model of memory. [The only argument found here is one of authority, for Adams signs his name with “Psychologist”.] {Update: Glasersfeld later defends himself with example not unlike Jaspers Case history reports.} ----------------------------------------- GLASERSFELD INCORRECT ABOUT VICO-INTERPRETERS, FALLIBILISTIC CONSTRUCTIVISM, EvG, VICO, CUSANUS by Glenn C Wood 27 September 2004, posted 16 October 2004, TA73, C33 GW: EvG says: "[2] It's a little wayward to accuse Vico's famous statement of being equivocal (DKJ<5>) when it has been clear to all his interpreters since 1710 that he was not talking about the "constructive formation of belief" but about the conceptual making of objects (cf. The quotation in TA73, R5<3>)." GW: The waywardness might be more apparent than real (more an EvG construction without historical orientation). The "all interpreters" (an absolute and unbecoming statement and includes Karl Jaspers) can be seen as meiotic and myopic. There's more than meets the eye in interpreting Vico. Vico's history is anything but univocal. It's wayward to use Vico as support for “RC” radical constructivism without considering the then contemporary situation. Consider the following: First, seeking support for a radical Constructionist position by pilgrimages to Vico is as wayward as bypassing Cusanus. Consider what KJ says about Vico: "Modern thinking is characterized by one proposition: I can know only what I myself can produce. This has a twofold sense. To Vico ... it signifies that we human beings can know adequately and certainly only what human beings have produced, so that history is to be regarded as the one sure science above all others. To the scientist it signifies: My knowledge consists not in retrospective understanding, but in productive activity; [GW: what I mean by prospective activity] what I construct, what I bring into existence from my own blueprints -- that is what I know." In the next paragraph he says: "Cusanus seems to have been the first to hit upon the proposition [GW: the proposition "I know only what I can make"]." (KJ, p.198 The Great Philosophers, 1966, Harcourt...) In effect KJ is saying the founder [if one must use the word while searching for support for a creation activity] of constructionistic thinking is Cusanus not Vico, and the former does not cut off the Transcendent ground of potentiality. Second, KJ reminds us that there's nothing new: "If we look long and hard enough, we find that everything has been said. And this is true enough for the mere verbal formulations. But it is true in respect of thought itelf. The originality of an idea lies in the thinker's sudden insight, perhaps touched off by something he is studying or perhaps by something he once read and has forgotten." If this is true, why would one stop at Vico and ignore Cusanus? KJ goes on to say that what is novel is the application to other ideas. The other ideas that could show the implied novelty by “RC” is not giving due thought to the historicity of Vico and Cusanus. Here's a little of their history: Third, the contemporary situation will only be mentioned. Vico had Jesuit influence at the time that the Jesuits were powerfully involved in all facets of life, and they were Jesuits in common clothing. They were entranced in the educational, economical, and political situation, and they were regicidal in principle. Their threat to papal authority is what got them in serious trouble, and their influence was being crushed as a “RC” (Roman Catholic) society. Constructionistic thinking is obvious in this opposition to authority, but yet there remained a dedication to the historical significance and assumed necessity of the traditional Catholicity (universal exclusivity). Vico would have picked up on Jesuit constructionism, and continued the rebellion and revolution. Such a spirit would permeate his thinking. Fourth, Cusanus was a secular priest (blended inconspicuously into society) too in the decades just prior to the formation of the "Society of Jesus" -- the Jesuits. But Cusanus did not have the Jesuit type of reformation fervor. He had the spirit of constructionistic thinking in that his creativity was manifested in a home for the aged (a whole person altruism imitated by the early health-care givers of the Society) but he did not forget his religious (God as source of creativity) heritage. Cusanus would have advised Bush not to use the term “crusade” There's nothing wrong with being alert to subtle manifestations of a constructionism that cuts off the historic ground of consciousness for it's probably an unlearned ignorance still under momentum, unlearned because of aversions to religious words due to the abuse of those words and concepts. It seems fair to remain alert to EvG's jumps between the twofold meanings mentioned by KJ; Vico's approach to history, and scientific instrospection--such as when he jumps from instrospection to Vico. ---------------------------------------------- REVISED C33, GLASERSFELD, VICO AND CUSANUS by Glenn C Wood 27 September 2004, posted 23 October 2004, TA73, C37 <1> GW: EvG says: "[2] It's a little wayward to accuse Vico's famous statement of being equivocal (DKJ<5>) when it has been clear to all his interpreters since 1710 that he was not talking about the "constructive formation of belief" but about the conceptual making of objects (cf. The quotation in TA73, R5<3>)." <2> GW: The waywardness might be more apparent than real (more an EvG construction without historical orientation). The "all interpreters" (an absolute and unbecoming statement and includes Karl Jaspers) can be seen as meiotic and myopic. There's more than meets the eye in interpreting Vico. Vico's history is anything but univocal. It's wayward to use Vico as support for RC without considering the contemporary situation. Consider the following: <3> First, seeking support for a radical Constructionist position by pilgrimages to Vico are as wayward as bypassing Cusanus. Consider what KJ says about Vico: "Modern thinking is characterized