[Xmca-l] Re: Fate, Luck and Chance

[Andy Blunden]

Annalisa,
It is impossible to take this conversation forward unless we establish 
some shared concepts and word meanings.
"Material" is a word which can be used very loosely and applied to 
almost anything. But "matter" (in this discourse) is a philosophical 
category denoting all that which exists outside of and independently of 
consciousness but is knowable through human activity. Any finite 
category (such as word, cosmos, thing, movement, ...) in some sense both 
outside of consciousness and a product of consciousness, but "matter" is 
the base category which distinguishes illusions, fantasies, phantoms, 
ideas, etc., from what exists.

You can mean anything you like by any of these words, but if the people 
you are talking to mean something else by the same words, then confusion 
can follow. We need to be on the same page.

All the basic concepts are explained, with references for follow-up 
reading here: http://wiki.lchc.ucsd.edu/CHAT/WebHome


Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
> Ok Andy, 
>
> I want to give this the time it deserves, but when I say word is not material but form, what I mean is that to say word is material doesn't distinguish it from sound, because word and sound are the constituted identically. The difference is in form.
>
> If I may say, it's like saying fashion is nothing but fabric. This doesn't tell me anything about fashion and why I like Commes des Garçon and you like Vivian Westwood. 
>
> I intuit at this point in time that form is the basis of culture, not material because almost everything is material.
>
> I would only make allowance for time and space, because neither one is material. If you tell me time is a clock, I'm going to laugh. As far as space, material is in space, but space is not "in" material, it is pervasive, but not "in" it. Space is not made of material. 
>
> I think these conceptual distinctions are important.
>
> But that's me.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Annalisa
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2014 6:59 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fate, Luck and Chance
>
> Annalisa, making a distinction between matter and movement is
> problematic and was not my intention. The atoms which make up your body
> will be dancing somewhere else 7 years from now. In any case I meant
> "matter" in the philosophical sense, as that which exists independently
> of and outside of consciousness. So pressure waves in air are equally
> material as scratches on paper, characters on your screen or
> inscriptions on stone tablets.
> Because we are inclined to say that the little packet of sound you get
> when you say "ger" is 'the same word' as what is written a couple of
> inches back on this line, we easily forget that no word exists other
> than in one or another of its material instantiations. But we don't talk
> by mental telepathy, but only by placing material objects within the
> perceptual fields of another person, for them to interpret. It's when
> there is some breakdown in communication that you hyave to go back and
> look at the actual, material form you gave to your words.
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
>
>
> Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
>   
>> Andy,
>>
>> Please explain how words are material. Do you mean this literally or metaphorically?
>>
>> I am prone to accept that mind is material, but of a different order than Grandma's apple pie, mountains or a vinyl record. I can't quite see how words are material. Sounds traveling through space are movements of material (air), so that to me would be like saying dancing is material, if dancing is material, then what is the body who dances? And how is the body different from the dance?
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Annalisa
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>
>
>