Мощно.

Вообще, интересно — чем дальше, тем в твоих текстах меньше "литературы" (ну, так мне кажется: здесь была бы хорошим тестом реакция людей лет четырнадцати-пятнадцати, с минимальным читательским опытом, да где ж их взять). Как тебе это удаётся?

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Так ведь я не читаю ничего, кроме учебников физики и детской
литературы, в эти несколько лет.

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Мозговая гигиена! Мозговая гигиена!
Скажите, а это помогает? А то я тоже хочу.

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>Мозговая гигиена!
>Скажите, а это помогает?

От мозгов, что ли? От мозгов все помогает.

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Не от, а для. Но по Головину.

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страшно, да
перепостила сюда, да трепещут, кто понимает
впрочем - многие понимают
но это мало

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Спасибо!

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Вытряхни из плаща инородное тело,
Это луна у тебя в кармане.
____
Очень красиво это. А Вы все-таки злюка. Ну, и сами знаете...

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Большое спасибо.

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Юля,

Стихотворение красивое. Оно пылает страстью и впечатлительностью. Но не соответствует моим словам, переживаниям и реалиям. Я ни в коем случае не сдаюсь. И не призываю тебя капитулировать. Но я видела, то, чего не видела ты. Я видела войну и детей, которые состояли из костей, покрытых кожей, видела людей, которые десятилетиями живут в разрухе, в предписанном маленьком пространстве для т.н. “маленьких людей”. Я видела это всё собственными глазами. И я “жалею” жизнь – всё живое.

А ведь так легко устроиться в цирк, где одни идут в супермаркет за “хайнсом”, “келоггсом” и “сникерсом”, и считают, что они не причастны к тому, что голодных и обесчеловеченных других продают. На Люду есть закон - купленный товар не подлежит возврату и обмену. Небо уже продали. В “цивилизованном” мире есть закон о недвижимости, который гласит, что все пространство над собственностью на земле, ввысь и до бесконечности принадлежит легальному владельцу.

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Лейла, хорошая.
Будто купившие товар не маленькие люди (или торгующие им).
На Воронежских улицах бездомные дети работают на мафию
и живут недолго. Взять в семью ребенка из детдома -- страшный
опыт. Богатые дядьки и тетки решаются на это ради себя,
они хотят растить своего ребенка. Это стоит многих душевных
сил и многих лет жизни. Их возможности представить
себе другого человека довольно ограничены. Но если кто
может представить -- пожалуй, не решится взять.
Люди из "банды" -- они еще меньше. Они просто выполняют
свою биологическую программу, как волк, который ест ягненка,
как обезьяны, которые вчетвером бьют и ломают обезьяну из
соседнего племени, которую подстерегли. Они не думают
при этом, потому что не умеют думать. Структуры имеют
силу, а люди маленькие, даже взятые кучкой. Люди
поползают и умрут.
Вопрос о том, кому принадлежит сферический сегмент
Вселенной с центром в дачном участке, имеет смысл только
как предлог для драки соседей (а их много, после драки
никто их не помнит), или как повод для новой войны.
Реально же двигает дело биологическая программа.
А то ты не знаешь.

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Юля, дорогая,

Вообще-то, по духу мы близки. Просто, я исхожу из моего жизненого опыта (I have lived among the filthy rich and the desperately dying) и отношусь скепчитески к Структуре, структурам и структуркам. By the way, just a few days ago, I led a workshop on writing and self-expression (blogging) at a correctional facility for young criminals north of Montreal. Several criminals had a crisis, because they couldn't deal with the fact that I wasn't going to give them structure for their creative expression. They went into a fit, when I told them that they CAN write and that they have something to tell. Not a confession, but simply an experience worthy of communication, of compassion. No, was their answer, we have nothing good, nothing worthy, give us the structure and tell us to die. Structure kills.

As for biological interpretation of species, in my observation, structure has been invented by some people for a more efficient exploitation of everything and everyone. Science and religion are branches of the same structure that attempts to present in the voice of authority the dogma that everything was created for the benefit of Man and that Man alone, in God's image (or in the case of science it is God alone in Man's image) can Know, can Think, can Choose and therefore deserves compassion and all the goodness; and that everything was created to serve His purpose. Both dogmas are a convenient construction. And the circus is a sorry sorry tale.

Your poem and its dedication touched me.

