> This is an excellent description of Level 2, Joe. But what do you suppose
> those postmodern people are talking about? Do you think they're just stupid?
> Do you think they have miserable lives? Have you ever talked with a Ramtha
> follower? We must be careful to avoid what I call the
> distinguish-and-discard trap (D&D). That's where the level-2 mind sets
> itself to discarding information that does not fit in with its one model.
> That's where you stop learning.
A nice essay; still the distinction between openness to novelty (with
its pity for cognitive narrowness) and supercilious supersaturation in
meaningless mysticism is a useful one to preserve - especially if
you expect any of this to "work"; e.g. to jive with a stubborn and
unrecalcitrant reality. Thoughts can change your inner world.
Actions are required to change the outer. Each can only happen
within limits. Wishing will not repeal the laws of physics, or of
thought [A or ~A; ~(A+~A); If A then A; If A then ~A]. These are
drawn from perception, which is the interaction between mind and
the world in which it (both onto- and phylogenetically) evolved: It's
there or it ain't, It cain't be both there & not there, If it's there, it's
there, if it ain't, it ain't (thereness understood as a single spacetime
locus relative to the perceiver, and itness understood as a definite
entity possessing characteristics which permit it to be distinguished
by the perceiver from any other entities; since position is just such a
characteristic, these two are mutually definitive).
Joe Dees
A Not Ready For Saffron Robes Memeticist, Semiotician,
Phenomenologist, Hermeneuticist, Structuralist and Genetic
Epistemologist
> Emerson spoke about breaking out of the box in his great essay "Self
> Reliance." I am working on an updated version of this essay in plain
> language. It's not out for general consumption, but if you'd like to take a
> look at the "beta" version, go to
> http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/emerson.htm and take a look. In particular
> the section "The Blinded Student" is relevant.
>
> Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/
> Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
> http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
> Free newsletter! Visit Meme Central at
> http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
> Joe E. Dees
> Sent: Thursday, August 06, 1998 12:48 PM
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: Re: virus: How does the Level-3 mind know which model to use? (was:
> Memetic Engineering)
> [snip quotes]
> Let's not get postmodernly Ramtha-esque here, with "my truth" and
> "your truth" and "his/her/its truth." The tonal divisions may be
> different in different musical systems, but an octave's still an octave.
> Different cultures may have different names for colors (as well as
> differing numbers of names and differing positions for the divisions
> between them), but each culture's sum total must still seamlessly fill
> the color wheel. Hydrogen doesn't care whether someone thinks it
> exists or what they think it is, and certainly won't morph to fulfill their
> expectations. The Copenhagen Interpretation, Heisenberg and
> Schrodinger notwithstanding, there is such a thing as an objective
> reality, and the intersubjective world (a product of our co-operating
> and competing subjectivities) more and more precisely grasps
> (maps) it as our understanding evolves. This is a neverending
> process, because the phenomenal world is perceptually
> inexhaustible; however, there is a profound difference between
> incomplete and incorrect, and we can deny neither of them. Not
> having total information is different from having the wrong
> information; the same goes for understanding.