by one proposition: I can know only what I myself can produce. This has a twofold sense. To Vico ... it signifies that we human beings can know adequately and certainly only what human beings have produced, so that history is to be regarded as the one sure science above all others. To the scientist it signifies: My knowledge consists not in retrospective understanding, but in productive activity; [GW: what I mean by prospective activity] what I construct, what I bring into existence from my own blueprints--that is what I know." In the next paragraph he says: "Cusanus seems to have been the first to hit upon the proposition [GW: the proposition "I know only what I can make"]." (KJ, p.198 The Great Philosophers, 1966, Harcourt...) In effect KJ is saying the founder [if one must use the word while searching for support for a creation activity] of constructionistic thinking is Cusanus not Vico, and the former does not cut off the Transcendent ground of potentiality . <4> Second, KJ reminds us that there's nothing new: "If we look long and hard enough, we find that everything has been said. And this is true enough for the mere verbal formulations. But it is true in respect of thought itself. The originality of an idea lies in the thinker's sudden insight, perhaps touched off by something he is studying or perhaps by something he once read and has forgotten." If this is true, why would one stop at Vico and ignore Cusanus ? KJ goes on to say that what is novel is the application to other ideas. The other ideas that could show the implied novelty by RC is not giving due thought to the historicity of Vico and Cusanus. Here's a little of their history : <5> Third, the contemporary situation will only be mentioned. Vico had Jesuit influence at the time that the Jesuits were powerfully involved in all facets of life, and they were Jesuits in common clothing. They were entranced in the educational, economical, and political situation, and they were regicidal in principle. Their threats to papal authority is what got them in serious trouble, and their influence was being crushed as a RC (Roman Catholic) society. Constructionistic thinking is obvious in this opposition to authority, but yet there remained a dedication to the historical significance and assumed necessity of the traditional Catholic Catholicity. Vico would have picked up on Jesuit constructionism, and continued the rebellion and revolution. Such a spirit would permeate his thinking. <6> Fourth, Cusanus was a secular priest (blended inconspicuously into society) too in the decades just prior to the formation of the "Society of Jesus" -- the Jesuits. But Cusanus did not have the Jesuit type of reformation fervor. He had the spirit of constructionistic thinking in that his creativity was manifested in a home for the aged (a whole person altruism imitated by the early health-care givers of the Society) but he did not forget his religious (God as source of creativity) heritage. <7> There's nothing wrong with being alert to subtle manifestations of a constructionism that cuts off the historic ground of consciousness for it's probably an unlearned ignorance still under momentum, unlearned because of aversions to religious words due to the abuse of those words and concepts. It seems fair to remain alert to EvG's jumps between the twofold meanings mentioned by KJ; Vico's approach to history, and scientific instrospection -- such as when he jumps from instrospection to Vico. ----------------------------------- http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1206-10.htm GLASERSFELD FORWARDS MOYERS' PRESENTATION; A BACKFIRE by Glenn C Wood 13 February 2005, posted 19 February 2005, TA73, C46 <1> Bill Moyers' presentation (Harvard Medical School's Environment Citizen Award) forwarded by von Glasersfeld and then distributed to the Forum list was greatly appreciated. <2> At first I thought it was forwarded as an argument for agnosticism or atheism, at least a way showing that off the board comments castigating fundamental biblical faith was vindicated by Moyers' comments. That use of it angered and preoccupied my thoughts and all that evening my wife kept looking at me wondering what she had done to upset me. <3> I wondered if there had been a violation of a copyright's 'fair use' policy. Then it occurred to me that routing it to the Forum participants was a fair use of what was more than less public domain stuff -- public domain in that Moyers is a "given" journalistic tradition. He, I guess, has retired to a less controversial influential sphere out of reach of the funding inquisition. <4> Whether the Article could be offered, as a Karl Jaspers Forum Target Article, is something perhaps 'fair use' permission would be needed. That's something for the Editor to decide. <5> My concern over the misuse of it -- to codify a bias toward biblical-like faith -- was soon abated when I remembered some of Moyers' biography. Though I've not read his biography (but hope to get one free) a bit was remembered about his religious fundamental background. If memory serves me correctly he attended a seminary in some essential ways similar to my seminary and he studied religious history and the ministry. Ah, Ha, I thought, where Moyers' "now" is did not emerge or pop up out of the blue but was somehow essentially picked up out of his environment -- religious milieu. <6> After putting off the anxiety about the potential misuse I decided a caveat comment was in order showing my resounding agreement with his expressions. For instance I could say that I believe in the bible as literally true but not interpretations of it (that's a bit of bait for discussion). As regarding prophesy fulfillment, for instance, Jesus saw the need to fulfill the Ten Commandments, thereby taking away excuses for living like sinful forefathers, then knowingly going to the cross as the most moral person and suffering without anesthesia, hopefully as the last human sacrifice. Following his example and taking up the cross is the only meaningful