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Re: [xmca] Progress: Reality or Illusion?
Greg and Andy
The distinction between "objective criteria" and "subjective liking" seems
to be a difference that makes a difference.
Greg, you wrote,
"need to get beyond our tendency to two-valued orientations that rely on the
Aristotelian Law of the excluded middle that says that a thing is either A
or not A. Korzybski says that the tendency that we have to think in terms
of two-valued orientation leads to very serious problems when we encounter
the world."
How central are "multiple-valued orientations" and how central are
"objective criteria" as different ways for "pointing to" how to dwell in
the world? Do we need "arrows" and "compasses" and "maps" to navigate the
territory?
Are these "arrows" we will be using for navigation subjective or objective
arrows? Or, as Andy was suggesting in discussing concepts, do we need a
COMBINATION of objective and subjective arrows as two distinct "lines of
development" ?
Greg, Andy may have won the "logical" argument, but we still need to turn
or return to the "path" in order to "locate our destination" :-)
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 10:02 PM, Greg Thompson
<greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>wrote:
> okay Andy, I give; your argument is preferable to mine.
> -greg
>
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > Well I guess that would be a tautology, because "I like ..." is
> > unashyamedly subjective. But if you try to be objective and say "... is
> > preferable to .." then you need criteria.
> > Andy
> >
> > Greg Thompson wrote:
> >
> >> Andy,
> >> I like apples better than oranges.
> >> Seems like a tautology to say that "liking" is quantitative. What
> matters
> >> here is the practice of choosing apple over orange when presented with
> both
> >> options (and under certain conditions, e.g. when my body does not have a
> >> deficiency of Vitamin C...).
> >>
> >> David Ki,
> >>
> >> Alfred Korzybski, the founder of General Semantics, used to say that we
> >> need to get beyond our tendency to two-valued orientations that rely on
> the
> >> Aristotelian Law of the excluded middle that says that a thing is
> either A
> >> or not A. Korzybski says that the tendency that we have to think in
> terms
> >> of two-valued orientation leads to very serious problems when we
> encounter
> >> the world. Instead he proposes a many-valued orientation. (and one of
> his
> >> favorite examples was the classic hot-cold water example, but
> introducing a
> >> third bucket of luke warm and into which the child places his hands
> after
> >> putting one in hot and one in cold and at which point he cannot say
> whether
> >> the luke warm water is hot or cold). So David Ki, you suggest two is
> better
> >> than one, but why stop at two? And why not recognize that all of these
> >> quantities are only as they appear "to me," and, at best, "to us"?
> >>
> >> -greg
> >>
> >> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 6:56 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net<mailto:
> >> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Yes, and in fact if we were to introduce vector quantities into
> >> the discussion we see that Quantity, in the strict Hegelian sense,
> >> is not limited to integers or even numbers. Quantity is something
> >> abstracted from a perceptual field which may vary without the
> >> object from which it is abstracted becoming something different.
> >> (The old thing about transformation of quantity into quality and
> >> vice versa).
> >>
> >> So it is fine to compare two entities by means of a bundle of
> >> numbers. But of course if you do that you don't get to "more" or
> >> "less". So the notion of "progress" does imply a single attribute
> >> type of abstraction. Characterising a complex entity like an
> >> entire form of life by a single attribute is as far from concrete
> >> thinking as it is possible to get. I'll go for concrete thinking I
> >> think.
> >>
> >> Andy
> >> (Why don't elephants drive a Porsche?)
> >>
> >>
> >> David H Kirshner wrote:
> >>
> >> The literature on understanding of integers notes a developmental
> >> difference between a "two-attribute" and "single-attribute"
> >> interpretation of negative number. Consider a child who places
> >> one hand
> >> in a bucket of ice cold water and the other in a bucket of hot
> >> water,
> >> and is asked "which bucket has warmer water?" The "two-attribute"
> >> approach is characterized by dichotomous thinking, as in the
> >> bewildered
> >> response, "This water isn't warm at all, it's cold!" As a
> >> later stage of
> >> development hot and cold are realized as poles of a single
> >> dimension.
> >> Seems like both of these perceptual frames are
> >> phenomenologically valid.
> >> Maybe you're arguing from different frames.
> >> David
> >>
> >> Davis, R. B. & Maher, C. A. (1993). The reality of negative
> >> numbers. In
> >> R. B. Davis & C. A. Maher (Eds.), Schools, mathematics, and
> >> the world of
> >> reality (pp. 51-60). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ______________________________**____________
> >> _____
> >> xmca mailing list
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >>
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> >> Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
> >> Department of Communication
> >> University of California, San Diego
> >>
> >>
> > --
> > ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> > ------------
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<
> http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
> > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> > Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.**aspx?partid=227&pid=34857<
> http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
> Department of Communication
> University of California, San Diego
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