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#1897 From: Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...>
Date: Mon Oct 5, 2009 9:45 pm
Subject: Everlasting Man 		jonsork
Send Email Send Email
 
Dear Group.
I thought some of you wouldbe interested in this link. This is G. K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man.
This is one of the most extraordinary and powerful books I've read. C.S. Lewis was converted to Christianity after reading this book, and became, in his words. "the most reluctant convert in all of England",
It is a truly powerful book, and even if you disagree with the message, you will appreciate and admire the skills of the writer.
It's probalbly best to read it straight through, yet I have skipped around.
After reading the first chapter I read this one on the war between the Gods and Demons. It's about the Punic wars, and is very moving, in fact, it moved me to tears. VII The War of the Gods and Demons
This too, is a powerful and moving chapter -I The God in the Cave
And these on comparative religion and mythology are quite interesting

IV God and Comparative Religion http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part1c4.htm

V Man and Mythologies http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part1c5a.htm

The whole work is masterful, informative, entertaining and moving.

I hope you enjoy it, and some of you, find it as meaningful as I did.

Jon


Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)
#1898 From: "John - M" <jamikes@...>
Date: Fri Oct 9, 2009 7:56 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		jami_kes
Send Email Send Email
 

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 

Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1899 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Fri Oct 9, 2009 8:37 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		stevenewallis
Send Email Send Email
 

John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 

1 of 1 File(s)


Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1900 From: "John - M" <jamikes@...>
Date: Sat Oct 10, 2009 4:35 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? [1 Attachment] 		jami_kes
Send Email Send Email
 

Steven, thanks, it downloaded nicely, I will read it carefully.
 
When I wrote 'culture related' I did not penetrate into 'judging it'. Your position seems to me as judging one culture looking from another. I did not consider this with 'cultures' -
in mindsets, belief systems it does not work. I think 'your' CULTURE term is more lax than what I like to use: e.g. whether dictator or not does not constitute in my vocabulary a different culture (maybe: sub-culture?) - I consider belief systems encompassing the total worldview, value-system, logic, lifestyle and mental disposition (vocabulary) etc. all included (and maybe different). Stepwise changes in aspects does not change my culture. (Mayan, 'hunter-gatherer', vedantic, etc., or a recent westerner - no name?).
You may use a different setup, if so, we may recognise our differencies.
Thanks for the expressed matches in our ideas.
 
John
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? [1 Attachment]


John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 

Reply | Messages in this Topic (2)
#1901 From: Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...>
Date: Sat Oct 10, 2009 7:59 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? [1 Attachment] 		jonsork
Send Email Send Email
 
I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: toml1777@...
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 


Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1902 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:41 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		stevenewallis
Send Email Send Email
 

John M,
 
Are you judging my judgmental behavior?  ;-)
 
The examples of dictatorial and other types of cultures were quick&easy  generalizations. I would certainly agree that a culture is much more than that. And, that creates its own difficulties. How does one adequately describe the richness of a culture in only a few words? And, it may be said that there is a different sub (sub-sub?) culture for each individual. Or, at the very least, each individual has a unique point of view or belief system.
 
Hmmm... one approach is to gain consensus among a group of people. However, that sense of consensus might be seen as indicating the creation of a new sub-culture.
 
I recognize the difficulty of judging one culture from the perspective of another. And, the benefits of being non-judgmental. Also, we must make judgments at some point. Although, at this point, I'm really focused on developing more effective tools for improving understanding.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 9:35 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 



Steven, thanks, it downloaded nicely, I will read it carefully.
 
When I wrote 'culture related' I did not penetrate into 'judging it'. Your position seems to me as judging one culture looking from another. I did not consider this with 'cultures' -
in mindsets, belief systems it does not work. I think 'your' CULTURE term is more lax than what I like to use: e.g. whether dictator or not does not constitute in my vocabulary a different culture (maybe: sub-culture?) - I consider belief systems encompassing the total worldview, value-system, logic, lifestyle and mental disposition (vocabulary) etc. all included (and maybe different). Stepwise changes in aspects does not change my culture. (Mayan, 'hunter-gatherer', vedantic, etc., or a recent westerner - no name?).
You may use a different setup, if so, we may recognise our differencies.
Thanks for the expressed matches in our ideas.
 
John
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? [1 Attachment]


John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 


Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1903 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:32 pm
Subject: How do we know what we know? 		stevenewallis
Send Email Send Email
 

Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 


Reply | Messages in this Topic (5)
#1904 From: "John - M" <jamikes@...>
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:09 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		jami_kes
Send Email Send Email
 

Jon:
we don't.
 
More explained: We don't know how we know what we (may not even ???) know.
We don 't even know what it means "to know". We THINK we know. Whatever we may 'know' is a partial representation of something we have no capabilites to identify in toto.
I speak about an 'epistemic enrichment' leading to our (mostly acceptably) increasing cognitive inventory. (That is for humanity in recent millennia). We 'know'(!?) about more (details? complexities?) of the world (right or wrong) than our predeccessors did.
(Just as I have no idea what it means "to think".
 I may think of something, but I don't know - ha ha).
Do you know how to think about these things?
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 


Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1905 From: "John - M" <jamikes@...>
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 9:43 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		jami_kes
Send Email Send Email
 

Steve,
 
excuse please my inadequate choice of words.
By 'judging' I referred to 'evaluating, considering, identifying' not to  'be judgemental'.
It comes from connotations to my non-indoEuropean mothertongue, after which this English-called vocabulary is the 4th I learned. (German, French, Latin plus at lower level some more).  
Pondering would have been more adequate?
 
I wanted to point to the futility of debates between  different belief systems.
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 12:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


John M,
 
Are you judging my judgmental behavior?  ;-)
 
The examples of dictatorial and other types of cultures were quick&easy  generalizations. I would certainly agree that a culture is much more than that. And, that creates its own difficulties. How does one adequately describe the richness of a culture in only a few words? And, it may be said that there is a different sub (sub-sub?) culture for each individual. Or, at the very least, each individual has a unique point of view or belief system.
 
Hmmm... one approach is to gain consensus among a group of people. However, that sense of consensus might be seen as indicating the creation of a new sub-culture.
 
I recognize the difficulty of judging one culture from the perspective of another. And, the benefits of being non-judgmental. Also, we must make judgments at some point. Although, at this point, I'm really focused on developing more effective tools for improving understanding.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 9:35 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 



Steven, thanks, it downloaded nicely, I will read it carefully.
 
When I wrote 'culture related' I did not penetrate into 'judging it'. Your position seems to me as judging one culture looking from another. I did not consider this with 'cultures' -
in mindsets, belief systems it does not work. I think 'your' CULTURE term is more lax than what I like to use: e.g. whether dictator or not does not constitute in my vocabulary a different culture (maybe: sub-culture?) - I consider belief systems encompassing the total worldview, value-system, logic, lifestyle and mental disposition (vocabulary) etc. all included (and maybe different). Stepwise changes in aspects does not change my culture. (Mayan, 'hunter-gatherer', vedantic, etc., or a recent westerner - no name?).
You may use a different setup, if so, we may recognise our differencies.
Thanks for the expressed matches in our ideas.
 
John
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? [1 Attachment]


John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 


Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1906 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:40 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		stevenewallis
Send Email Send Email
 

Jon,
 
Wonderful - phun with filosofy.
 
Was it Bacon who said that we would torture nature to force her to reveal her secrets? I suspect it is we who have been tortured - and it has revealed that every secret, every bit of knowledge has a (for want of a better word) "space" or openness. There is nothing that can be known in any absolute sense... the universe is simply not built that way.
 
I've hear talk over the past few years that has been more towards "saticficing" or "actionable knowledge." Reminiscent of "Ralph's Good Enough Grocery."
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 



Jon:
we don't.
 
