[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

[Frank Wimberly]

Dave,

Was my memory of my then 7 year-old daughter confusing "oxytocin" and
"oxymoron" an instance of trolling or the kind of experience you were
alluding to in

"He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with
their own inner light and all but quivering under the pre3ssure of the
significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that
what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more,
and nothing less, than what they were — a transience that was yet eternal
life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle
of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet
self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence."

?



On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 8:59 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's not pesky for me in the slightest. I'm *very* interested. I haven't
> contributed because it's not clear I have anything to contribute.
>
> Maybe I can start with a criticism, though. It's unclear to me why you (or
> anyone) would delicately flip through crumbling pages of philosophy when
> there are fresh and juicy results from (interventionist) methods right in
> front of us? The oxytocin post really *was* inspired by this thread. But
> because you guys are talking about dead white men like Peirce and James,
> it's unclear how the science relates.
>
> My skepticism goes even deeper (beyond dead white men) to why one would
> think *anyone* (alive, dead, white or brown) might be able to *think* up an
> explanation for how knowledge grows. I would like to, but cannot, avoid the
> inference that this belief anyone (or any "school" of people) can think up
> explanations stems from a bias toward *individualism*. My snarky poke at
> "super intelligent god-people" in a post awhile back was (misguidedly)
> intended to express this same skepticism. I worry that poking around in old
> philosophy is simply an artifact of the mythology surrounding the "mind"
> and Great Men <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory>.
>
> It seems to me like science works in *spite* of our biases to
> individualism. So, if I want to understand knowledge, I have to stop
> identifying ways of knowing through dead individuals and focus on the
> flowing *field* of the collective scientists.
>
> Of course, that doesn't mean we ignore the writings of the dead people.
> But it means liberally slashing away anything that even smells obsolete.
>
> Regardless of what you do post, don't interpret *my* lack of response as
> disinterest or irritation, because it's not.
>
> On 3/5/20 6:14 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these
> things?
>
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC>
> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>


-- 
Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20200305/bed48870/attachment.html>