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Layla, you are beautiful and most certainly right (beautiful
means right as far as I am concerned). The only point is,
structures are rarely invented, they arise all by themselves
through a sort of natural selection (which does to memes
what Darwinian evolutuon does to genes). The God Delusion
was written by Dawkins the founder of memetics.
The ways of Natural Selection are not often pleasant, yet
they are open to investigation.

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Юля, родная.

Even if we are to accept the scientific dogma that evolution “progresses” in a specific direction because the species “knows” or is programmed by some power (genetic) or will (divine) to follow what's in its best “interests” and therefore develops or selects the strong (best) “genes” and “structures”, we will have to concede that Darwinist evolution is based on the defeat and exploitation of the “weaker” by the “stronger”. In other words, the “stronger” consumes the weaker like your average parasite. The stronger is a disease. Now, the reaction of the one who gets parasited upon depends on the “health” of the victim. A healthy reaction is to free one's organism from the disease. Heal. Get as far out from its “structure” as possible. If the victim succumbs, she dies.

Now, this leads us in several directions, depending on whether we refuse or accept the scenario as “natural”, “divine”, “pre-ordained”, “genetic”, “inevitable”, “programmable” or in whatever other vocabulary. If we accept the script, we slip into the structure where we concentrate our efforts on and derive whatever possible pleasure from the structural interests of the powerful, of the disease. In other words, we succumb to illness; accept it as inevitable; and love it. Both, science and religion tell us that this scenario is natural and inevitable and urge us to accept it, thereby fulfilling its own prophesy. Compassion for the victim, in this case, becomes overwritten with blame for the victim's weakness and with the justification that it is for the higher good (obviously of the parasite) even when we console ourselves with pseudo-charities which in fact keep the structure in place.

If you're interested to see my position in more detail, I discuss this more thoroughly in my two essays on Objects... and on Education.

Another direction would be to question the necessity of structure and the inevitability of the script. In this option, we concentrate on forming symbiotic relationships with the world rather than parasitic. That I discuss in more detail, more poetically and yet more dramatically, in my two dramas on the same web-page. And there are many societies that have proved this approach possible.

Perhaps there are other directions. I'm waiting to hear about them.

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>Even if we are to accept the scientific dogma that
>evolution "progresses" in a specific direction

In fact, there is no such dogma -- quite to the
contrary. (And you must confess you haven't
really visited the links I gave you!) There is
no specific direction, evolution just proceeds,
and often amounts to degradation.

The idea is, the structures that are capable
of reproducing oneselves simply do it. This capability
is not limited to living things: say, crystals act in
the same way. Competition arises due to a very dumb
process of reproduction: if one crystal grows faster
(under current conditions) and uses the same particles
as the other one, the former will prevail.

If, in the process of growing, a super-structure were
to occur by chance, and the conditions chance to be
favourable for its growing -- it would hang along for
a while, perhaps for quite a while.

The hypothesis is, that is enough to account for the
life thing, and all things that come with it.

>In other words, the "stronger" consumes the
>weaker like your average parasite. The stronger is a
>disease.

Right, but when the conditions change, the weaker
becomes the stronger (and, in your own terms, the
desease). It is not to be applied directly to
any situations we've been discussing, you just
wait a little before getting angry with what you
are reading.

>Both, science and religion tell us that this scenario is
>natural and inevitable

A nice thing about science is that it never tells
one what to do. Unless one is very eager to accept
instructions.

>Compassion for the victim, in this case, becomes
>overwritten with blame for the victim's weakness

Not at all, BTW. For social animals, compassion is
an item of the genetic package (some have it, some
don't, and both types get reproduced -- but for the
whole tribe to continue its existence, quite a portion
of species must have compassion).

>If you're interested to see my position in more detail, I
>discuss this more thoroughly in my two essays on
>Objects... and on Education.

I am certainly interested in your position (though
I believe I've got part of the picture from our
earlier conversations).

Anyway, one thing is to be made clear: ideas
(or memes, if you will) get propagated by the way
you'd have to classify as "opression". Parasites
and symbionts are formed by the very same mechanism.

This means, to get down people's brain a most noble
conception, you'd have to manipulate them. That is
the thing that is often done unconciously, even in
this discussion, when you appeal to your greater
or more specific experience. (I am perfectly happy
with it -- it's simply to drow your attention to the
fact.)

I'd hate to bring in even worse confusion, but the
very concept of "opression" is a meme. It is useful
for some social projects, say, to minimise the level
of human (or animals') suffering -- but it has its
limits, and can behave rather parasitically on one's
mind (as every meme can, including "scientific" ones
or whichever) if not kept under control.

>Perhaps there are other directions. I'm waiting to hear
>about them.

