[Xmca-l] Re: Political constructions of self vs politicalconstructions of identity

[mike cole]

Hi Henry-

god Only knows?
Yes, the Valery and the Boesch are related, but not reducible to each other.
mike

On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 11:51 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> Ha! Notice that I didn’t capitalize god. YOU capitalized What. I hope my
> humor isn’t falling flat.
>
> In fact, I have been quoting, ad nauseum to my poor wife and anyone else
> who will listen, Valery (via Bauman, via you) since you posted the quote:
>
> Can the mind master what the human mind has made?
>
> It seems to me that the chat is doing its part, in part, to address that
> question by addressing the dilemma via Bosch you end all your posts with:
>
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object that creates history.
>
> Am I wrong in thinking that both the question and the dilemma are very
> much connected to the subject line of our current dialog? I stumbled on the
> term “High Modernity” the other day. I think that is a way we don’t want to
> go, and perhaps knowing where not to go is a good start to address the
> question and the dilemma.
>
> If this seems overreaching, blame it on the subject line.
>
> Henry
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Aug 2, 2016, at 12:31 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Thank What, Henry?
> > mike
> >
> > To repeat the question from Valery via Bauman:
> >
> > can the human mind master what the human mind has made?
> >
> > mike
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 11:23 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Thank god!
> >>
> >>> On Aug 2, 2016, at 12:20 PM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Of course, Henry.
> >>> When uncivil fundamentalist beliefs are embraced by the hierarchy of a
> >> centralized religion the results are horrific.
> >>> These are the hard lessons that led in most Western traditions to the
> >> separation of church and state.
> >>> David
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> >> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD
> >>> Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2016 1:12 PM
> >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Political constructions of self vs
> >> politicalconstructions of identity
> >>>
> >>> David,
> >>> Good points. At the same time, take the Protestant Reformation and the
> >> push back from the Catholic church that resulted in slaughter all over
> >> Europe. Maybe the rule still holds that religious differences have been
> >> harder on apostates than on non-believers. Sort of. I am now thinking of
> >> what has happened to indigenous people (non-believers) all over the
> world
> >> when colonization hit. Devastating. Hmmm… Henry
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Aug 2, 2016, at 11:53 AM, David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Henry,
> >>>>
> >>>> There certainly are commonalities among all fundamentalist religious
> >> belief systems that make adherents potentially dangerous to civil
> society.
> >> But religions differ in how they distribute religious authority, and
> this
> >> factor can affect how widespread uncivil action is likely to become.
> >>>>
> >>>> In the case of Catholicism, authority is rigorously organized in a
> >> hierarchy under a single leader, the pope. Thus independent
> interpretation
> >> of fundamentalist belief is quite tightly constrained, and Catholic
> >> terrorism is a rare phenomenon.
> >>>>
> >>>> Protestantism is more decentralized, with religious authority vested
> in
> >> independent denominations. In some cases, these denominations can be
> quite
> >> small, and this has produced some cult worship that has resulted in
> murder
> >> and suicide. But the vast majority of adherents are organized into large
> >> denominations in which fundamentalist interpretations are modulated by
> >> concerns of fitting into a broader civil society.
> >>>>
> >>>> Islam is highly decentralized. Anyone who is sufficiently schooled in
> >> religious texts can proclaim himself an imam and establish a following.
> >> What is more, religious convention holds that all imams have true
> >> knowledge. Thus differences in interpretation from one imam to another
> are
> >> considered part of an ineffable variety of a common truth. Thus the
> >> religion has almost no internal mechanisms for control of fundamentalist
> >> interpretation. When President Obama calls upon Muslims to take more
> >> responsibility for uncivil interpretations of their religion, this turns
> >> out to be very difficult to accomplish given the way authority is
> >> distributed.
> >>>>
> >>>> David
> >>>>
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >>>> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD
> >>>> Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2016 11:31 AM
> >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Political constructions of self vs
> >>>> politicalconstructions of identity
> >>>>
> >>>> Gente,
> >>>> Please forgive my beating a dead horse, but for me it isn’t dead yet:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/opinion/how-religion-can-lead-to-vio
> >>>> lence.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&modu
> >>>> le=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav
> >>>> =opinion-c-col-right-region
> >>>> <
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/01/opinion/how-religion-can-lead-to-vi
> >>>> olence.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&mod
> >>>> ule=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.na
> >>>> v=opinion-c-col-right-region>
> >>>>
> >>>> Particularly interesting to me is the quote from President Obama at
> the
> >> end of the linked article: “Some currents of Islam have not gone
> through a
> >> reformation that would help people adapt their religious doctrines to
> >> modernity.”
> >>>>
> >>>> It seems to me that the Trump band wagon is populated by Christians
> >> with the same problem. (This of course, isn’t original. Duh! Obama got
> >> dinged for his “guns and Bibles” comment, which to me is saying much the
> >> same thing.) So-called Christians, in the same way as so-called Muslims,
> >> kill in the name of a revealed truth, mostly other Muslims. When
> analyzed,
> >> I wonder if most mass shootings in this country are basically an attack
