[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

[Prof David West]

Frank,

it could be either. For trolling I would have to assume a particular form of intent and. like glen or steve pointed out, making that kind of assumption with this group would never occur to me.

It could have been an instance of insight like Huxley alludes to. That happens all the time with kids, especially perceptive ones, who have not been ruined by formal education and who still believe they can create new words that have the precise meaning they are conveying, without realizing that us educated folks have channelized our brains and see error rather than nuanced precision, yet subtle, meaning.

davew


On Thu, Mar 5, 2020, at 6:30 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> 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
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Frank Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz
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