More explained: We don't know how we know what we (may not even ???) know.
We don 't even know what it means "to know". We THINK we know. Whatever we may 'know' is a partial representation of something we have no capabilites to identify in toto.
I speak about an 'epistemic enrichment' leading to our (mostly acceptably) increasing cognitive inventory. (That is for humanity in recent millennia). We 'know'(!?) about more (details? complexities?) of the world (right or wrong) than our predeccessors did.
(Just as I have no idea what it means "to think".
 I may think of something, but I don't know - ha ha).
Do you know how to think about these things?
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 


Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1907 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Mon Oct 12, 2009 11:41 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		stevenewallis
Send Email Send Email
 

John M,
 
Impressive. Pondering is perfect.
 
There is futility. yes. And yet, inescapability?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 2:43 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 



Steve,
 
excuse please my inadequate choice of words.
By 'judging' I referred to 'evaluating, considering, identifying' not to  'be judgemental'.
It comes from connotations to my non-indoEuropean mothertongue, after which this English-called vocabulary is the 4th I learned. (German, French, Latin plus at lower level some more).  
Pondering would have been more adequate?
 
I wanted to point to the futility of debates between  different belief systems.
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 12:41 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


John M,
 
Are you judging my judgmental behavior?  ;-)
 
The examples of dictatorial and other types of cultures were quick&easy  generalizations. I would certainly agree that a culture is much more than that. And, that creates its own difficulties. How does one adequately describe the richness of a culture in only a few words? And, it may be said that there is a different sub (sub-sub?) culture for each individual. Or, at the very least, each individual has a unique point of view or belief system.
 
Hmmm... one approach is to gain consensus among a group of people. However, that sense of consensus might be seen as indicating the creation of a new sub-culture.
 
I recognize the difficulty of judging one culture from the perspective of another. And, the benefits of being non-judgmental. Also, we must make judgments at some point. Although, at this point, I'm really focused on developing more effective tools for improving understanding.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 9:35 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 



Steven, thanks, it downloaded nicely, I will read it carefully.
 
When I wrote 'culture related' I did not penetrate into 'judging it'. Your position seems to me as judging one culture looking from another. I did not consider this with 'cultures' -
in mindsets, belief systems it does not work. I think 'your' CULTURE term is more lax than what I like to use: e.g. whether dictator or not does not constitute in my vocabulary a different culture (maybe: sub-culture?) - I consider belief systems encompassing the total worldview, value-system, logic, lifestyle and mental disposition (vocabulary) etc. all included (and maybe different). Stepwise changes in aspects does not change my culture. (Mayan, 'hunter-gatherer', vedantic, etc., or a recent westerner - no name?).
You may use a different setup, if so, we may recognise our differencies.
Thanks for the expressed matches in our ideas.
 
John
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? [1 Attachment]


John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 


Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1908 From: shumate <dshumate@...>
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:48 am
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		shumatedeborah
Send Email Send Email
  
I have enjoyed the discussion.  It speaks to my favorite novel's last
sentence. No answer's here, but THE Answer, for me:

"Excellently observed."  answered Candide;  "but let us cultivate our
garden."