test of fulfilling prophecy. It could put an end to the rush toward to the rapture and usher in the millennium. <7> I had relatives who would not miss Moyers' "now" but during the last presidential process a few turned him off because he had become "too liberal." Although it seemed he was not as declarative regarding the faith and thereby missed the occasion to bring morality into the Party it was obvious to me where my relatives' attitude change was coming from. It was coming too from rationalism weaves of private bible interpretations that fit well with some itinerant preachers -- Moyers uses the word "immigrant" which might show the difference between his seminary and mine. <8> Lest we forget where he is coming from, this closing quote puts it all in a proper historical perspective. I trust it's not an unfair use of "fair use" to say we at least came from "the ancient Israelites" and with their "science of the heart ... the capacity to see ... to feel ... and then to act ... as if the future depended on you." That's the biblical faith and Moyers wisely closed with it. ------------------------------------------------- THE IMMERSION OF THE MULLER / vGLASERSFELD EPISTEMOLOGY IN THE HISTORIC PREEXISTING RIVER OF LIFE 21 January 2005, posted 5 February 2005 by Glenn C Wood, TA75, C21 <1> It is hard to make an ism-demon out of Descartes -- since Karl Jaspers' "Descartes essay." (Three Essays, '64, Harcourt, Brace & World). Nominally it's easy; simply write Descartes-ism and forget about objectivity. In reality it's hard because Descartes was not only a victim but also a hero of his time. You simply cannot pluck Descartes out of his history and make him a current determinate factor in your discussion. Doing so has got to be an editor's less than serious mission, or a premeditated distraction from the quest for understanding D.K. Johnson. <2> Seen in perspective, Descartes was responding to the scholastic realism/ nominalism controversy. A good example of the controversy was the Transubstantiation issue. Did the drink and bread of the Lord's Supper turn into the actual blood and flesh of Jesus? It had become a test of one's loyalty to the autonomy of the Papal throne. Unfaithfulness to this mind-control meant subjection to the inquisition. Scholastic realism was that the symbols miraculously became the real blood and body when the congregation heard the tingling of the bell. It was a test of faith in the exclusiveness of that religious cult. The other side did not limit reality to the traditional views of Augustine and Aquinas and their cult's priestly decrees. The struggle for power pulsated between this realism and the more reasonable nominalistic view, and the nominalistic tendency was gaining ground during Descartes' time. The nominal position was that the symbols meant something reasonable. The bread and juice were emblematic. There was the careful restoration of the pre-cult traditional understanding. Realism meant mind control, subjection to power, whereas nominalistic thinking saw reality at large and the latter realistic (reasonable) ideas were threatening the cult's tradition. Epistemological and therapeutic reality has nothing to do with Scholastic realism. Your mind-independent reality yet clings to Scholastic realism. Your "MIR" is a ceremonial anachronism. <3> Your traditional mind-independent reality is a misnomer. That's why it seems best avoiding using it in formula form or abbreviated high case letters. It's anti-nominalistic. It's a test of faith to the Editor's limited view of what's traditional. Your at-best unwitting agenda is to move external authority to an internal autonomous seat (subjectivism without the other balancing wing of objectivity) but in the process the original historical reality is subjected to your depersonalizing atheism. As such, your meaning of reality is not a comprehensive reality in the sense of a bird's eye view of history, and your meaning of mind is the mind control realism of the Scholastics but internalized. <4> Your C17 abstract <1> includes the often previously repeated reference to some real subject-object split. You have artfully constructed an unhistorical paper tiger. You call so much attention to it that others get distracted. You see it in Descartes. You seem driven to shatter prestructured phenomena, namely the biblical imageless God to make room for a surrogate formula "0-D" -- which is most obviously a religious substitute for traditional historical religion at large (precult). I want here to point at the distraction to show the relevance of KJ and to permit DKJ to continue to defend his Target Article. (To my knowledge I've never met nor communicated with DKJ.) <5> I'd like to further interject some observations if it can be done without leaving the impression that one needs a "school" like "constructionism" or a gang to courageously pursue truth. Admittedly, Jaspers will be exploited but under his approved of conditions. He is not responsible for my fallibility. It should be needless to say that we all have enough of that potential (fallibility). While hot on the your heels and Grasersfeld's, DKJ was distracted from his effective dialectic by your discarding of the Descartes-placard (like casting off your hat to a bear, or at least outrunning Glasersfeld). Let's look at the Descartes placard as used in your Comments beginning and Summary. Let's start with the Summary. <6> In the Summary <15> you state that "0-D" cannot be accused of not having a plural. By definition of any sort "0-D" (whether worldview or holistic) cannot have a plural, just as "GOD" (except in a nominal way, such as talk about God) cannot have a plural (except as a religious cult might exploit to test allegiance to exclusive claims). Though you have forgotten, the imageless God is where you get your formula, and everyone else must forget it too who follows your thinking. You can't have a plural without resorting to mystery and miracle, and the phenomenological (which precludes nominalistic thinking) predicament