There are A LOT of directions, and, mostly, you
have heard about them.

What I personally am interested in for the moment is
how to get people believe that the change is needed.
(Manipulation, yes.) The only people not tired of
words yet are kids.

If other means besides verbal ones were open to one,
it would be a good idea to set an example. An example
is convincing, but it should not be of the sort "well,
it's great, I am much impressed, but it's not for me,
I am not that sort of a person, I love comfort, I want
my children to be apt for the real world to live in..."
A hard thing to conceive and accomplish, such an
example.

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> In fact, there is no such dogma -- quite to the
contrary.

Science is rather dogmatic and selective. It is sponsored by the powerful and reconfirms their interests over and over. Simply, no scientist whose work would go against the status quo would be financed. Regardless of how abstract or how auto-reflexive a scientific work may appear. (from anthropology to abstract maths). One can simply examine the budgets for the various projects and trace the financial sources to get an idea of how sponsored the scientific point of view is.

> (And you must confess you haven't
really visited the links I gave you!)

Actually, I'm familiar with both of these sources. The dogma that there is no God but Man, is still a dogma to me because it is completely anthropocentric and hence is limited and hence dubious to my humble mind.

All scientific observations, even those arrived at by method of deduction, depend on our physical limitations, experience, and personal inclinations and hence often “naturally” reproduce the interpretation and the logical conclusion desired by the forces behind the project (the much too human funders) – even in cases where an already established scientist attempts to go against the grain, her conclusions would be interpreted within the structure and its interests.

Crystals may form structures or perhaps it is we who want to see them in this light. Perhaps, we can see them in this light because we can see only this light and have no experience of what may be in the beyond of our dimension. And in any case, even if crystals were forming some structures and changing them, it does not mean that our social structures are “natural” or “organic”.

In fact, I refuse to think that the human is “above” all the living and the not. The idea that human (even if merely in intellect) is superior reflects the monotheistic dogmas of God creating Man and then Woman so that they can go and use and abuse the world. Science participates in that direction. That is what I mean when I talk about “direction” in these scripts.

Of course, not every single scientist does and not every single individual does, but their efforts somehow get rewritten within the larger structural script not because the “idea” was “naturally” selected, but because so often the social individual and sometimes whole groups act in the name of institution or structure and against their own interests. Maybe disease is natural, but the extent of disaster and pain inflicted in the name of the superior Man (in fact it is a few men and women) will soon be reaching the scope of a universal plague.


> when the conditions change, the weaker
becomes the stronger (and, in your own terms, the
desease).

Not necessarily. It depends on the core and driving force of the formerly weaker. Not everyone is a parasite or a hyena feeding on canned cadavers. There are other possible relationships with the world. But, to be honest, I am not 100% set on anything, because I also cannot dismiss disrespectfully the experience of the many people (particularly their ancestors) whose style of life I would never choose for myself. Knowing that some people (Russians and Africans, for example) have been constantly abused by shrewd and greedy colonisers, I cannot blame these people for accepting a political and social structure in the hope that it protects them and which openly admits to abusing them – only in their own interest. Personally, though, I do not want to participate in it. And also, I am not always sure about forcing these people to change. In the end, who knows who's doing whom a service or a disservice. But more important, they often do not want to themselves.

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>Science is rather dogmatic and selective. It is sponsored
>by the powerful and reconfirms their interests over and
>over.

Replacing "Science" with "Human thinking", we get
"Human thinking is rather dogmatic and selective".
Well, it is -- and human thinking doesn't have to
be funded.

Science as a social phenomenon is to a large part
what you say. Scientific thinking is not. It is
done by people who simply cannot refrain from thinking,
like art and all other things driven by passion.

>Simply, no scientist whose work would go against the
>status quo would be financed.

The Soviet Government financed science which was
necessary to build an atomic bomb. What the scientists
did was, to put it bluntly, cheating the government.
They spent the money to teach people and conduct
experiments, and kept reassuring the authorities
that the bomb was coming. They made a lot of pioneering
discoveries, but the bomb was not one of them, nor
was it actually aimed at. It is a usual thing.
To get persecuted by the authorities for going
against the status quo is another thing which
is absolutely normal for a scientist. There are
times when it becomes almost routine -- say, about
a third of the authors of the textbooks I've read
as a student got persecuted under Stalin's regime.

>One can simply examine
>the budgets for the various projects and trace the
>financial sources to get an idea of how sponsored the
>scientific point of view is.