> on
> >> modernity, motivated by essentialist notions of selfhood and political
> >> constructions of reality. So that radical Islamic terrrorism exists in
> the
> >> same way as radical Christian terrorism. What is ALWAYS true, it seems,
> is
> >> that such terrorism is harder on apostates than non-believers. Even some
> >> defenders of Buddh-ism have killed in the name of the Buddha, hence
> radical
> >> Buddhist terrorism?
> >>>>
> >>>> What I have gotten most from this subject line is how projects can go
> >> with the flow of modernity and yet touch the philosophical bases of
> ethics,
> >> aesthetics, epistemology and ontogeny. As always I go back to creative
> >> collaboration. Thank you, Vera.
> >>>>
> >>>> Henry
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Aug 2, 2016, at 12:20 AM, Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Correction to the last paragraph: "The philosophically more
> >>>>> thoroughly digested definition would state that nothing we can point
> >>>>> to is in exactly the same state at any two moments.” Best, RR
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On 02 Aug 2016, at 06:52, Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Chris - spot on. Remember where this thread started: both essential
> >> unity and essential categoriality are infringements on the ity of the
> >> individual, who cannot be wholly identified with either. But either is a
> >> perspective from which candidates can make their calculations seem less
> >> complicated. I’d say we need not address the ity’s of the candidates
> rather
> >> than how their politics are likely to affect our our own.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Annalisa - replace “stable” and “stationary” in my posts with the
> >> bulkier “what doesn’t change” and I’ll still sign them. So you are
> defining
> >> “change” as opposed to stability. Morevoer, most of what you describe as
> >> fundamental only exists in the human mind. Western languages indeed are
> >> conducive to an understanding of the world you have described, but it is
> >> not the only possible one. You say “things exist before they are named”
> and
> >> "we can remove all things in [space and time], and existence remains”.
> So
> >> existence is also a thing? Western languages consider sentences as “the
> >> rose is red” and “the sky is blue” to be equivalent, but if you look a
> >> little more closely, “rose” and “sky” are ontologically quite different.
> >> There is no such thing as the sky. And existence is more like the sky
> than
> >> the rose. Just like the referents of negative sentences, it is something
> >> produced by the mind. “There are no rusty nails in this soup” may be
> true,
> >> but if it is, then only in our reflection, because there is no thing
> there
> >> (“absence-of-rusty-nails”) that is described by this observation. So we
> >> meaningfully say “Uncle Harry exists” to point out the difference of
> said
> >> uncle with Santa Claus, who doesn’t. (Or doesn’t he? A matter of how we
> >> define existence. For example, if we grant existence to immaterial
> entities
> >> that can be the causes of real processes, and a child does her homework
> >> diligently because of Santa Claus, while otherwise she wouldn’t, then it
> >> would be legitiamate to say that Santa Claus exists.) In this particular
> >> sense, the word “existence” performs the work of a double negative: “it
> is
> >> not the case that uncle Harry is nothing but a construction of our
> mind”.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Saying that constituents exist before their combination, therefore
> >> the combination exists before it actually comes into being is not very
> >> productive. There are multitudes of ways how to combine the currently
> >> avaialble physical objects and only a minuscule part of these will
> actually
> >> be realized. This is what is called “Occam’s razor” according to William
> >> Occam (14th century): we should not posit existences that are not
> logically
> >> necessary.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Impermanence can be defined at least on two levels: the popular one
> >> (call it “impermanence light”) insists that nothing is forever,
> everything
> >> changes, everything that exists turns into something else. The
> >> philosophically more thoroughly digested definition would state that
> >> anything we can point to is in exactly the same state at any two
> moments.
> >> That is, even the briefest duration separates two exhaustive sets of
> >> qualities that characterize this thing. As no qualities are essential by
> >> themselves, and no differences in degree are essential by themselves,
> any
> >> thing is not self-identical at two given moments.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> With best wishes,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Rein
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On 01 Aug 2016, at 22:10, Christopher Schuck <
> >> schuckthemonkey@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> All these explanations are very helpful - thank you. So then when
> >>>>>>> Rein writes, "some calculations are less complicated," is this not
> >>>>>>> speaking to the specifically epistemological priority of our
> >>>>>>> efforts to pin down the candidates' essences? On what basis do we
> >>>>>>> decide what is less complicated in a good way (that allows us to
> >>>>>>> evaluate the candidates in tune with how they are as people and
> >>>>>>> future
> >>>>>>> presidents) as opposed to a bad way (being so uncomplicated that
> >>>>>>> you end up missing the truth entirely and/or being manipulated),
> >>>>>>> and what are the implications of appealing to either Trump-ity or
> >>>>>>> Trump-ness, respectively? I am trying to parse out the "cash value"
> >>>>>>> of understanding these candidates in terms of their -ity's rather
> >> than their -ness's.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Sorry if some of this may be redundant.    Chris
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Monday, August 1, 2016, Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Annalisa, I’m afraid we stray too far from the original topic of
> >>>>>>>> this thread if we get much deeper into ontology, and I would end
> >>>>>>>> up copy-pasting a lot from a book I am currently writing. Briefly,