of thinking is impossible without mystery and miracle too. But there's a difference between Transcendental and immanental mystery and miracle. The latter is used to support the cultist thinking while the former is the awe-inspiring fundament of Being as such and cannot be exploited without catastrophic consequences of biblical proportions. The problem comes in when "trust"--to use your word--circumvents the phenomenological predicament and "0-D" becomes the reality (nihilism). With almost wholesale dismissal of fallibility, you say that the issue is whether or not reality is preconstructed. And when OD replaces GOD it's quite natural to assume a category of infallibility. The realism, idealism, the demonology of "0-D" is in the eye your pronoun "I." This in part provides the answer to your <15> where you state DKJ resorted to "non-pertinent claims...that "0-D" has no plural, is idealistic, deals with disembodied spirits..." (See my item 11 below for the explanation you requested in <15> regarding the "difference between ontological MIR and logical SIR.") <7> Now lets look at your initial assumptions: You say in <3>: "I have to say that [here you're referring to the difference between subject-independent reality and mind-independent reality -- my insert -- GW] did not become clear to me." The point of the discussion is the difference between realistic thinking and your Formula as associated with and not disaffirmed by Radical Constructionism. It is obvious that efforts to make "subject" and "mind" clear to you have been ineffective, and the reason to continue the discussion is, in my view, to protect the integrity of the name of Karl Jaspers from the atheism expressed in the Forum. <8> Then you talk about the "Cartesian ontological MIReality" to disclose the seeds of untruth in DKJ responses. Descartes is used for two reasons : First there's the general tendency to avoid Descartes greatness by ignoring his historical setting, i.e., that way he can be reduced to a dogma and more easily handled. Two, there's been such development in science as to make him appear like a cause of its limits rather than a cause of much of its pragmatic successes. Whatever original truth there is in Descartes is made into untruth so that his "historical greatness would be incomprehensible." (Essays p.63) But the more serious diverticulum in this discussion is through the use of the word "mind" in mind-independent reality. "Mind" is far more esoteric than "subject." It's more mysterious and hard to pin down, but yet everybody is suppose to know what is meant, and if not, one feels vulnerable to being told: "Good grief, fellow, use your God given mind for heaven's sake." "Subject" is a matter of linguistic analysis, the rules of language applies, and one cannot use "subject" without the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic guides--historical guides. <9> You take Descartes distinction between body and mind and drop the phenomenological distinction he properly assumes, and mind becomes the conjured mind of your "mind-independent reality" world. (Three Essays, 183) Even a mentally ill patient -- no longer having a trustworthy contact with reality, asks quietly, "tell me, do you see a tray of food before me ?" or reaches to test an apparition -- is a learned realist. That patient is more apt to drop the word mind and use subject-object in a reality context. <10> Quoting DKJ you say "'Subject-independent existence and nature' [12] is actually a definition of traditional MIR (i.e., of metaphysics-ontology)." I suppose you're referring in part to traditional stuff like the scholastic realism and nominalism controversy. This is the very traditional stuff Descartes was hoping to illuminate, and he attempted to do so with all "caution to avoid giving offense to ecclesiastics." (George Fisher, History of the Christian Church, NY Charles Scribner's, 1887, p 437.) He had to walk a strict line, maintaining a balance between the realism (enforced by church authority) involved in transubstantiation, Original sin (the psychology of the phenomenological predicament), and the "trinity" (applied metamathematics to the metaphysical side of mono-theology). Seeing the semantics (nominal reality) involved led to practical and reasonable comprehension, and Occam cutting off papal infallibility only mitigated scholastic realism. You ought to be able to see that there's a difference between mind (having to do with ideas) and subject (ideas of self) and the both in some way subject to objects. So, I ask you: what is the difference between subject and mind ? Karl Jaspers speaks about the unavoidability of the subject-object polarity (Perennial Scope, 68, Archon Bks, p.15), inner world's and outer world's environment. I don't have to try hard to understand what subject-independent reality means; it points to the normal understanding that the subject and object polarity is constant, and one has the right to speak of environment and it's effects and affects, the latter being inner phenomena and the former external phenomena. Sane thinking and discussion cannot be engaged without engaging the subject-object polarity. <11> You say you "don't understand what he wants to convey by discussing the pronouns ME, etc., except for his peculiar claim that constructivists have no plural." Why do you say that ? The pronoun points toward a certain degree of subjective autonomy until objects restrain it, i.e., until objections occur. The subject is always subject to objectifications (while in the world and while the world which the subject is). If not, you would have pure mind (ontological idealism) without the dialectical impulse, no connecting ideas beyond circularity. It is obvious that "I" is singular essentially until the autonomy is challenged and then your approved of external reality is resurrected to add dimension or mathematical strength (gang strength). To you objections amount to "MIR" violations; it's the Muller-Forum form of the unpardonable sin, a modified original sin