Deborah




Steven E. Wallis wrote:
>
>
> 
>
> John M,
>
> Impressive. Pondering is perfect.
>
> There is futility. yes. And yet, inescapability?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve
>
>
>
>
> Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
>
> Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
> Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
>
> http://projectfast.org/ <http://projectfast.org/>
>
> swallis@... <mailto:swallis@...>
>
>
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* John - M <mailto:jamikes@...>
>     *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>     <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>     *Sent:* Monday, October 12, 2009 2:43 PM
>     *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there
>     Evil in the world?
>
>
>
>     
>
>     Steve,
>
>     excuse please my inadequate choice of words.
>     By 'judging' I referred to 'evaluating, considering, identifying'
>     not to  'be judgemental'.
>     It comes from connotations to my non-indoEuropean mothertongue,
>     after which this English-called vocabulary is the 4th I learned.
>     (German, French, Latin plus at lower level some more).
>     Pondering would have been more adequate?
>
>     I wanted to point to the futility of debates between  different
>     belief systems.
>
>     John M
>
>         ----- Original Message -----
>         *From:* Steven E. Wallis <mailto:swallis@...>
>         *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>         <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>         *Sent:* Monday, October 12, 2009 12:41 PM
>         *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is
>         there Evil in the world?
>
>         
>         John M,
>
>         Are you judging my judgmental behavior?  ;-)
>
>         The examples of dictatorial and other types of cultures were
>         quick&easy  generalizations. I would certainly agree that a
>         culture is much more than that. And, that creates its own
>         difficulties. How does one adequately describe the richness of
>         a culture in only a few words? And, it may be said that there
>         is a different sub (sub-sub?) culture for each individual. Or,
>         at the very least, each individual has a unique point of view
>         or belief system.
>
>         Hmmm... one approach is to gain consensus among a group of
>         people. However, that sense of consensus might be seen as
>         indicating the creation of a new sub-culture.
>
>         I recognize the difficulty of judging one culture from the
>         perspective of another. And, the benefits of being
>         non-judgmental. Also, we must make judgments at some point.
>         Although, at this point, I'm really focused on developing more
>         effective tools for improving understanding.
>
>         Thanks,
>
>         Steve
>
>
>
>
>         Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
>
>         Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
>         Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate
>         University
>
>         http://projectfast.org/ <http://projectfast.org/>
>
>         swallis@... <mailto:swallis@...>
>
>
>
>             ----- Original Message -----
>             *From:* John - M <mailto:jamikes@...>
>             *To:* ISCE_complex-M@...
>             <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>             *Sent:* Saturday, October 10, 2009 9:35 AM
>             *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men -
>             Is there Evil in the world?
>
>
>
>             
>
>             Steven, thanks, it downloaded nicely, I will read it
>             carefully.
>
>             When I wrote /'culture related'/ I did not penetrate into
>             'judging it'. Your position seems to me as judging one
>             culture looking from another. I did not consider this with
>             'cultures' -
>             in mindsets, belief systems it does not work. I think
>             'your' CULTURE term is more lax than what I like to use:
>             e.g. whether dictator or not does not constitute in my
>             vocabulary a different culture (maybe: sub-culture?) - I
>             consider belief systems encompassing the total worldview,
>             value-system, logic, lifestyle and mental disposition
>             (vocabulary) etc. all included (and maybe different).
>             Stepwise changes in aspects does not change my *culture*.
>             (Mayan, 'hunter-gatherer', vedantic, etc., or a recent
>             westerner - no name?).
>             You may use a different setup, if so, we may recognise our
>             differencies.
>             Thanks for the expressed matches in our ideas.
>
>             John
>
>                 ----- Original Message -----
>                 *From:* Steven E. Wallis <mailto:swallis@...>
>                 *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>                 <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>                 *Sent:* Friday, October 09, 2009 4:37 PM
>                 *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men
>                 - Is there Evil in the world? [1 Attachment]
>
>                 
>                 John M,
>
>                 Sure - here it is.
>
>                 To me, the differences between ethics and morals are
>                 not as important as understanding how they work (I'm
>                 not sure if that is ethical or moral).
>
>                 Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it
>                 would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does
>                 that beg a question? If everything is acceptable
>                 within a cultural framework, and everything exists
>                 within a cultural framework, then everything is
>                 acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however
>                 put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator
>                 vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back
>                 again to the question of which culture is "best."
>
>                 Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the
>                 way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why
>                 these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in
>                 the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As
>                 soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g.
>                 "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample
>                 by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and
>                 C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X &
>                 Y & Z.").
>
>                 When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or
>                 policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would
>                 contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also,
>                 I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the
>                 analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are
>                 repeatable... but that will require additional study!
>
>                 Thanks,
>
>                 Steve
>
>
>                 Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
>
>                 Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
>                 Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding
>                 Graduate University
>
>                 http://projectfast.org/ <http://projectfast.org/>
>
>                 swallis@... <mailto:swallis@...>
>
>
>
>                     ----- Original Message -----
>                     *From:* John - M <mailto:jamikes@...>
>                     *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>                     <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>                     *Cc:* swallis@...
>                     <mailto:swallis@...>
>                     *Sent:* Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
>                     *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old
>                     Men - Is there Evil in the world?
>
>                     Steven, a belated reflection:
>
>                     If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would
>                     love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
>                     /_"ethics"_ - /a term in my view as an accepted
>                     position within a cultural framework (same as
>                     'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse
>                     positions of interest and their allowable extent
>                     complemented into a final composition, beyond
>                     which damage would be done to interest-groups. A
>                     'democratic' process.
>
>                     The way I use /_'analysis'_/ is a study of a
>                     closed model for and restricted to its ingredients
>                     - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings
>                     goes further, maybe unlimited in its
>                     ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all
>                     of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I
>                     performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went
>                     beyond those characteristics that were included in
>                     the closed/ model of interest/ in the particular
>                     case).
>
>                     Regards
>
>                     John M
>
>
>                         ----- Original Message -----
>                         *From:* Steven E. Wallis
>                         <mailto:swallis@...>
>                         *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>                         <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>                         *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
>                         *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for
>                         Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?
>
>                         
>                         Tom,
>
>                         You ask some good questions.
>
>                         Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife
>                         is first-generation American (her parents
>                         emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully
>                         rejects any responsibility for our nation's
>                         history of slavery! In my family history,
>                         there are slave owners (one a preacher).
>                         Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original
>                         sin? Not my fault!
>
>                         My sense is that on some level we cannot help
>                         but to do "good." Even if one does "evil,"
>                         those acts still support the process of
>                         evolution and emergence that *might* be the
>                         ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we
>                         can't blame a cow for viciously eating the
>                         grass (or the evils of farting).
>
>                         On another level, we do have the ability to
>                         improve ourselves - to reach out for something
>                         more. I suspect that whatever situation we
>                         face, if we take the easy way out, we make
>                         life easier for ourselves (in the short run)
>                         and more difficult for others (and, perhaps
>                         ourselves, in the long run). On the other
>                         hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we
>                         make our life easier in the long run (stuff
>                         like education, hard work).
>
>                         To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules
>                         that must be followed - because (in time) the
>                         rules always change. instead, I see "good"
>                         from the perspective of being "a little
>                         better" than the average that is set by the
>                         rules. That keeps us moving up to better and
>                         better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
>
>                         Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics?
>                         Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
>
>                         Thanks,
>
>                         Steve
>
>
>
>
>                         Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
>
>                         Director, Foundation for the Advancement of
>                         Social Theory
>                         Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation,
>                         Fielding Graduate University
>
>                         http://projectfast.org/ <http://projectfast.org/>
>
>                         swallis@...
>                         <mailto:swallis@...>
>
>
>
>                             ----- Original Message -----
>                             *From:* toml1777@...
>                             <mailto:toml1777@...>
>                             *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>                             <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>                             *Sent:* Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
>                             *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country
>                             for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?
>
>
>
>                             I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars,
>                             you get to number your own calendar." And
>                             yes, those on the winning side of
>                             conflicts get to write the history.
>                             Winston Churchill said, "I believe history
>                             will treat me favorably because I plan to
>                             write it." All of that is the opposite of
>                             the main point of Deconstruction and the
>                             Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize
>                             of view of everyone else besides White
>                             Males raised in Western Society.
>                             Post-modernism champions the voices of
>                             women, minorities, people of color, people
>                             from Africa, people from South American,
>                             people of alternate lifestyles (other than
>                             middle-western church-going Christians)
>                             which is all fine. But it leaves White
>                             Males with a dilemma. What place does
>                             their voice have in the conversation? Are
>                             they responsible for all the wrongs done
>                             in the past.
>
>                             I don't apologize for living in a country
>                             that has been on the winning side of
>                             history. I am not against anyone else with
>                             a different point of view. I just don't
>                             want my own voice to be silenced. I
>                             challenge others to add their voices to
>                             the mix.
>
>                             In many senses, in the final analysis,
>                             military power does have the final say.
>                             Financial power also has great influence.
>                             The question is: What is the purpose of
>                             morality? If we are to ship food to
>                             staving children overseas, those convoys
>                             need to protected by soldiers, either from
>                             the US or the United Nations. But then the
>                             voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.
>
>                             There is a continuing debate in India
>                             about whether Gandhi was good for India.
>                             There are two sides to that debate and
>                             every debate. Many people in India believe
>                             that Gandhi example held India back from
>                             moving into the modern world. How many
>                             people will sell all their possessions and
>                             spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi
>                             did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi
>                             had the backing of a rich financier who at
>                             one point said, "You don't know how much
>                             it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi
>                             was on television. I think it was John
>                             Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and
>                             made him famous.
>
>                             I'm just saying there are always more than
>                             one side to any debate. Take care, Tom
>
>
>
>                             
>
>                             "If you win the war you get to number your
>                             own calendar"
>
>                             So, I guess that proves "might makes
>                             right." Or, at least the application of
>                             force creates a shared context - although
>                             far from consensual. So... why worry about
>                             ethics if you have power? Is it the
>                             nagging sense that something is not quite
>                             right? Is it an opportunity to improve
>                             one's self? Or, is it a philosophical
>                             sales-pitch to convince others to join
>                             voluntarily the context that was created
>                             by force?
>
>                             Thanks,
>
>                             Steve
>
>
>
>
>                             Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
>
>                             Director, Foundation for the Advancement
>                             of Social Theory
>                             Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation,
>                             Fielding Graduate University
>                             http://projectfast.org/
>                             <http://projectfast.org/>
>
>                             swallis@...
>                             <mailto:swallis@...>
>
>
>

Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1909 From: Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...>
Date: Tue Oct 13, 2009 8:55 pm
Subject: Re: How do we know what we know? 		jonsork
Send Email Send Email
 

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts. This below might be helpful
with our definitions. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html
And here is a definition of ontology I got from

wikipedia-

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

If you could resend your paper or direct me to it, that will help also.

The problem of epistemology, how we know, is subtle. Why for example, should we expect the universe to be knowable or consistent in the first place. Remember, Ptolemy's cosmology, the concentric spheres was a highly structured, and complex system with which extremely accurate predictions could be made.
And even Newton, it is very consistent and explanatory and we can make accurate predictions, up to a point.
And then another model is needed in order for knowledge to progress.

And each of these models is based on certain fundamental assumptions and claims about reality. In the case of Newton, we have the claim of an absolute space and time, which though useful, was a limited understanding, and incorrect. And even in our present state of knowledge their are many puzzles and contradictions that could call for a totally new model, with totally new assumptions about the basics.

And this is just within the realm of physical theory. What are we to make of ethical questions. What type of theory or understanding can we have about the relationship of physical to ethical to political truth.
But let me back up. Back to the point of how we know. You are assuming, it seems that man's reason is ultimate, is absolute. What about the truth of faith, or of intuition.

You want have to look far to find someone with radically  different yet "consistent" ideas that contradict your own. Can man ground his understanding in his own reason? The enlightenment era thought say, and proudly, proclaimed the triumph of reason, and that man, and his reason was the measure of all things.

But the roots of the enlightenment itself were in the Christian faith. It was the belief in a rational God, revealed by revelation, who made man in His image, that was the foundation for the belief in a rational universe. Gradually there was a shift from the belief in the truth of revelation to the truth of reason.

This was the beginning of the modern age. But this proved to be an unstable grounding and has led to the paradoxes of postmodernism.