> >>>>>>>> I don’t think we can define “change” as opposed to “stability” at
> >>>>>>>> all, and I’d suggest we speak about impermanence instead. You are
> >>>>>>>> quite correct saying that “change” can only be detected and
> >>>>>>>> described in regard of something else. The point is, this
> >>>>>>>> something else is itself always undergoing some other kind of
> >>>>>>>> change from a third point of view, and so on. The stationary point
> >>>>>>>> is quite arbitrary. Most people currently believe that the Earth
> >>>>>>>> is rotating around the Sun. However, the Sun is not stationary,
> >>>>>>>> but also in movement. We can imagine a hypothetical celestial body
> >>>>>>>> which moves around in space so that it is exactly at the same
> >>>>>>>> distance from the Earth at all times and does not move around its
> >>>>>>>> own axis so that the Earth is always also at the same angle seen
> >>>>>>>> from it. For someone on this celestial body, the Earth moves
> >>>>>>>> around its axis, but is otherwise stationary, while the Sun moves
> >>>>>>>> around it. It is just that certain calculations are less
> >>>>>>>> complicated when we assume the primacy of the Sun as the center of
> >>>>>>>> the solar system in this scheme. And that’s how we end up with
> >>>>>>>> notions such as change vs stability - some calculations are less
> >>>>>>>> complicated. With best wishes, Rein
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> On 01 Aug 2016, at 20:11, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu
> >>>>>>>> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Hello,
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Larry, my questions are straightforward, as I stated them, but
> >>>>>>>>> I'll just
> >>>>>>>> reiterate that I was asking is what is Rein's definition of
> change?
> >>>>>>>> How is changed detected? And from who's point of view?
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> In the end, there must be something stationary in order to gauge
> >> change.
> >>>>>>>> Whether in time or in space. Otherwise no change can be detected.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Now Chris brings up an interesting extra to this that there is
> >>>>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>>> reality "out there" changing, and then our perception of it (which
> >>>>>>>> can also change). But I think the definition still holds that even
> >>>>>>>> if the world is illusory, and our perception changes too, there
> >>>>>>>> are laws still in play, whether we understand those laws or not.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> For a law to adhere it must hold for all cases, or, in homage to
> >>>>>>>> Einstein, in those cases relative to it (which would be marked
> >> exceptions).
> >>>>>>>> I consider a law as a stationary point.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> It's not pure chaos out there. When I wake up I wake up in the
> >>>>>>>>> same
> >>>>>>>> body, even though there is a cellular distinction from my body of
> >>>>>>>> 7 years ago. I don't wake up as someone else or with an extra limb
> >>>>>>>> I didn't have yesterday. Now someone could ask, "Well how do you
> >>>>>>>> really know that?" And I would say, "Well, how can you ask the
> >> question?"
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Something has to be stationary for change to happen. Even if
> >>>>>>>>> change
> >>>>>>>> happens faster or slower, the point I'm attempting to make is that
> >>>>>>>> there must be a stationary point regardless.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Something must be (stationary), before it can change or before
> >>>>>>>>> change
> >>>>>>>> can be detected.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> I would say existence is the "center." I think Buddhists contest
> >>>>>>>>> that,
> >>>>>>>> which is fine. I know that that is how they see it, that nothing
> >>>>>>>> exists. As in no thing.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> And in some ways they are right if you are talking about the
> >>>>>>>>> apparent
> >>>>>>>> world and the thingness that makes a thing a thing. But everything
> >>>>>>>> that is here has is-ness, not thing-ness. Otherwise it is not.
> >>>>>>>> Which means the thing-ness that isn't thing-ness isn't present in
> >>>>>>>> time and space. It doesn't present itself, whatever it is.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> How does one detect change of something (anything) that is not in
> >>>>>>>>> time
> >>>>>>>> and space?
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> First, I'd say whatever this non-thing is, can't change, because
> >>>>>>>>> only
> >>>>>>>> things in time and in space change. On earth as we humans perceive
> >>>>>>>> it, change appears to be dependent upon time and space. But then
> >>>>>>>> thanks to Einstein, now we know that even time and space change.
> >>>>>>>> Which means that the change of time and space must be dependent
> >>>>>>>> upon some other stationary "point" as-if outside of time and
> space.
> >>>>>>>> I say as-if because we are dealing with a container metaphor, but
> >>>>>>>> this metaphor doesn't work when trying to conceive something
> >>>>>>>> outside of time and space. Be we can use it because we are human
> >>>>>>>> and this is how we reason about things, using time and space as
> >> reference points.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Anyway, whatever that "point" is, it would have to be pretty
> >>>>>>>>> expansive
> >>>>>>>> and eternal in all directions, in all time. It would have to be
> >>>>>>>> big to cover all of space and time. But because it would be
> >>>>>>>> outside of space and time, it would also have to be formless and
> >> changeless.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Take away form (space) and change (time) and all that is left is
> >>>>>>>> existence. Which is.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Right here right now. :)
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Kind regards,
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Annalisa
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> P.S. I see that Rein post just now, so this is not in reply to
> >>>>>>>>> that post
> >>>>>>>> of his.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object
> > that creates history. Ernst Boesch
>
>
>


-- 

It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch