An Emergent Order

[version]

you don't need to be schooled in the sciences of velocity, force, gravitational pull etc to drive a car, much less be aware of its deeper mechanics. It doesn't mean the frameworks for manufacturing cars, and frameworks for driving aren't systematised.

Yeah, I agree there, but seems different to what we've been discussing. It's not the same as the world-historic kind of discussion I was criticising on the first page.

 

[thirdform]

I'm not propounding idealism. I've said it's bogus already. The whole point of the thread is that I can't get along with any sort of framework. Materialism, idealism, solipsism, any of them. They all seem to be full of holes.

your existential crises don't matter.

You are propounding idealism because you are saying the world is unknowable. in which case, you wouldn't act at a subconscious level as if the world is known.

 

[thirdform]

Yeah, I agree there, but seems different to what we've been discussing. It's not the same as the world-historic kind of discussion I was criticising on the first page.

it is exactly the same.

 

[version]

Do you not like the approach of just handling ideas/theories/frameworks as situationally useful devices, which let us model certain aspects of our reality to a sufficient degree to let us function in that reality, but which are otherwise disposable and inevitably fallible when pressed hard enough?

What's the use of a flawed model? If I make a car based on a faulty design, do I really want to drive it? All these ideas have been pulled apart by other people. Are any of them fit to actually be acted upon?

 

[Clinamenic]

What's the use of a flawed model? If I make a car based on a faulty design, do I really want to drive it? All these ideas have been pulled apart by other people. Are any of them fit to actually be acted upon?

Well to use that metaphor, all cars eventually break down, and different cars are built for different purposes, but for the most part they are still reliable enough to let us do what we want to do, which is a lot better than we'd be able to do without them.

 

[version]

Well to use that metaphor, all cars eventually break down, and different cars are built for different purposes, but for the most part they are still reliable enough to let us do what we want to do, which is a lot better than we'd be able to do without them.

What can you do with idealism, solipsism, postmodernism, etc.? I realise I'm on the verge of making an argument for materialism here as it's conspicuously absent from that list.

 

[thirdform]

what you want to say is the framework comes post festum, it always comes after the fact of people doing things, and in that sense we cannot have a complete concept of capitalism until it has been superceeded. In that sense, you would be correct. but to suggest that these frameworks are made up is to reverse the determinations and resurrect the academic genius.

 

[Clinamenic]

All models are wrong - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[version]

what you want to say is the framework comes post festum, it always comes after the fact of people doing things, and in that sense we cannot have a complete concept of capitalism until it has been superceeded. In that sense, you would be correct. but to suggest that these frameworks are made up is to reverse the determinations and resurrect the academic genius.

They are made up though, aren't they? Someone has to think of them and name them and so on. The same goes for mathematics, language, and anything else we come up with.

 

[thirdform]

They are made up though, aren't they? Someone has to think of them and name them and so on. The same goes mathematics, language, and anything else we come up with.

they aren't fictions though. if you mean science is constructed, sure, but this is the product of collaborative labour, the person who constructs xyz framework has to work with the accumulated knowledge she has been given.

 

[Clinamenic]

What can you do with idealism, solipsism, postmodernism, etc.?

I think to a large extent, many of these are for pure philosophy in a largely recreational capacity, i.e. for some people they can just enhance the subjective richness of conscious experience, by letting one think they understand the world better. I think beyond that, the utility they may have is that they can let people navigate ideas on higher, more generalized levels, which again is only subjectively favorable.

And to a certain extent, they do let us understand ourselves better, insofar as they communicate often complex patterns of phenomena - again, imperfectly but often still usefully. But its an ever-extending task. One trick, I think, is to cultivate a sensibility whereby that becomes a blessing, e.g. "I have more than a lifetime's worth of cultivation to enjoy, because there is no ground/bedrock or finish line."

 

[thirdform]

or, when they are fictions, or when they appear to not correspond to the world, they are corrected,, improved upon and relativised.

That doesn't mean there weren't rational kernels of truth in the fiction(s)

 

[version]

The crux of it for me is do these things tell us anything about the world or do they just tell us about themselves? If I study geology, do I not just learn the ins and outs of a system we've built? I learn invented terms and names and concepts that make sense within 'geology'.

 

[Clinamenic]

The crux of it for me is do these things tell us anything about the world or do they just tell us about themselves? If I study geology, do I not just learn the ins and outs of a system we've built rather than anything about the world?

I think we can only cognitively apprehend the world through our own heuristics, and beyond that any apprehension we have of reality is more on an embodied level than a conscious level.

 

[thirdform]

The crux of it for me is do these things tell us anything about the world or do they just tell us about themselves? If I study geology, do I not just learn the ins and outs of a system we've built? I learn invented terms and names and concepts that make sense within 'geology'.

but what do you want to know about the world? you say the world, but this idea of the world is free floating in your questioning.

 

[version]

but what do you want to know about the world? you say the world, but this idea of the world is free floating in your questioning.

Well, yeah, because there doesn't seem to be any way to know anything about it. It's just this abstract possibility there's a signal somewhere under all the noise.

 

[thirdform]

even the search for beginnings is fruitless in this respect. did matter precede thought? It's a self-contradictory question, of course. without thought there is no concept of matter.

 

[thirdform]

Well, yeah, because there doesn't seem to be any way to know anything about it. It's just this abstract possibility there's a signal somewhere under all the noise.

That doesn't answer my question though.

 

[version]

I think the first time this sort of thing hit me was when I first heard "I think, therefore I am". My first thought was "Why? You've just made up a rule and spoken it like it's a self-evident truth. You can't just say something's true and that's it."

 

[version]

That doesn't answer my question though.

How would I answer it?