In what way is your consistent view superior to anyone else's consistent view. Think of the gestalt images that show one image if you look at it one way, and a completely different image if you look at it another way. It's all a matter of what you take to be figure and what you take to be ground. So depending on your starting point, your assumptions, you can see a totally different image. And these visual paradoxes have their analog in thought, as in Godel incompleteness theorem, or the many paradoxes of quantum physics, or just in the every day disagreements and misunderstandings we constantly encounter-as on this list!

The enlightenment view believed in one superior view, and this grew out of a Biblical world view. But trying to maintain this view, grounded in reason alone, has led to the abyss of unreason-to a rational and existential double bind.

Consider this link for a good discussion of this progression of ideas.
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
Good to hear from you,
Jon
 

 
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 



Reply | Messages in this Topic (5)
#1910 From: toml1777@...
Date: Wed Oct 14, 2009 6:39 am
Subject: Re: How do we know what we know? 		toml1777
Send Email Send Email
 
How do we know what we know? There are two main views, the now classic argument between nature and nurture. Are we a blank slate? one that can be taught, programmed or molded in any imaginable way. Or are we a product of our genes? Each has it own consequences as far as accompanying beliefs. Recent scientific research has shown that there is a 3 way connection between environment, behavior and genetics. If  a person smokes for enough years, a genetic change takes place. It is that genetic change which leads to certain types of cancer. If that person were to have children after that genetic change had taken place, that mutation would be passed to their progeny. Most people don't have children after smoking for 30 years, they would be older than the typical child-bearing years. But, of course, children of smokers are much more likely to be smokers themselves for environmental reasons. They may also more biologically inclined to enjoy smoking. So, all three factors are at work, environment, biological and and hereditary mutations. The 3 interact and work in connection.

 A second point regarding how we know what we know: For brief time, I corresponded with David Chalmers who is a pioneer in Cognitive Science. Chalmers worked with Douglas Hofstadter, the author of Godel, Escher, Bach. When discussing with him a theory of consciousness, he said the real question is what is called 'The Hard Question of Consciousness': How does consciousness actually take place on the level of neurons? Scientists don't know where it takes place. Chalmers website is interesting:

http://tiny.cc/bawtg  or just do a google search for David Chalmers.

especially the essay Verbal Disputes and Philosophical Progress.

The Hard Question of Consciousness has not been solved. Where does consciousness take place. It is called an Epiphenomenon, that it is made up of many processes, memory, perception, reflection. I work with autistic teenagers. They can understand most of what I am saying but they cannot speak and they have a difficult time processing sensory input. Often they get overloaded if overstimulated. In some way, the loop does not get completed.

Language often helps augment the experience of consciousness. If we read something we have written, we can reflect on what we have written. Otherwise it escapes our memory. The Written word is an abstract thought made tangible that we can once again perceive and reflect upon.

If consciousness cannot be measured as a physical phenomenon, would if be more plausible that consciousness is other than a physical process and our mental activity is a physical manifestation of a non-physical process?

Currently, the Hard Problem of Consciousness - Where on the molecular level does consciousness take place? - has not been solved. Until then, all competing theories are mere speculation, all have equal validity. Take care, Tom






Reply | Messages in this Topic (5)
#1911 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Wed Oct 14, 2009 5:11 pm
Subject: On Tarnas 		stevenewallis
Send Email Send Email
 

Regarding Tarnas...
 
Normally, I have some difficulty with authors who make grand claims about the future.
 
it [reintegration of our culture] will not be on the basis of any new orthodoxy, either religious or scientific. Such a new integration will be based on the rejection of all univocal understandings of reality, of all identifications of one conception of reality with reality itself.
 
However, as I think about his position, I realize that I've had some similar thoughts. Past efforts at theory-building have been  founded on the idea that we are seeking some representation of reality, some form of "truth." This has led to all sorts of difficulties and confusions. One example of that confusion is seen in the social science's persistent pursuit of the red herring of empirical "facts" as a path toward building better theories. Of course, we followed that path because the physical sciences (supposedly) used facts to develop their effective theories.
 
In contrast, I've written that building better theories rests on the internal structure of the theory. There is no great claim of "truth" as it relates to the real world. Therefore, the well-structured theory is self-justifying. Using Ohm's law as an example (relationship between volts, amps, and ohms), it makes no difference if there "really" is something called amps - only that such a thing is discernable in terms of volts and ohms.
 
Recently, I've been thinking, that the "self" and the world (or universe) are ultimately indefinable. One can seek forever, and never find the "ultimate" answer or all the truth and knowledge.
 
However, there seems to be a relationship between the self, the lens of theory, and the world. That relationship is interesting, generative, and "works." While I develop better ways to create and validate theory, I suspect that a subsequent stage in the evolution of theory will result in a different kind of theory. Imagining a theory that looks like a group of intersecting lines or dimensions... imagine that such a theory includes a line pointing "off the page" and representing the reader... another line might circle back to represent the theory's effect on itself (or, perhaps, a form of self-diagnosis) ... a third line might represent the relationship between the theory, the observer, and the universe... but I digress.
 
Then again, after Tarnas claims that our thinking will reject univocal understandings of reality, he goes on to present one:  "It will recognize the multiplicity of the human spirit"
 
He also uses dramatic verbiage and believes that certain things (e.g. the advent of Kantian thought) were "inevitable." Odd. Rambling.
 
Ah - he does note that key thinkers in epistemology are Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. I would echo his concern about Popper's idea that we find our answers by luck. Popper suggests, for example, that we should start a process of scientific investigation with (what amounts to) a random assumption of what a theory might be.
 
Popper's call for falsification is very influential. However, if our assumptions guide what we understand to be (in some sense) true, and we conduct experiments to find empirical evidence, than we are likely to reify our beliefs, rather than discover something new and amazing. Many who use computer models fall into this trap. They set up an experiment based on certain assumptions... and their assumptions are confirmed with an amazing level of regularity.
 
I think I've discussed my views on Kuhn - that he falls victim to assuming that scientific advances occur via the study of empirical analysis (outside the psychological and political forces). I think I shared my chapter where I present an alternative approach that provides a more reasonable explanation.
 
The point Tarnas seems to be making is that he agrees with Kuhn - and that Kuhn's ideas are similar to Grof's metaphor of birth. The problem with this approach is that if one has a metaphor (birth, for example) one can look at the entire world through that metaphor - and it will all make sense. The same may be said of every other metaphor. It is more useful to use multiple metaphors (see Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1991). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership).
 
"For the evolution of the Western mind has been driven by a heroic impulse to forge an autonomous rational human self by separating it from the primordial unity with nature." - this I agree is a very good point.  I find it odd, however, that he pushes the birth metaphor. Yet, in the end, concludes that we need to follow a death metaphor.
 
I think, self-contradiction aside, he makes a good point about bringing in different voices into science. Part of my own work in developing new methods of theorizing includes reaching out to non-central groups to supply them with some conceptual tools for advancing new modes of thought.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

 


Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts. This below might be helpful
with our definitions. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html
And here is a definition of ontology I got from

wikipedia-

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

If you could resend your paper or direct me to it, that will help also.

The problem of epistemology, how we know, is subtle. Why for example, should we expect the universe to be knowable or consistent in the first place. Remember, Ptolemy's cosmology, the concentric spheres was a highly structured, and complex system with which extremely accurate predictions could be made.
And even Newton, it is very consistent and explanatory and we can make accurate predictions, up to a point.
And then another model is needed in order for knowledge to progress.

And each of these models is based on certain fundamental assumptions and claims about reality. In the case of Newton, we have the claim of an absolute space and time, which though useful, was a limited understanding, and incorrect. And even in our present state of knowledge their are many puzzles and contradictions that could call for a totally new model, with totally new assumptions about the basics.

And this is just within the realm of physical theory. What are we to make of ethical questions. What type of theory or understanding can we have about the relationship of physical to ethical to political truth.
But let me back up. Back to the point of how we know. You are assuming, it seems that man's reason is ultimate, is absolute. What about the truth of faith, or of intuition.