In fact, this sort of reasoning, though it has its
uses, is not quite applicable to Archimedes', Kepler's,
Newton's or Einstein's work. It can account for
racist theories or, on the other hand, for the political
correctness issues; it can be, to some extent, applied
to nuclear physics, but it bears no relation to, say,
quantum mechanics.

>> (And you must confess you haven't
>>really visited the links I gave you!)
>
>Actually, I'm familiar with both of these sources. The
>dogma that there is no God but Man, is still a dogma to me
>because it is completely anthropocentric and hence is
>limited and hence dubious to my humble mind.

This is exactly how I know you have not visited
the links. The key words you use to trigger your
revolt against dogmas come from some pool of
second-hand slogans, not from these sources.

>All scientific observations, even those arrived at by
>method of deduction, depend on our physical limitations,
>experience, and personal inclinations

This is true for any sort of reasoning, not just
scientific observation (which often tends to break
the most profound beliefs of those same observers,
BTW).

>Crystals may form structures or perhaps it is we who want
>to see them in this light. Perhaps, we can see them in
>this light because we can see only this light and have no
>experience of what may be in the beyond of our
>dimension.

This is what manipulators always say.
Only they prefere to talk about oppression.
You see, oppression may amount to something completely
different in the eyes of God beyond of
our dimension!

It would be more honest to admit that you are not
interested in "crystals" and their lousy "structures".

>And in any case, even if crystals were forming
>some structures and changing them, it does not mean that
>our social structures are \u201cnatural\u201d or
>\u201corganic\u201d.

Is there, perhaps, some special ringing to the
words "organic" or "natural" that you hear and
I do not? Is it, maybe, a sort of religious
belief that everything "bad" is a part of
treacherous design and everything "good" is
self-organization?

>In fact, I refuse to think that the human is
>\u201cabove\u201d all the living and the not.

That's right.

Humans and crystals (or even particles of which
the crystals are formed) do have much in common.

Not to mention chimpanzees (to which they are
almost identical).

>I am not always sure about forcing these people to
>change. In the end, who knows who's doing whom a service
>or a disservice.

Absolutely right.

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I'll have to appeal once more to my expertise and authority in the field of trying to open up people's structures: neither journalism, nor anthropology, nor “development” nor anything else seems to have worked. Even teaching creative writing to marginals/criminals doesn't work!

O.K. Not so dramatically, of course, there were a few who saw the benefit of destructuring, but they are so few and the suffering is so immense. Then of course, there are cases like Ljuda, who wanted to smash the suffocating structure and fly out unto freedom. But the structure was impossible to overcome. I had no access to help her, no matter how much I tried. Perhaps, the only help was that I left with the words that she can one day “legally” flee what she refuses to accept. To flee. Is that surrender?

Is this what you have felt I might be feeling when we talked on the phone?

>It is not to be applied directly to
any situations we've been discussing, you just
wait a little before getting angry with what you
are reading.

I am sorry if I sound angry (actually I have already been told before that I sound angry and even violent when I express myself in English. Must be my subconscious relationship to the language).

And I love intelligent debates. It's a rare pleasure for me these days. And in fact, I love you.

>A nice thing about science is that it never tells
one what to do. Unless one is very eager to accept
instructions.

But funding is the magic wand that makes the operation “faith” so smooth and unnoticeable.

> I am certainly interested in your position (though
I believe I've got part of the picture from our
earlier conversations).

Just, please, please, please, let me live! Don't put me in any category or structure.


>This means, to get down people's brain a most noble
conception, you'd have to manipulate them. That is
the thing that is often done unconciously, even in
this discussion, when you appeal to your greater
or more specific experience.

I don't mean that I have more valuable or greater experience. But I do have, among many experiences, the specific experience of how the majority of people live in this world or, more accurately, die. Structures are treacherous and fatal. So, for me there is this constant pain that I carry inside me along with this knowledge. And a constant desire to ease their suffering. I have approached the task from many different angles. In the end, my conclusion was that I'll have to do it differently and for the next generations. Hence, I began the change within my own family.

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Well, negative experience is also valuable, sometimes
precious. Yet there were examples when the consensus
got changed, as you might put it, by concious
design. And -- the reading pool for children is
a sort of free ground for the moment, even if by
negligence.

>Is this what you have felt I might be feeling when we
>talked on the phone?

Not exactly. It may sound stupid, but I got desoriented
when you started talking about changing landscapes. You
sounded as if you knew perfectly well that the change
was an illusion, yet invited me to go for it because,
well, illusions are all that we're left with. You see,
you were a person (almost the person) who made me want
to live, whenever we met. Hence the reaction, perhaps
inadequate.