without a root in the historical fundamental comprehension of human kind's limitations. In the "me/mine" (you and hoped for Forum contributors, a plurality of subjects, the objects don't function as objections to subjectivism but contribute to consensus) there's an implied "your" or "you fellows." In your Forum another pronoun is reinforced by another pronoun, another pro -- the result being the plural-pro exclusive agreement that each is right in his own right. Currently it's Glasersfeld and Muller. It's peculiar to you that constructionists can possibly come across as not recognizing others, but that's because you jump in and out of reality only when the formulas "0-D" and "RC" are subject, i.e., subjected to analysis, subjected to irreverent objects. The two of you can agree on ignoring whatever might put restraints on individual autonomy. When object confrontationally confronts your subject it must -- by all that is phenomenological -- pre-exist your experience, and to hide your surprise you cover your ears and hum. You chant that (<15>) objects do not pre-exist because not created within my "ongoing subject-inclusive experience, and this is so for all of objectivity." All you've done here is repeated the unavoidability of the subject-object polarity in cognition, it's repeated with such didactic urgency that one almost forgets that you are the only one who needs the lesson, your attitude being that one can't know reality without your experience. Pre-existing experience is called education -- the teaching side. Getting an education is what the learner does with experience. <12> You say that DKJ "<4>asserts [12] that there is 'a nexus of determinate properties that pre-exists experience': so far as I can make out, that is a complicated way of saying that the objects in question are ontologically autonomous, as implied in 'pre-exists experience.'" I say it's not complicated except for one limited in experience. Notice your "ontologically" modifying "autonomous." That's your statement not DKJs. It's also a failure to understand the function of the encompassing of KJ, for "being" always has "Being," i.e., every encompassing a dynamic and potential encompassing. There's the being in which we find ourselves, and the being that we are in, more than the being that we are at any given moment. (And there's the Singer treadle sewing machine needle of my early life that pierced my finger. It had henceforth to me an ontologically relative autonomous real existence equal to the inventor's ideas that were ontologically autonomous enough to be patented -- though the inventor had no less autonomous precursors. <13> You continue: "If he disagrees with that conclusion, he ought to say why it is not so, and to show what the difference between Descartes' ontological MIR and his logical SIR is; so far he has not done that, at least not in a way that I can understand." I say, here's another example of taking emergency refuge in the conjured plurality of others to metaphysically avoid philosophical truth. If it's not some conjured-positive wholly other, like Anaximander, Vico, and Glasersfeld then it's some HM autonomously judged inadequate deceased and defenseless wholly other -- wholly other because ripped from historical roots, namely Descartes. And why do you do this ? It appears because you must distract constantly from the original philosophical truth involved in the concepts of "In the beginning God ...." To the religiously experienced this is clearly the principle default for fallible cognizing. You want to distract from it to stake an autonomous claim, without having to share revelation mathematically with a primordial (preexisting) other, in this case, Moses. In the process you must also proclaim atheism for you to stand out so exclusively. <14> To me it is clear that DKJ has no need of demonstrating to you that Descartes' historicity is indispensable to "to anyone who wishes to philosophize." (Three Essays.) Within this historical setting Descartes contributed immensely to epistemology. The historical setting -- like with Vico -- included the influence of the Jesuits, from whom Descartes received his early education, and to which he reacted as to scholasticism in general. He is so indispensable that anyone having seminary education can go on with a life without having to cling to Descartes person which is always mysterious enough to use as an excuse. To do so is the greatest argument that you could offer that shows how much of the realism you disown is essential to your constructionism (“Constructivism”). <15> Descartes is not the problem here. You are under his spell by the extension of your autonomous self to a claim that another has had an autonomous influence that is disturbing to you. You are following in the footsteps of those led astray by those who overlooked the source of Descartes philosophical truth -- his philosophical faith and faith in revelation (Essays). <16> We can leave your opposition to Descartes -- for now -- and allow DKJ to carry on. KJ says of this opposition to Descartes "...the mere fact of being against Descartes means nothing -- it is the nature of the opposition that matters." He goes on to say "The more opposition to Descartes is based on critical understanding, the more it gains in truth." (Essays, p. 63) Your opposition to Descartes is not critical enough, as usual, the historical, the environment, the other is subject to your "me" rather than subject to the world of others in which you came to be and remain. And of course, the too limited critique omits the truth of the philosophical and revelational value of "In the beginning God..." in the thinking of Descartes. <17> Conclusion: You are certainty committed. You appear willing to burn at the stake for your faith in your personal subjective autonomy. But your recalcitrance is also anachronistic. The inquisition is over (for now). You must be weary. Lay down your defenses and come home to reality. ------------------------------------ MULLER’S NOTED DIFFERENCE WITH