You want have to look far to find someone with radically  different yet "consistent" ideas that contradict your own. Can man ground his understanding in his own reason? The enlightenment era thought say, and proudly, proclaimed the triumph of reason, and that man, and his reason was the measure of all things.

But the roots of the enlightenment itself were in the Christian faith. It was the belief in a rational God, revealed by revelation, who made man in His image, that was the foundation for the belief in a rational universe. Gradually there was a shift from the belief in the truth of revelation to the truth of reason.

This was the beginning of the modern age. But this proved to be an unstable grounding and has led to the paradoxes of postmodernism.

In what way is your consistent view superior to anyone else's consistent view. Think of the gestalt images that show one image if you look at it one way, and a completely different image if you look at it another way. It's all a matter of what you take to be figure and what you take to be ground. So depending on your starting point, your assumptions, you can see a totally different image. And these visual paradoxes have their analog in thought, as in Godel incompleteness theorem, or the many paradoxes of quantum physics, or just in the every day disagreements and misunderstandings we constantly encounter-as on this list!

The enlightenment view believed in one superior view, and this grew out of a Biblical world view. But trying to maintain this view, grounded in reason alone, has led to the abyss of unreason-to a rational and existential double bind.

Consider this link for a good discussion of this progression of ideas.
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
Good to hear from you,
Jon
 

 
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 



Reply | Messages in this Topic (9)
#1912 From: "John - M" <jamikes@...>
Date: Wed Oct 14, 2009 8:22 pm
Subject: Re: How do we know what we know? 		jami_kes
Send Email Send Email
 
Tom,
 
very nice, knowledgeable, clear, comprehensive - at the conventional level of talking about consciousness. I feel a strong tendency of bodily materialism in it: to explain the problems within the model of our views and inventory of the physical universe worldview.
"Whatever we know, is whatever there is". We have molecular level, so phenomena are at the molecular level. Becuase science is omniscient at the present state. It is true: The present science knows everything within the present science.
(This paardox has led me to my scientific agnosticism: we DON"T know everything today and I prove it with the comparison of cognitive inventories of past 'dates' - reflected to our present 'date' which is no different from earlier ones: prone to further enrichment.)
 
Your last par. is a 'credo' for the situation before my parenthetic remark. IMO our 'molecular' view is a figment of the 'physical worldview' explanation of phenomena beyond our understanding, using the limited models of so far described images - mostly in the quantitative equations of math, around ( = ) signs. Conventional science has built a rather ingenious edifice and it is 'almost' true in the in-model views. Almost? that fantastic technology we live with has some little faults: airplanes fall off the sky, illnesses prevail, genetic aberrations come forward, etc., we live with the 'most likely' assumptions. Our causality is within the model we know of, looking for the most likely entailer 'within'. The out-of-model influences are disregarded (maybe not even dicovered) and so the best causality we can muster is an 'almost'. We allow 'random', a concept that would make the rigorous physical law impossible and prediction a travesty.  
 
I wonder if your use of 'physical process' is not obsolete, if you want to include mental phenomena into it, unless you widen the scope of the 'physical' beyond yesterday's inventory. "WHERE" is a space-related question and space and time are coordinates of our thinking about a  'physical' world. I like to question whether items are the 'humanly' possible ones reduced to today's science. We accept the transition from the Flat Earth into the Heliocentric, then that one into the Galactic and Multi-galactic views, now into Multiverse, - why are we denying a similar augmentation of ideas in the 'inner' world?
We ride on 'words' like energy, mass, what only mean behavior and measurement (in certain cases) of something assumed. We are not ripe to understand the world. We live in belief systems that make us feel safe. Give us some centuries, we will learn more.
If we survive.
 
Best wishes
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 2:39 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

How do we know what we know? There are two main views, the now classic argument between nature and nurture. Are we a blank slate? one that can be taught, programmed or molded in any imaginable way. Or are we a product of our genes? Each has it own consequences as far as accompanying beliefs. Recent scientific research has shown that there is a 3 way connection between environment, behavior and genetics. If  a person smokes for enough years, a genetic change takes place. It is that genetic change which leads to certain types of cancer. If that person were to have children after that genetic change had taken place, that mutation would be passed to their progeny. Most people don't have children after smoking for 30 years, they would be older than the typical child-bearing years. But, of course, children of smokers are much more likely to be smokers themselves for environmental reasons. They may also more biologically inclined to enjoy smoking. So, all three factors are at work, environment, biological and and hereditary mutations. The 3 interact and work in connection.

 A second point regarding how we know what we know: For brief time, I corresponded with David Chalmers who is a pioneer in Cognitive Science. Chalmers worked with Douglas Hofstadter, the author of Godel, Escher, Bach. When discussing with him a theory of consciousness, he said the real question is what is called 'The Hard Question of Consciousness': How does consciousness actually take place on the level of neurons? Scientists don't know where it takes place. Chalmers website is interesting:

http://tiny.cc/bawtg  or just do a google search for David Chalmers.

especially the essay Verbal Disputes and Philosophical Progress.

The Hard Question of Consciousness has not been solved. Where does consciousness take place. It is called an Epiphenomenon, that it is made up of many processes, memory, perception, reflection. I work with autistic teenagers. They can understand most of what I am saying but they cannot speak and they have a difficult time processing sensory input. Often they get overloaded if overstimulated. In some way, the loop does not get completed.

Language often helps augment the experience of consciousness. If we read something we have written, we can reflect on what we have written. Otherwise it escapes our memory. The Written word is an abstract thought made tangible that we can once again perceive and reflect upon.

If consciousness cannot be measured as a physical phenomenon, would if be more plausible that consciousness is other than a physical process and our mental activity is a physical manifestation of a non-physical process?

Currently, the Hard Problem of Consciousness - Where on the molecular level does consciousness take place? - has not been solved. Until then, all competing theories are mere speculation, all have equal validity. Take care, Tom






Reply | Messages in this Topic (5)
#1913 From: toml1777@...
Date: Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:20 am
Subject: Re: How do we know what we know? 		toml1777
Send Email Send Email
 
Thanks, John. I have moments of clarity. You raise some very good points. If "Where?" is a space related question, then let's ask "Why?" Why does consciousness exist? If intention in the most important precept in law, then why would it not be equally important in other matters? Yes, every scientist should at times be able to see the world as an agnostic, even he or she is just putting it on as they would a new coat. But I think the question is: If all of science cannot measure consciousness, then wouldn't that point to the existence of a non-physical realm?

In biology there is a concept called Punctuated Equilibrium - that species jump from one to the next, there are no intermediate forms. Stephen Jay Gould said that this was a strong argument for Creationism, however that the 'Church People' passed the argument by. Scientific Breakthroughs eventually become politicized. We can speculate  as to what areas to explore. If we admit the necessity of a non-physical realm, then we can speculate as to the characteristics of this non-physical realm. The material universe seems very cumbersome. The Koran is very musical in the original and so we could speculate that if its source was from beyond the physical senses, then the realm beyond the senses could have order similar to patterns in music. If patterns are variation can occur in non-physical realms, then language of some type would also be possible without physical form.

Speculation, which is all we have until science finds an answer, concerns borders between what is known and what is unknown. If a poem or a hymn hints at something, the Agnostic in all of us must investigate to pare away the meat from the bone of truth. Tolerance comes from understanding that the 'foundation' we tread on is very fragile for scientist, agnostic and true believer alike.