>I am sorry if I sound angry

Look, Layla, there is no need to be sorry. It's
just that I'd hate to hurt your feelings. If that
were the case, I should be sorry. And let
anyone sound as she pleases, we are not speaking
for the sake of sounds.

>And in fact, I love you.

Well, you know it's mutual.


>>A nice thing about science is that it never tells
>>one what to do. Unless one is very eager to accept
>>instructions.
>
>But funding is the magic wand that makes the operation
>"faith" so smooth and unnoticeable.

You can be certain that we, you and me, are not going
to be funded for our exercises in darwinian sciences.
So, for the two of us, it's perfectly safe to think
in this direction -- much as I regret it, I have
to admit!

>Just, please, please, please, let me live! Don't put me in
>any category or structure.

Why, who is talking! You dismiss so easily with
whole branches of knowledge fitting them into The
Oppression Machine, and at the same time demand
that I should not put you into a structure!
Well, I won't.

>But I do have, among many experiences, the specific experience
>of how the majority of people live in this world or, more accurately, die.

I don't think I would be able to bear such an experience
and come out sane, BTW.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

> This is exactly how I know you have not visited the links. Words you use to trigger your revolt against dogmas come from some pool of second-hand slogans, not from these sources.
Actually, the level of the debate loses in quality when someone puts another person in a pre-defined box with an implicit accusation in dishonesty. Had I not known you better, I would have deemed it pointless to state that, in fact, I HAVE read Dawkins. The fact that others may share my critique of him does not alter my position or the fact that my questioning of the scientific dogma has begun years ago and is not a revolt that began with your mention of “lousy crystals and structures”.

I have read his “Selfish Gene” and an array of essays where he already claimed certainty that science should replace religion. My exposure to him occured in an American self-critical, intellectual setting and I remember he was particularly embraced by social psychologists. I found these fields too biologistic for my liking and so dismissed Dawkins together with the psychologists – as an institution, which in no way means that I do not value their insights or experience. When I appear to dismiss whole branches of science, I dismiss their authoritarian claim to “knowledge”, which is being manipulated and concocted mostly for specific aims. I do not dismiss human experience, of which art, science and religion are also a part.

I'll try to summarise my position, namely, that any institutionalised body of “knowledge” is dogmatic, because by its mere fact of institutionalisation it has been “applied”- be it art, science or religion. And for anyone who is ingrained in institutional structures, it is extremely difficult to see beyond that point of view, and hence even auto-critique tends to revolve around safe space, Noam Chomsky is one example.

However, in no way, do I reduce every aspect of human endeavour to institutionalised thought. Give me a little more credit than that.

> negative experience is also valuable, sometimes precious.

Totally. I, actually, don't even see my experience as negative. Since I have taken upon myself to attempt to decipher the human mystery I need to know what humans experience. But, how to make sense of the rampant, meaningless pain of the majority of people in this world? In my humble experience, all institutional answers seem to lie and to justify it. That's why I refuse them and question their goals and authority.

> I got desoriented when you started talking about changing landscapes.

Probably, I was driven by the selfish desire to have you near – not as an illusion or perhaps against the backdrop of illusion. Since I can't go to the Mountain, I asked the Mountain to come to me.

But, also, part of it was my emotional response to Misha's posting about the Kaput of contemporary Russian reality. So, I thought, if you would be forced to go somewhere, why not here. I don't know how much of what we live is an illusion, but fighting a “system” within the “system” and using its discourse and methods, in my experience, has proved futile. And even if it is all an illusion, it doesn't mean that parts of it are not worthy of our experience. Bien au contraire.

> sounded as if you knew perfectly well that the change
was an illusion, yet invited me to go for it because,
well, illusions are all that we're left with.

What I meant by illusion was, again in response to Misha's posting (and I agree, I shouldn't have assumed that you operated on the same definitions), that replacing the current government with a government would not affect the majority of the people. This government is a response to the Western structure of economic and political interests, so replacing it with anything else, keeps the structure in tact. Many people subscribe to abusive structures even when those structures abuse them. My point is, how to make it possible for people to be free to choose their reality or illusion without encroaching their own interests upon others and without being encroached upon? So, if I and my friends don't want the structure, how can we make sure that we won't get jailed or even worse bombed the next day we refuse it? What dimensions are we to seek? For the time, I am exploring the human sphere.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

>The fact that others may share my critique

But no, they don't. I think it's a misunderstanding,
you must simply confuse him with someone else
whom you have also read.