JASPERS EXPOUNDED by Glenn C Wood 19 February 2005, posted 26 February 2005, TA75, C27 <1> Introduction: Your comments are always stimulating. In footnote {g} you responsibly declare there are differences between your views and Jaspers. Thank you. In C22 you bring in "evolution" it seems to distract from DKJ's clarity regarding the difference between mind and the subjective-object polarity. You seem to have done this previously while it was being shown that Jaspers views differed from yours regarding the natural sciences. I'm referring to that previously addressed notion that KJ was uncomfortable with the natural sciences. You found quotes from one translator of Jaspers who accused him of avoiding Nietzsche's natural science views and failing to consider the influence of Darwin. That author and translator of some of Jaspers' works was quoted as saying it was because KJ didn't want to devastate Nietzsche's image. I pointed out that's a misinterpretation of what Jaspers meant by something being "devastating to Nietzsche". What KJ meant was that such attention would distract from essentials of his analysis of Nietzsche which simply means that Darwin and "evolution" influences were too insignificant, too metaphysical for his book on Nietzsche. Also the "pop-art" popularity of "evolution" would distract from Nietzsche's contribution to psychology. For the same reason he spoke little of the Lou Andrea Solomé relationship. That relationship simply pointed to a phase in the unfolding of life's impulses and involved another person's character plus a lot of human understanding guesswork. But the point is that it seemed to me like a move to minimize Jaspers because of the differences between your views and his. But I'm only guessing at motivations here. <2> So too this talk about "evolution" distracts from KJ, and my objective is to pivot the discussion around KJ and what he considered important, for instance, from the psychopathologist's perspective. This is difficult for I have to demonstrate my willingness to discuss "evolution" without simply saying it's not germane -- "end of discussion." My approach is coherence -- to see the pathology of "evolutionism." So, here's to a return to what's important: pointing at some psychopathology in the discussions. <3> You introduce the view, a worldview, about words as "evolved" tools as though you have in a special way established an "origin." The general application to biology is subtle in the talk about changes that come about in species like the change from Native American corn to hybrid corn. The latter is now endangered which in turn endangers the native corn, which is actually preserved for man's survival if the hybrid should lose resistance. I have to show where this "origin" attitude makes a subtle jump to "originism" or ontologism. We can talk intelligently about constructionistic origins regarding hybrid corn but not use "origin" in the same way to native corn without getting into metaphysics. To make that mistake is an aberration from the historically normal. Origin-thinking is dangerous compared to the cautious uncertainty about what we cannot know. We preserve the original corn because of what we don't know and can't reconstruct from the hybrid. The critical thinking you do regarding the psycho-social-religio dynamics of certain presumptious authoritative Doctrines is good exercise. But you continue the "origin" quest into metaphysics and launch into philosophy and theology. <4> You make this "origin" jump with the "evolution" of speech. To not lose perspective: what does KJ have to say about the alleged "origin" of words. He says there is no knowable origin of words. He says that speech is a precondition of thinking (see my <19> below). But you talk about the origin and "evolution" of words to distract from subjective-independent reality. <5> Specifically in TA75C22 you attempt to amplify by introducing the word "evolution." The discussion then must not continue unless one admits to "evolution" which has a lot of general appeal and support. It -- perhaps though unintentional -- amounts to some devastation of Jaspers and in turn shrouds the importance of where he differs from you. You must show that subjective-mind independent reality is a disguised mind-independent reality thing. DKJ has made clear the difference between the words subjective and mind. So what you must do is talk about the "evolution" of "words". Words have to be shown as originating in mind more than the subject-object polarity, that it's introduced or given to the subject by a revelation more than an objective learning process. That's what you mean in the attempt to show "mama" (see your <4>) is a universal phenomenon, rather than a mother's teaching by saying, "come to mama." Here again the need for "origin" short circuits objectivity, and it's easy then to slip into less thoughtful processes and talk about "evolution". The thought processes involved in your comments about "evolution" make a worthy hypothesis for understanding the psychology of the phenomenon of "the 'evolution' of metaphysics". <6> The position this puts the discussants in is that they have to say the same thing without using a profanely unscientific and highly emotive word. Rather than admit mind just "is" you must know its "origin" which is impossible so the E word is used. <7> First, as you know by now my view is that it would be well to show how the Editor's view differs from the Forum's namesake, Karl Jaspers. Anyone searching the Internet seeking information about KJ cannot avoid the KJForum. You with some others come across as declaring an atheism that is largely alien to KJ but also in general uncharitable toward the occidental cultural process. That atheism becomes a surrogate theism, evolutionism -- as you largely do by implication in this C22. <8> Secondly, the book/ books you're referring to are as-is reality (but "is" is a copula, and inherently ambiguous and functional). It is as-it-is, an occidental reality. Not recognizing this is an "I am