For me, I usually begin with the nature of language. If I have an 'idea' of a tree in my mind, where does that idea exist? We know that this is as yet unknown by science. Plato referred to the 'thingness' of something. Not the color 'red' but the general concept of 'red'. Not how we know what we know but what is knowing? I don't know if a questions could be more fundamental. Or more unanswerable. As the Catholic priests are fond of saying, "It's a mystery." If the fundamental nature of life is to be mysterious, then shouldn't we have a branch of philosophy dedicated to mystery? to accepting the unknown? Not how do we know what we know but how do we tolerate so much that is unknown. I think we all move toward Existentialism in our old age. Take care, Tom

PS. Rather than us all moving toward Existentialism, I think what happens is that people from chaotic backgrounds seek absolutes, and others from strict upbringings move toward freedom and are will to tolerate ambiguity.


-----Original Message-----
From: John - M <jamikes@...>
To: ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, Oct 14, 2009 1:22 pm
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?



Tom,
 
very nice, knowledgeable, clear, comprehensive - at the conventional level of talking about consciousness. I feel a strong tendency of bodily materialism in it: to explain the problems within the model of our views and inventory of the physical universe worldview.
"Whatever we know, is whatever there is". We have molecular level, so phenomena are at the molecular level. Becuase science is omniscient at the present state. It is true: The present science knows everything within the present science.
(This paardox has led me to my scientific agnosticism: we DON"T know everything today and I prove it with the comparison of cognitive inventories of past 'dates' - reflected to our present 'date' which is no different from earlier ones: prone to further enrichment.)
 
Your last par. is a 'credo' for the situation before my parenthetic remark. IMO our 'molecular' view is a figment of the 'physical worldview' explanation of phenomena beyond our understanding, using the limited models of so far described images - mostly in the quantitative equations of math, around ( = ) signs. Conventional science has built a rather ingenious edifice and it is 'almost' true in the in-model views. Almost? that fantastic technology we live with has some little faults: airplanes fall off the sky, illnesses prevail, genetic aberrations come forward, etc., we live with the 'most likely' assumptions. Our causality is within the model we know of, looking for the most likely entailer 'within'. The out-of-model influences are disregarded (maybe not even dicovered) and so the best causality we can muster is an 'almost'. We allow 'random', a concept that would make the rigorous physical law impossible and prediction a travesty.  
 
I wonder if your use of 'physical process' is not obsolete, if you want to include mental phenomena into it, unless you widen the scope of the 'physical' beyond yesterday's inventory. "WHERE" is a space-related question and space and time are coordinates of our thinking about a  'physical' world. I like to question whether items are the 'humanly' possible ones reduced to today's science. We accept the transition from the Flat Earth into the Heliocentric, then that one into the Galactic and Multi-galactic views, now into Multiverse, - why are we denying a similar augmentation of ideas in the 'inner' world?
We ride on 'words' like energy, mass, what only mean behavior and measurement (in certain cases) of something assumed. We are not ripe to understand the world. We live in belief systems that make us feel safe. Give us some centuries, we will learn more.
If we survive.
 
Best wishes
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 2:39 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

How do we know what we know? There are two main views, the now classic argument between nature and nurture. Are we a blank slate? one that can be taught, programmed or molded in any imaginable way. Or are we a product of our genes? Each has it own consequences as far as accompanying beliefs. Recent scientific research has shown that there is a 3 way connection between environment, behavior and genetics. If  a person smokes for enough years, a genetic change takes place. It is that genetic change which leads to certain types of cancer. If that person were to have children after that genetic change had taken place, that mutation would be passed to their progeny. Most people don't have children after smoking for 30 years, they would be older than the typical child-bearing years. But, of course, children of smokers are much more likely to be smokers themselves for environmental reasons. They may also more biologically inclined to enjoy smoking. So, all three factors are at work, environment, biological and and hereditary mutations. The 3 interact and work in connection.

 A second point regarding how we know what we know: For brief time, I corresponded with David Chalmers who is a pioneer in Cognitive Science. Chalmers worked with Douglas Hofstadter, the author of Godel, Escher, Bach. When discussing with him a theory of consciousness, he said the real question is what is called 'The Hard Question of Consciousness': How does consciousness actually take place on the level of neurons? Scientists don't know where it takes place. Chalmers website is interesting:

http://tiny.cc/bawtg  or just do a google search for David Chalmers.

especially the essay Verbal Disputes and Philosophical Progress.

The Hard Question of Consciousness has not been solved. Where does consciousness take place. It is called an Epiphenomenon, that it is made up of many processes, memory, perception, reflection. I work with autistic teenagers. They can understand most of what I am saying but they cannot speak and they have a difficult time processing sensory input. Often they get overloaded if overstimulated. In some way, the loop does not get completed.

Language often helps augment the experience of consciousness. If we read something we have written, we can reflect on what we have written. Otherwise it escapes our memory. The Written word is an abstract thought made tangible that we can once again perceive and reflect upon.

If consciousness cannot be measured as a physical phenomenon, would if be more plausible that consciousness is other than a physical process and our mental activity is a physical manifestation of a non-physical process?

Currently, the Hard Problem of Consciousness - Where on the molecular level does consciousness take place? - has not been solved. Until then, all competing theories are mere speculation, all have equal validity. Take care, Tom








Reply | Messages in this Topic (5)
#1914 From: Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...>
Date: Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:24 pm
Subject: Re: On Tarnas 		jonsork
Send Email Send Email
 
Steve, and all
 
Thanks for the comments. I've been under the weather a bit and am a little reluctant to give an off the cuff response. But this Tarnas piece, and our discussions is blowing my mind.  There is so much I want to say about it. Again I wanted to go and slow, and develop my argument carefully, so as not to be misunderstood.
 
But I can't resist a quick comment or two.
 
I think Tarnas is profoundly interesting for several reasons, some good, some bad.
I think he is a first rate writer and a legitimate scholar. The book the excerpt came from, "The Passion of the Western Mind", is one of the best, most articulate,insightful, and comprehensive reviews of Western intellectual history. His writing style is piercingly, scintillatingly, artticulate. I don't even know the word for it, but he has a great penchant for expressing complex subjects so that they come alive on the page, with brilliance and a certain panache. He is a first rate writer and scholar.
 
However, this book, the entire book, was a preparation for a much more puzzling and controversial work. "Cosmos and Psyche', which purports to show a link between these archetypal ideas and astrology, believe it or not. So this very profound scholar, imho, has a very profound flaky side. Even the stuff on Groff , I found more than a tad weird. There may be some metaphorical or psychological relevance to this work, but all in all, it is getting into very questionable territory.
 
But that article raises so many issues I want to discuss. I'm writing a book on 3 different world views. And 2 of them are the same 2 he discusses in the first part of his article. And the third view that I think provides the answer, is a Biblical world view. Tarnas, on the other hand claims to have found the resolution through another view coming from Hegel, Goethe, etc.
 
The interesting thing is that Hegel, a trained theologian, thought that he had "rationalized", or "demythologized" the truth in the Bible. That is, he saw himself as giving a rational explanation of the Christian faith, as having preserved and explained its essential message in purely logical, rational terms.
Others of course, such as Kierkegaard, thought that he utterly destroyed and strayed from the Biblical message.
 
But for now I want to make only this point. This resolution to the other two views given in the piece-the Cartesian view that the mind reflects an objective reality, and the Kantian view that the mind creates reality, through its own subjective structures, this resolution that Tarnas finds in Hegel, Goethe, and others, is very close to the resolution that I was going to offer, the Biblical resolution, accept for one very important fact.
In the Tarnas, Hegelian view, nature is substituted for God. In both my view and his the answer is in the understanding of a spiritual reality. I
 
If you read the last half of the Tarnas piece, where he offers his resolution, and every time you see the word, world, nature, or reality, substitute, God, as revealed in the Bible, you will have a pretty good explanation of the Christian, Biblical answer to this problem of the double bind we find ourselves in.
 
In particular my understanding in this has been effected by Cornelius Van Till and the Reformed Theologians of the Westminster movement.
 
I've just scratched the surface. But I will send more information later.
 