They cannot share your critique because
Dawkins never stated or implied the statements
your critique is aimed at.

>When I appear to dismiss whole branches of science, I
>dismiss their authoritarian claim to
>\u201cknowledge\u201d, which is being manipulated and
>concocted mostly for specific aims.

All right, but do I invite you to accept their
autoritarian claims? I think not. Sciences
provide a language. One can refuse to speak this
or that language, say, on the grounds of a religious
taboo. That is understandable. But in the absence
of taboos, one might speak freely, and formulate.

>But, how to make sense of the rampant, meaningless pain of
>the majority of people in this world?

If you make a machine that can suffer pain, say, when
deprived of a certain ressource, arrange it so
that there is a shortage of ressources and plenty
of machines, and leave the process to self-organising,
then a lot of machines will suffer. If the machines
are allowed to evolve in such a way that would minimise
their suffering, even more of the machines will suffer.
And if there is pleasure, associated with some other
machine's suffering (for instance, to signal to the
machine that is winning that winning it does, indeed),
then your machines can even evolve sadistic features.

All the while pain and suffering will be just
a shortcut to quickly signal to a machine that
something is dangerously wrong. Under the conditions
of the shortage of the vital ressource, the quicker
one will survive better (or get better chances to
reproduce).

The evolution may help the situation allowing the
machines feel pain when some of the other machines
are suffering. That would be the empathy which
Dawkins described in his "Selfish Gene". And,
in some species, it may reach the extent of feeling
pain whenever they know that another is suffering.
But too much stress is fatal by the design.

>In my humble
>experience, all institutional answers seem to lie and to
>justify it.

Can it be that you just read them in this way?
The three passages above appeal to the fusion of
the game theory with evolutional psychology; one
can construct a scenario following the scetch and
demonstrate the ways evolution will take. But this
is by no means a justification -- it's a scenario
to show how it works. And, which is far more
important, to lay one's fingers on the key points
which should be reprogrammed in order to get rid
of meaningless suffering. The good thing about
evolution is that its programming constantly gets
revised, and that is part of the programming.

>Probably, I was driven by the selfish desire to have you
>near -- not as an illusion or perhaps against the
>backdrop of illusion. Since I can't go to the Mountain, I
>asked the Mountain to come to me.

That is where I am trying hard not to wish something
HORRIBLE to happen to both American continents,
to force you emigrate to Russia with the family.
(A climate change, perhaps?) And we could settle
in Irkutsk and get things started.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

> you must simply confuse him with someone else
whom you have also read.

What do you mean? That there are several Dawkins and Selfish Genes? Did I miss something? Or perhaps, could it be that you haven't noticed some of the political and social implications of his theory?

As for the rest, I have stated clearly my points on dogmas and structures and languages and institutions... If you don't agree to see the implications of “programming”, “engineering”, “language”, metaphors with nature and machines, the problem of metaphors in scientific thinking and engineering, etc., what can I say? I'm not enforcing my world view on anyone. I was simply responding to a question you asked in your poem (> Это ты говоришь?), thinking that perhaps you asked it, because you wanted to hear my side of things.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

>What do you mean? That there are several Dawkins and
>Selfish Genes?

No, but there are many authors. Like, "There is no God
but Man" that you cite as a scientific conclusion,
is in fact a statement made by a magician Aleister
Crowley, and, as you might guess, not entirely his
invention.

When I mentioned Dawkins, you replied, among other things:

Both, science and religion tell us that this scenario is
natural and inevitable and urge us to accept it, thereby
fulfilling its own prophesy. Compassion for the victim, in
this case, becomes overwritten with blame for the victim's
weakness and with the justification that it is for the
higher good (obviously of the parasite)

But the "Selfish Gene" happens to be to a large part
dedicated to origin of compassion, explaining why it
is natural and how it came to be an evolutionary winner
for social animals (not the winner, for it is quite
possible to live and reproduce being almost deprived
of compassion). Moreover, origin of compassion and its
justification in terms of evolution is the main motive
of this book: there is "pun intended" hidden in the
title. "The Selfish Gene of Altruism", it should
read.

You couldn't have missed it, you've got a good brain.
Either you had special filters inserted (that happens
to one with aversion to certain key words) or you have,
postfactum, in your distant memory, confused his work
with other essays by other authors that you have read
around the time.

>Or perhaps, could it
>be that you haven't noticed some of the political and
>social implications of his theory?