who I am" lacking the needed objective operational functioning process like what's involved in "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14). The latter is the more an operational retort to Pharaoh's, "Says who?" Moses (an Egyptian thinker by reality was too smart to say "I'm who, that's who, fear me!" I mean let's keep Pharaoh guessing as to the origin of this boldness to pursue the exodus. The occidental phenomenon is coincidental with the oriental -- it lacks "origin" definitiveness. The occident is not an as-if quest for power but an as-is forceful reality to be dealt with. The problems you reiterate (the misuse of the bible and God that normal people reject) continue to imply that I don't want to discuss religion. That often repeated suggestion amounts to apparitions and concomitant recursivity. Religious historians know the aberrations. Inadequate responses to a church history novelist shouldn't be interpreted as indifference to the misuse of religion. Perhaps your reiteration is more recalcitrance to accept historical reality just so "0-D" can be recursively posited. That's indoctrination. Your negative mind-independent reality formula ("Bad MIR!") is commensurate with that cause (mission). <9> Thirdly, though suggesting you're playing the devils advocate ("offering for discussion"), my opposite approach is that you're not playing the role, and that you're using atheistic and theistic religions operationally -- as-if rather than as-is. You disguise atheism as non-theistic rather than non-atheistic. You are in principle constantly looking for something that has "evolved" from a complex thought process (Anaximander) to a less developed level (or the inversion), i.e., fixation, and mention Plato as an example (but Plato is misinterpreted, see below <16>). You even throw up the prestigious Kant. You did this in <37>(C). Repose is affected in something vague in Kant which is suppose to point to "the origin" of DKJ's "vacillation." Interpreters of KJ have done similarly, i.e., always looking for the superior amidst the inferior, and concluding that KJ was the effect of Eastern mysticism. We are the partial products of occidental teachings. That includes attempting to judge righteously and not predetermine the motivations of those who meditate without harm to others (I mean, like competitively bowing on the Freeways, or obstructing views with swinging icons, and confessional sessions by cell phone, rather than contemplation, meditation, or open eyed prayers). However I reserve the right to declare the significance of a willful sacrificial life compared to those preoccupied with meditation techniques, though not forgetting monks who set themselves on fire to make statements. Others can speak for their orientation, but not attempt to enforce it by terror (whether in the name of Oil or God). <10> Fourthly, we both -- and KJ too -- are aware of those established reductionist doctrines that replace the biblical faith as you mention in <13>. The difference is the erroneous way you see them as not "evolving" compared to your standard of what's essential to social or individual stability. You sense as do I the bad in "original sin" and the "trinity", that they are believed preexisting as made by God and interpreted by traditional ecclesiastical authority. "Stoning" "burning people alive" are bad and one can use theism or atheism to enforce those formulas. <11> You err then when you contradict yourself and say these "overall schemes respond to a need for structure ... and even, get this, "guidance". Guidance ? No, they don't respond to social and individual needs; they respond to the need to enhance established religion (including "evolutionism"), and it is in these established religions wherein you see hope for further refining and sustaining. And, you say, "to discuss these needs does not mean disapproval" for they "respond to basic human needs". These statements in <14> are statements that only a metaphysician of evolutionism could make, that the process should be viewed as progress in some "future... ["Evolution"] of religion ...in ecumenical efforts that de-emphasize their literal fixations." This is a case of going to the problem for its solution and becoming part of the problem rather than the solution -- if it's made into a universal principle for religion. You adamantly continue unabatedly to view religion in terms of literal and unessential divisive institutions. On the other hand, we must, as do you, being the good realist you really are, work to influence individuals who can as insiders work to prevent the institutions' power from collaborating with State power. What is an as-if reality is your view that you can change the momentum of institutionalization without a disestablishmentarian approach. (See your ecumenical comments in <14>.) Can you imagine a Holy American Empire? <12> Finally, for discussion, let me say again : poor Tertullian. Let him rest. The conservative Apaches had an appropriate way of thinking that would prevent this calling forth from the dead for thrashing or rehashing : A relative is not to be disturbed from rest by mentioning the name of the deceased. The last time you mentioned Tertullian a Forum contributor, who wanted to capitalize on your mere mention of his name, accused me of being a modern day Tertullian. The name is plucked out of the historical atmosphere as though it's a missing link either in the "evolution" or "de-evolution" of religion. The only thing Tertullian was really responsible for was being honest enough to admit thinking in three ways about God. He was the first perhaps to use a word showing three particular ideas about one in general which he recognized as participating in absurd verbalizations about the ineffable. The tri-word later became what you call a fixation in a doctrine of the trinity. His faith had nothing to do with simply yielding to a Doctrine that at that time did not exist. Thank you for mentioning him again. <13> Such misuse of the deceased must be disturbing