Thanks,
Jon
 


 
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 



Regarding Tarnas...
 
Normally, I have some difficulty with authors who make grand claims about the future.
 
it [reintegration of our culture] will not be on the basis of any new orthodoxy, either religious or scientific. Such a new integration will be based on the rejection of all univocal understandings of reality, of all identifications of one conception of reality with reality itself.
 
However, as I think about his position, I realize that I've had some similar thoughts. Past efforts at theory-building have been  founded on the idea that we are seeking some representation of reality, some form of "truth." This has led to all sorts of difficulties and confusions. One example of that confusion is seen in the social science's persistent pursuit of the red herring of empirical "facts" as a path toward building better theories. Of course, we followed that path because the physical sciences (supposedly) used facts to develop their effective theories.
 
In contrast, I've written that building better theories rests on the internal structure of the theory. There is no great claim of "truth" as it relates to the real world. Therefore, the well-structured theory is self-justifying. Using Ohm's law as an example (relationship between volts, amps, and ohms), it makes no difference if there "really" is something called amps - only that such a thing is discernable in terms of volts and ohms.
 
Recently, I've been thinking, that the "self" and the world (or universe) are ultimately indefinable. One can seek forever, and never find the "ultimate" answer or all the truth and knowledge.
 
However, there seems to be a relationship between the self, the lens of theory, and the world. That relationship is interesting, generative, and "works." While I develop better ways to create and validate theory, I suspect that a subsequent stage in the evolution of theory will result in a different kind of theory. Imagining a theory that looks like a group of intersecting lines or dimensions... imagine that such a theory includes a line pointing "off the page" and representing the reader... another line might circle back to represent the theory's effect on itself (or, perhaps, a form of self-diagnosis) ... a third line might represent the relationship between the theory, the observer, and the universe... but I digress.
 
Then again, after Tarnas claims that our thinking will reject univocal understandings of reality, he goes on to present one:  "It will recognize the multiplicity of the human spirit"
 
He also uses dramatic verbiage and believes that certain things (e.g. the advent of Kantian thought) were "inevitable." Odd. Rambling.
 
Ah - he does note that key thinkers in epistemology are Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. I would echo his concern about Popper's idea that we find our answers by luck. Popper suggests, for example, that we should start a process of scientific investigation with (what amounts to) a random assumption of what a theory might be.
 
Popper's call for falsification is very influential. However, if our assumptions guide what we understand to be (in some sense) true, and we conduct experiments to find empirical evidence, than we are likely to reify our beliefs, rather than discover something new and amazing. Many who use computer models fall into this trap. They set up an experiment based on certain assumptions... and their assumptions are confirmed with an amazing level of regularity.
 
I think I've discussed my views on Kuhn - that he falls victim to assuming that scientific advances occur via the study of empirical analysis (outside the psychological and political forces). I think I shared my chapter where I present an alternative approach that provides a more reasonable explanation.
 
The point Tarnas seems to be making is that he agrees with Kuhn - and that Kuhn's ideas are similar to Grof's metaphor of birth. The problem with this approach is that if one has a metaphor (birth, for example) one can look at the entire world through that metaphor - and it will all make sense. The same may be said of every other metaphor. It is more useful to use multiple metaphors (see Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1991). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership).
 
"For the evolution of the Western mind has been driven by a heroic impulse to forge an autonomous rational human self by separating it from the primordial unity with nature." - this I agree is a very good point.  I find it odd, however, that he pushes the birth metaphor. Yet, in the end, concludes that we need to follow a death metaphor.
 
I think, self-contradiction aside, he makes a good point about bringing in different voices into science. Part of my own work in developing new methods of theorizing includes reaching out to non-central groups to supply them with some conceptual tools for advancing new modes of thought.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

 


Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts. This below might be helpful
with our definitions. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html
And here is a definition of ontology I got from

wikipedia-

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

If you could resend your paper or direct me to it, that will help also.

The problem of epistemology, how we know, is subtle. Why for example, should we expect the universe to be knowable or consistent in the first place. Remember, Ptolemy's cosmology, the concentric spheres was a highly structured, and complex system with which extremely accurate predictions could be made.
And even Newton, it is very consistent and explanatory and we can make accurate predictions, up to a point.
And then another model is needed in order for knowledge to progress.

And each of these models is based on certain fundamental assumptions and claims about reality. In the case of Newton, we have the claim of an absolute space and time, which though useful, was a limited understanding, and incorrect. And even in our present state of knowledge their are many puzzles and contradictions that could call for a totally new model, with totally new assumptions about the basics.

And this is just within the realm of physical theory. What are we to make of ethical questions. What type of theory or understanding can we have about the relationship of physical to ethical to political truth.
But let me back up. Back to the point of how we know. You are assuming, it seems that man's reason is ultimate, is absolute. What about the truth of faith, or of intuition.

You want have to look far to find someone with radically  different yet "consistent" ideas that contradict your own. Can man ground his understanding in his own reason? The enlightenment era thought say, and proudly, proclaimed the triumph of reason, and that man, and his reason was the measure of all things.

But the roots of the enlightenment itself were in the Christian faith. It was the belief in a rational God, revealed by revelation, who made man in His image, that was the foundation for the belief in a rational universe. Gradually there was a shift from the belief in the truth of revelation to the truth of reason.

This was the beginning of the modern age. But this proved to be an unstable grounding and has led to the paradoxes of postmodernism.

In what way is your consistent view superior to anyone else's consistent view. Think of the gestalt images that show one image if you look at it one way, and a completely different image if you look at it another way. It's all a matter of what you take to be figure and what you take to be ground. So depending on your starting point, your assumptions, you can see a totally different image. And these visual paradoxes have their analog in thought, as in Godel incompleteness theorem, or the many paradoxes of quantum physics, or just in the every day disagreements and misunderstandings we constantly encounter-as on this list!

The enlightenment view believed in one superior view, and this grew out of a Biblical world view. But trying to maintain this view, grounded in reason alone, has led to the abyss of unreason-to a rational and existential double bind.

Consider this link for a good discussion of this progression of ideas.
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
Good to hear from you,
Jon
 

 
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 




Reply | Messages in this Topic (9)
#1915 From: Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...>
Date: Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:50 pm
Subject: Re: On Tarnas 		jonsork
Send Email Send Email
 
Here's a bit more on Tarnas---hold on to your hat!
 
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...> wrote:
Steve, and all
 
Thanks for the comments. I've been under the weather a bit and am a little reluctant to give an off the cuff response. But this Tarnas piece, and our discussions is blowing my mind.  There is so much I want to say about it. Again I wanted to go and slow, and develop my argument carefully, so as not to be misunderstood.
 
But I can't resist a quick comment or two.
 
I think Tarnas is profoundly interesting for several reasons, some good, some bad.
I think he is a first rate writer and a legitimate scholar. The book the excerpt came from, "The Passion of the Western Mind", is one of the best, most articulate,insightful, and comprehensive reviews of Western intellectual history. His writing style is piercingly, scintillatingly, artticulate. I don't even know the word for it, but he has a great penchant for expressing complex subjects so that they come alive on the page, with brilliance and a certain panache. He is a first rate writer and scholar.
 
However, this book, the entire book, was a preparation for a much more puzzling and controversial work. "Cosmos and Psyche', which purports to show a link between these archetypal ideas and astrology, believe it or not. So this very profound scholar, imho, has a very profound flaky side. Even the stuff on Groff , I found more than a tad weird. There may be some metaphorical or psychological relevance to this work, but all in all, it is getting into very questionable territory.
 
But that article raises so many issues I want to discuss. I'm writing a book on 3 different world views. And 2 of them are the same 2 he discusses in the first part of his article. And the third view that I think provides the answer, is a Biblical world view. Tarnas, on the other hand claims to have found the resolution through another view coming from Hegel, Goethe, etc.
 