But certainly. I am sure I have missed A HUGE LOT of
the political and social implications of his theory.

This is how I know it: my sister sent me once an
interesting and finely written book by Robert Wright,
"A Moral Animal". From Dawkins' theory he sort of
derived that victorian values, at least in somewhat
softer and more liberal version, are good for the
society in terms of minimizing the sum of human
suffering. I happen to know that Dawkins, for one,
have never embraced victorian values -- but social
sciences are not precise, hence mutually exclusive
implications of any theory are numerous.

Minimizing the suffering as the aim of the evolutional
psychology is never disputed, though. But the ways to
achieve that goal occuring to various people are
beyond my imagination. I would have certainly missed
them if not directly confronted.

>If you don't agree to see the implications of
>"programming", "engineering", "language", metaphors
>with nature and machines, the problem of metaphors
>in scientific thinking and engineering, etc., what
>can I say?

Why, explain to me what is the problem, of'course.
Avoiding (whenever possible) arguments of the sort
"Einstein was a professor, and all the professions
make people lie, that is why I don't believe his
statement that light can be focused by gravity".

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

> Why, explain to me what is the problem, of'course.
Avoiding (whenever possible) arguments of the sort
"Einstein was a professor, and all the professions
make people lie, that is why I don't believe his
statement that light can be focused by gravity".


It seems that you're confusing me with someone else. What you say and seem to assume about me, does not correspond to my reality or to what I say. In other words, you project your own structures on me, reading me within the prescribed by your paradigms box and ascribing to me your own understandings and misunderstandings of Dawkins, and now Crowley (whom I never mentioned), etc. and reducing my analysis to dogmatic utterings (see your peculiar paragraph on Einstein above, among other examples).

I have said it on several occasions before and shall reiterate again, namely, that I never dismissed the value of human experience and endeavour, including scientific thinking, among other expressions. But as opposed to the binary reasoning so prevalent in both scientific and religious argumentation in general and scientific and religious accusations against each other in particular, I am interested in ALL human and non-human experiences outside the institutional framework. Your paragraph on Einstein above, as well as your reliance on Dawkins' metaphors, illustrate the dogmatic limits of scientific reasoning and call for caution in the conclusions reached and their implications for humans and beasts.

In Robert Anthon Wilson's words, this is the problem of all people (evangelists, scientists, buddhists, bakers, jews, muslims, cleaners, pro-life activists, physics students, anthropologists, etc...) most of whom cannot escape their tunnels of reality. In the words of Arshavski and Ukhtomski, this is the tactic of replacement of one's interlocutor with one's own limitations and knowledge and is the problem of the lack of compassion and respect for the opponent and her dominanta – a lack that leads to the impossibility of understanding the other, to closed circles and in some cases even to aggression.

As with regards to what I think of Dawkins' hypothesis on compassion, I have already written on institutional compassion in my paper on Objects, Love, and Objectifications. I don't want to re-write the same thing here.

With regards to institutions (you seem to prefer the word structures), I have written more on that in most other works, but particularly in my essay on Modernism and Education.

Problems of science and scientific thinking occupied a big chunk of my preliminary exam – most of which (apart from the 50 page proposal and of course the oral defence) are on the website.

My theoretical chapter of my doctoral thesis analyses the paradigms of human knowledge and problems of structured metaphors and language. As soon as I'm done with my dissertation, it will be available for the public.

Furthermore, I offer a list in my recommended reading section and there is always the bibliography at the end of my essays. By no means these lists are exhaustive, but I'll be updating them along the way.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

>In other words, you project your own structures on me,
>reading me within the prescribed by your paradigms box

Sure, it's my favourite occupation.

>now Crowley (whom I never mentioned)

No, you only quoted him:

>Actually, I'm familiar with both of these sources. The
>dogma that there is no God but Man, is still a dogma to me
>because it is completely anthropocentric and hence is
>limited and hence dubious to my humble mind.

"There is no God but Man" -- it's from Crowley's
most sacred magician's gospel, Liber Oz.

Regardless of my projecting of my own structures
and other faults, this dogma does not bear any
relation to evolutional psychology. They happen
to regard God as a mind parasite, which is comletely
different from their view of Man.

>I have said it on several occasions before and shall
>reiterate again, namely, that I never dismissed the value
>of human experience and endeavour, including scientific
>thinking, among other expressions.