their rest, and as with poor Tertullian, we can also say poor Jaspers (except he wrote -- the Apaches didn't write -- anticipating efforts to disturb his views). <14> Let's not spoil the objective momentum of DNA research with an "evolutionism" agenda. The meaningful results of efforts to bring aid (food) and comfort (curing disease) should not be reduced to cavalierism to support fixating misphilosophical metaphysics. Let DNA results release the innocent from prison, and the tsunami children be returned to biological parents, and the born come as healthy as possible without the assumption we know or about to know the unknowable origin of man. It is not the special-science place to look for "the" origin of sexual aberrations (though there may be something there to neuter). Actually a problem with looking for "origins" in DNA is that it can result in the thing you did in <4>{a} where you replaced an old saying "repetition is the best teacher" with a modern sophisticated "recursivity". That amounts to establishing a Pythagorean-like reverence for modern slang rather than the old appreciation for repetition. You are apparently admitting that for "0-D" and "as-if MIR" to stick, a principle of "recursivity" is to be revered (vain repetition). <15> Conclusion: You have, though, put evolutionism in its proper place when you view "evolution" from the metaphysical perspective. The metaphysics of "evolution" is only talk about being, and when it codifies enough to be taught to compulsory students, it's ontologism -- an advanced course in erroneous epistemology. The metaphysics of "evolution" is what I've been talking about; that, it is more metaphysics than physics or biology, but certainly not philosophy except when it is fixated whereupon it becomes a bad philosophy of life, an attitude that colors all our thinking. <16> Plato uses metaphysical thinking more properly than his current day critics, like in your <8>. An origin, but not "the" origin, of metaphysical thinking is included in his mental forms. By his forms he meant what is meant by the natural unfolding processes involved in life. He was not talking about "origin". "It is Plato who first developed speculation on being in the grand manner, that is, with sovereign mastery of the means and possibilities. He laid the foundations of all subsequent metaphysics." "Since then metaphysics have often erred in hypostatizing the surface figures of thought." (The Great Phil.) Hypostatizing the surface of Plato's in-depthness is done but the origin is not in Plato but in a radical a constructionism attitude. It begins with the idea of the absolute autonomy of the individual as origin. <17> You call for the sources (origin), references for the "evolution of metaphysics". The etymological dynamic of the word "metaphysics" is clear. In second century BC Andronicus of Rhodes' edition categorized Aristotle's physics; the section after physics were notions about being. It was sectioned off as "Meta" because placed after Aristotle's physics. You know this, so you must be after origins beyond etymology. It's easy to see this need for absolute and unambiguous origin (the "Anaximander/apeiron" search) in the notion that someone must have received a revelation. It appears this is the "rare exception" to "structures continuously there from the beginning" referred to in <2 >(B)2. See how beginnings relate metaphysically to origins in evolutionism? That's the spirit of evolutionism, in contrast to the notion of relativity that searches and does not disregard revelation in terms of possibilities. Probably Anaximander read too what was revealed Moses -- the latter having at least 40 years to study in relative solitude. He was a good psychologist too, for he knew what people needed to believe about their origin to behave themselves like children of the moral lawgiver. Who knows ? Only a superiority notion like "I am who I am" would dare corporealize "origin" into one space and time while disregarding unknowable sources. Seems like that establishes atheism as the equivalence of "evolutionism." <18> Beyond etymology is a current "as-is" definition of metaphysics showing current-static (noise) in the congealing thinking process. My Oxford companion to philosophy defines metaphysics: "Metaphysics is the most abstract and in some views 'high-falutin' part of philosophy, having to do with the features of ultimate reality, what really exists and what it is that distinguishes that and makes it possible." That is a good definition to start with for 'high-falutin' equates easily to evolutionism. <19> In<10> you speak of universal word-concept schemes. You state that the experience of consciousness (basic unspeakable mystery which you call the matrix ground of "mama") cannot be structured and is therefore 'ineffable'. Sure it can and is structured. Show me even an infant not subject to speech. I'll grant you a handicap and allow the elimination of ultrasound. KJ says, "Communication between rational beings and with their own selves is conducted by means of speech. Speech is a precondition for thinking (speechless thought only occurs as a passing phase within spoken thought, otherwise it as indistinct and broken as the thinking of apes). "(Gen. Psycho. P.288, U. Chic. Press, '63) <20> There are two ways to escape that precondition. You want to go back to the silence you can get from another: Anaximander's , though we don't know where he heard it (maybe his mother). Another way is the more universal and historical way: a man can draw out the search for beginnings (origins) to the ultimate ends of the spectrum of origins and imagine the first man without the first women and then think of that as ineffable. But beyond recursivity in that silence of silent listening comes the voice walking in the womb-like garden. That of course means that if we listen we can hear the ineffable speaking -- if we are normal (remembering though that "adam" is generic for the non-gendered person).
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