> Joe, thanks for the thoughtful reply. To answer your question, no I haven't
> heard of any of that stuff nor do I understand what the value to me would be
> in learning about it.
>
> If the desire for knowledge is more important to you than personal
> happiness, does that not mean that, rather, the desire for knowledge is
> instead an important component IN your personal happiness?
>
> Do not confuse detachment with apathy. "Nothing is true" is very different
> from "nothing matters." I discuss this and the Level stuff in the last
>chapter of my book Virus Of The Mind.
If nothing is true, then the statement "nothing is true" cannot be true,
and we are mired in self-contradiction (where only we, who are self-
reflective and therefore recursive, can mire ourselves). The greater
objection is that truth and falsity are mutually correlative and
mutually defining terms. You can't have either without the other, if
either concept is to have meaning. However, we cannot declare the
concept "truth" (and its antonym "falsity") to be meaningless unless
we are prepared to declare both the common definitions
meaningless. They are (1) the correspondence definition of truth,
which asserts that true statements correspond to actual states of
affairs, and (2) the coherence definition of truth, which asserts that
true statements do not contradict other true statements. Which of
these definitions is primordial is a chicken-and-egg argument, since
pragmatically, in a reaonably consistent world, if one definitionary
requirement is fulfilled, the other overwhelmingly is fulfilled also (in
other words, they are most probably co-primordial). But you would
not be claiming that either or both definitions were false; no your
claim would have to go much deeper - that neither definition was
either true or false because neither possessed any meaning.
However, since these are words with meanings defining and being
defined by other words ad infinitum (see hermeneutic circle,
semantic regression) and are being used in a pattern conformative
to the logical structure of the language (see semiotic web), his claim
is angstroms away from denying the possibility of linguistic meaning
itself, and therefore the possibility of even memes. To do this in the
name of memetics embroils you in a much broader and deeper
contradiction. Once you declare that all language is a Zen Koan, do
we then seek the uncarved perception, or do we ask what is the
sound of one lip flapping?
Now, this is a search for truth that does indeed delight me.
Joe