Well, you may dissmiss it or respect it, but
simple questions are best suited by simple answers.
If a statement is true or false, it is not true or
false by virtue of being uttered by some institualized
scientist. Everyone can be right or wrong; to judge
it, one should consider a statement itself, not any
labels attached to it. It is not difficult, we are
talking about simple things, mostly.

Needless to say, the quality of being institualized
is not inherent to a person. Today one is a marginal,
prosecuted by authorities and despised by consensus,
tomorrow a recognised maitre of his discipline.

>in some cases even to aggression.

Right! I've been talking, a few years ago,
to some person who seemed to take Bourdieu
seriously. Guess what, he became extremely
aggressive and started calling me names,
evoking alleged perculiar habits of my female
relatives. All the while he kept listing his
academic credentials, dunno why.

At that time I could still happily reply to
him that I, for my part, didn't even
possess a diploma of high education.

(A while later he changed his mind, for some
reason, to a point of inviting me to write an
essay on Bourdieu for his editorial project.
I did my best. The essay was not serious.
But the funniest thing about it was that the
extraordinarily stupid high-brow journal for
which the Bourdieu project was made, demanded
to exclude the reference to A. Dougin from my
text, for PC reasons. Dougin was a marginal
by that time, and Bourdieu -- the very essence
of commonplace, mainstream and establishment.
Now one cannot ruin an academic project by
evoking either name.)

>My theoretical chapter of my doctoral thesis analyses the
>paradigms of human knowledge and problems of structured
>metaphors and language. As soon as I'm done with my
>dissertation, it will be available for the public.

Well, if this is a joke intended to demonstrate
that you do understand the concept of intimidating
behavior of an alpha-graded social animal, it is
appreciated.

If not, then obviously it is not my place to continue
discussion with someone so advanced on the subject
of human knowledge.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

<<
"Einstein was a professor, and all the professions
make people lie, that is why I don't believe his
statement that light can be focused by gravity"
>>

I don't have to go that far;) I can just say "some professors say that light can be focused by gravity but I don't believe it".

(Reply to this) (Parent)

>I'd hate to bring in even worse confusion, but the
very concept of "opression" is a meme. It is useful
for some social projects, say, to minimise the level
of human (or animals') suffering -- but it has its
limits, and can behave rather parasitically on one's
mind (as every meme can, including "scientific" ones
or whichever) if not kept under control.

I personally usually refer to inscribed or almost “biologised” behaviour with the terms habitus and praxis because of a personal preference for the less biologistic and “naturalistic” connotations (yes, my anthropological bias). To my personal taste, Dwarkins uses the term meme in a too limited manner. And yes, the reproduction of the informational code is a dilemma, I agree. But again, my personal distrust of the institution of “science” makes me wary of their mechanisms of control and any attempt of engineering.


> What I personally am interested in for the moment is
how to get people believe that the change is needed.

I totally agree!

> (Manipulation, yes.)

But this is the aspect of the change that confuses me again, because it implies engineering.

> The only people not tired of
words yet are kids.

And a few kiddish adults – not taken seriously by the “boss”

> If other means besides verbal ones were open to one,
it would be a good idea to set an example. An example
is convincing, but it should not be of the sort "well,
it's great, I am much impressed, but it's not for me,
I am not that sort of a person, I love comfort, I want
my children to be apt for the real world to live in..."
A hard thing to conceive and accomplish, such an
example.

I totally agree. And even when you show them that it works, most would still adamantly refuse to accept the possibility of exchanging pain for harmony. Now, is this habitus or meme or fear or what?

PS. If you feel like discussing this or anything else privately on e-mail, write me at layla.ar@gmail.com
or even better, come visit! You're always welcome!

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

I meant Dawkins, of course

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Писала-писала, а младенец все выключил. Попробую
восстановить, но будет короче.

>To my personal taste, Dawkins uses the term meme in a too
>limited manner.

But it's not the same. Meme's got an existence of
its own, and a possibility to reproduce independently
of a current bearer. Habitus doesn't possess that
possibility, it's a store of information that can be
passed over (inherited), but doesn't fly around
infecting whole populations and quickly mutating
in the process.

In short, you can define habitus in terms of memes,
but you cannot define memes in terms of habitus.
In this, the concept of memes is more general.

>I totally agree. And even when you show them that it
>works, most would still adamantly refuse to accept the
>possibility of exchanging pain for harmony.

I am afraid that Luda's parents think of her
stubborness in the same way. It is "the personality"
shaped under certain conditions -- but when condition
changes, personality persists.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

мне понравилось

правда я сейчас устал, в глазах путается, но так (imho) лучше всего воспринимать образную поэзию..