[Xmca-l] Re: Your views on a question.

[Annalisa Aguilar]

Hello Harshad, Martin, and venerable others,

It is unfortunate that you are not willing to answer Martin's question.

I am wondering if you might consider the possibility that you are unwilling to examine your position.

No one is questioning your right to hold your own view, but in pursuit of truth, one must be willing to allow one's views to be challenged.

The more you repeat an argument it doesn't make it more true.

It doesn't appear you are that willing to stand by your views when you default to "Everyone is free to hold his (and her) own view on any subject matter," thus ending the discussion.

That is shallow swimming logic that can be applied to just about any and every argument.

If you are going to use certain words to convey an argument, it's important to define them, especially in a philosophical argument.

In fact, philosophical discussions at the start involve individuals discussing the meaning of terms. This is so all people understand and agree what the terms mean before continuing on to the actual argument.

You have put the cart before the horse.

On an academic list serve that discusses topics pertaining to human development, you must at least define your terms. Martin shows he is willing to examine your argument, but you first must define your terms.

Are you wanting to discuss this philosophically or not?

I am also very curious what your definition of "mental levels" means. It appears from Martin's inquiries show it is a subjective term, and cannot be applied as you have tried, at least not in a scientific or even philosophical manner.

If you are just chatting over coffee, then that's another kind of discussion.

I suggest that you consider that this might be a reason why there has been such a negative reaction to your postings, and I hope you might consider this  *at the very same time* that everyone on this list would also agree with you, even fervently, that everyone has the right to hold any view on any topic.

Defining your terms might be something for you to consider. You will last long without mulling over that your position about "mental levels" does not have any supports beneath it. It is a pea under the mattress that will continue to bother you. So why not examine that?

I trust that given the character of those on this list, there are people willing to discuss various topics that are interesting to you, but you must also possess the willingness to let your views be challenged and examined.

If your position is true, and water tight, then you have nothing to fear.

If it is not, then you become a better person by developing more awareness about positions that may not be true and may not actually serve you. In exchange for your examination with others, it is possible you will have traded prior positions (that you may have taken for granted) for ones that are more true for you and thereby serve you better.

It is the only reason for partaking in any philosophical discourse.

The consequence is to know oneself better than before.

Kind regards,

Annalisa


________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Harshad Dave <hhdave15@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2020 3:01 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Your views on a question.


  [EXTERNAL]

Martin,
I read your message dtd. Sat, Jun 27, 9:32 PM. Everyone is free to hold his own view on any subject matter.
with true regards,
Harshad Dave

On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 9:32 PM Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net<mailto:mpacker@cantab.net>> wrote:
Harshad Dave,

You claim that you want to talk only of “differences.” But then you call those differences “mental levels.” Levels, by definition, are higher and lower. And you write of “differences in intellectual competence” which, since competence is usually treated as a matter of ‘greater’ or ‘lesser,' certainly suggests that you want to make statements about different *levels* of mental ability. No? So your “points" center around your claims to be able to know, or infer, which people are mentally superior and which people are mentally inferior. Am I correct?

If so, I find your whole approach extremely distasteful. But lets’s look at what people were actually doing in London in the year 1700. This short list of events during that year is from Wikipedia…

• 27 February – announcement that the island of New Britain is discovered by William Dampier in the western Pacific.
• early March – William Congreve's comedy The Way of the World is first performed at the New Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields.
• 25 March – Treaty of London signed between France, England and Holland.
• 29 July – Princess Anne's only surviving child, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, dies aged eleven leaving the Protestant succession to the Crown in doubt.
• September –  William III travels to meets his cousin Sophia at Het Loo Palace. This is a precursor to the Act of Settlement of the following year that opens the way to the future succession of the House of Hanover.
• 20 November – announcement that the first boats have reached Leeds from the tideway by way of the Aire and Calder Navigation
• 25 December – First Christmas hymn authorised to be sung in the Anglican church, "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks", the words by Nahum Tate having been first published this year, in a supplement to "Tate and Brady".
• 28 December – Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
• Approximate date – Jeremiah Clarke writes the Prince of Denmark's March.

That is to say, people were writing plays, hymns, and musical compositions. They were announcing voyages of discovery, international alliances, and political appointments. The Bank of England had just been founded. A important synagogue would be built the following year….

What is it about these events that suggests to you that people in London in 1700 were *less intellectually competent* than people in London today? I can see no evidence whatsoever to support such a conclusion.

Martin




On Jun 26, 2020, at 11:47 PM, Harshad Dave <hhdave15@gmail.com<mailto:hhdave15@gmail.com>> wrote:

This refers to the message of Martin dtd. 26 June 2020 8.30 pm.


Hi,

You are right and you have caught my feelings telepathically regarding your first message dtd  25 June 2020, 7.21 pm. Anyway, let us come to the points of discussion.

Part of the answer is given in my message to Annalisa yesterday (26 June 2020, 4.56 pm). However, I simply and shortly explain my point again.

The example of man with a gun stands for just to clarify that discoveries and inventions supplement the natural abilities of man to a substantial extent and this supplementing increases on timeline walking towards later (advance) period on the timeline. The questions you raised on this point have answers in the form of my views but it will open a new discussion on different subject matter and I do not want to go away from the prime line of our discussion.

The prime point you raised in the last paragraph of your message is the correct one. I explain it again here bellow,

Let us take the example of the city London of the UK. You will agree that in the year 1700 London was there as it is also there in the year 2020. You will agree that socio economic formations of society of London and that of the same in the year 2020 are not equal or same. You will also find a difference in various traits of social constitution, systems and institutions of the respective time. It is not necessary to engage us to determine which one was better out of two. It is just sufficient to determine that they (both) are different.

If we randomly select five persons from the society of London in the year 1700 and other randomly selected five persons today in 2020, you will find a difference in intellectual competence in various traits. Here, I make you aware that I use the word difference. It is not always true that any comparison between two should necessarily return with a result declaring one of them inferior and other as superior, one as good and other as bad. But it might surely return with an outcome that both are different. Here, in my discussion, I have addressed the integrated concept of these traits overall as “mental level” and it is linked with the socio economic formation in which the person is living and that is why I address it as “mental socio economic level”.

Now, if you (and other friends) agree that there is a difference in mental level, I simply say that…

When two persons with different mental levels have occasions and events to come into interaction with each other in a society, it generates stress and strain in the functioning of the social system.

Hope It is now clarified.

With true regards,

Harshad Dave.




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