The interesting thing is that Hegel, a trained theologian, thought that he had "rationalized", or "demythologized" the truth in the Bible. That is, he saw himself as giving a rational explanation of the Christian faith, as having preserved and explained its essential message in purely logical, rational terms.
Others of course, such as Kierkegaard, thought that he utterly destroyed and strayed from the Biblical message.
 
But for now I want to make only this point. This resolution to the other two views given in the piece-the Cartesian view that the mind reflects an objective reality, and the Kantian view that the mind creates reality, through its own subjective structures, this resolution that Tarnas finds in Hegel, Goethe, and others, is very close to the resolution that I was going to offer, the Biblical resolution, accept for one very important fact.
In the Tarnas, Hegelian view, nature is substituted for God. In both my view and his the answer is in the understanding of a spiritual reality. I
 
If you read the last half of the Tarnas piece, where he offers his resolution, and every time you see the word, world, nature, or reality, substitute, God, as revealed in the Bible, you will have a pretty good explanation of the Christian, Biblical answer to this problem of the double bind we find ourselves in.
 
In particular my understanding in this has been effected by Cornelius Van Till and the Reformed Theologians of the Westminster movement.
 
I've just scratched the surface. But I will send more information later.
 
Thanks,
Jon
 


 
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 



Regarding Tarnas...
 
Normally, I have some difficulty with authors who make grand claims about the future.
 
it [reintegration of our culture] will not be on the basis of any new orthodoxy, either religious or scientific. Such a new integration will be based on the rejection of all univocal understandings of reality, of all identifications of one conception of reality with reality itself.
 
However, as I think about his position, I realize that I've had some similar thoughts. Past efforts at theory-building have been  founded on the idea that we are seeking some representation of reality, some form of "truth." This has led to all sorts of difficulties and confusions. One example of that confusion is seen in the social science's persistent pursuit of the red herring of empirical "facts" as a path toward building better theories. Of course, we followed that path because the physical sciences (supposedly) used facts to develop their effective theories.
 
In contrast, I've written that building better theories rests on the internal structure of the theory. There is no great claim of "truth" as it relates to the real world. Therefore, the well-structured theory is self-justifying. Using Ohm's law as an example (relationship between volts, amps, and ohms), it makes no difference if there "really" is something called amps - only that such a thing is discernable in terms of volts and ohms.
 
Recently, I've been thinking, that the "self" and the world (or universe) are ultimately indefinable. One can seek forever, and never find the "ultimate" answer or all the truth and knowledge.
 
However, there seems to be a relationship between the self, the lens of theory, and the world. That relationship is interesting, generative, and "works." While I develop better ways to create and validate theory, I suspect that a subsequent stage in the evolution of theory will result in a different kind of theory. Imagining a theory that looks like a group of intersecting lines or dimensions... imagine that such a theory includes a line pointing "off the page" and representing the reader... another line might circle back to represent the theory's effect on itself (or, perhaps, a form of self-diagnosis) ... a third line might represent the relationship between the theory, the observer, and the universe... but I digress.
 
Then again, after Tarnas claims that our thinking will reject univocal understandings of reality, he goes on to present one:  "It will recognize the multiplicity of the human spirit"
 
He also uses dramatic verbiage and believes that certain things (e.g. the advent of Kantian thought) were "inevitable." Odd. Rambling.
 
Ah - he does note that key thinkers in epistemology are Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. I would echo his concern about Popper's idea that we find our answers by luck. Popper suggests, for example, that we should start a process of scientific investigation with (what amounts to) a random assumption of what a theory might be.
 
Popper's call for falsification is very influential. However, if our assumptions guide what we understand to be (in some sense) true, and we conduct experiments to find empirical evidence, than we are likely to reify our beliefs, rather than discover something new and amazing. Many who use computer models fall into this trap. They set up an experiment based on certain assumptions... and their assumptions are confirmed with an amazing level of regularity.
 
I think I've discussed my views on Kuhn - that he falls victim to assuming that scientific advances occur via the study of empirical analysis (outside the psychological and political forces). I think I shared my chapter where I present an alternative approach that provides a more reasonable explanation.
 
The point Tarnas seems to be making is that he agrees with Kuhn - and that Kuhn's ideas are similar to Grof's metaphor of birth. The problem with this approach is that if one has a metaphor (birth, for example) one can look at the entire world through that metaphor - and it will all make sense. The same may be said of every other metaphor. It is more useful to use multiple metaphors (see Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1991). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership).
 
"For the evolution of the Western mind has been driven by a heroic impulse to forge an autonomous rational human self by separating it from the primordial unity with nature." - this I agree is a very good point.  I find it odd, however, that he pushes the birth metaphor. Yet, in the end, concludes that we need to follow a death metaphor.
 
I think, self-contradiction aside, he makes a good point about bringing in different voices into science. Part of my own work in developing new methods of theorizing includes reaching out to non-central groups to supply them with some conceptual tools for advancing new modes of thought.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

 


Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts. This below might be helpful
with our definitions. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html
And here is a definition of ontology I got from

wikipedia-

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

If you could resend your paper or direct me to it, that will help also.

The problem of epistemology, how we know, is subtle. Why for example, should we expect the universe to be knowable or consistent in the first place. Remember, Ptolemy's cosmology, the concentric spheres was a highly structured, and complex system with which extremely accurate predictions could be made.
And even Newton, it is very consistent and explanatory and we can make accurate predictions, up to a point.
And then another model is needed in order for knowledge to progress.

And each of these models is based on certain fundamental assumptions and claims about reality. In the case of Newton, we have the claim of an absolute space and time, which though useful, was a limited understanding, and incorrect. And even in our present state of knowledge their are many puzzles and contradictions that could call for a totally new model, with totally new assumptions about the basics.

And this is just within the realm of physical theory. What are we to make of ethical questions. What type of theory or understanding can we have about the relationship of physical to ethical to political truth.
But let me back up. Back to the point of how we know. You are assuming, it seems that man's reason is ultimate, is absolute. What about the truth of faith, or of intuition.

You want have to look far to find someone with radically  different yet "consistent" ideas that contradict your own. Can man ground his understanding in his own reason? The enlightenment era thought say, and proudly, proclaimed the triumph of reason, and that man, and his reason was the measure of all things.

But the roots of the enlightenment itself were in the Christian faith. It was the belief in a rational God, revealed by revelation, who made man in His image, that was the foundation for the belief in a rational universe. Gradually there was a shift from the belief in the truth of revelation to the truth of reason.

This was the beginning of the modern age. But this proved to be an unstable grounding and has led to the paradoxes of postmodernism.

In what way is your consistent view superior to anyone else's consistent view. Think of the gestalt images that show one image if you look at it one way, and a completely different image if you look at it another way. It's all a matter of what you take to be figure and what you take to be ground. So depending on your starting point, your assumptions, you can see a totally different image. And these visual paradoxes have their analog in thought, as in Godel incompleteness theorem, or the many paradoxes of quantum physics, or just in the every day disagreements and misunderstandings we constantly encounter-as on this list!

The enlightenment view believed in one superior view, and this grew out of a Biblical world view. But trying to maintain this view, grounded in reason alone, has led to the abyss of unreason-to a rational and existential double bind.

Consider this link for a good discussion of this progression of ideas.
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
Good to hear from you,
Jon
 

 
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 





Reply | Messages in this Topic (9)
#1916 From: Buck Lawrimore <buck@...>
Date: Thu Oct 15, 2009 8:04 pm
Subject: Re: On Tarnas 		bucklawrimore
Send Email Send Email
 
Here's a book review that tells more about Cosmos & Psyche (in one page):


I was all ready to order it after viewing Tarnas's website, but this review stopped me in my tracks. Thanks for sharing this brilliant if eccentric work, Jon.

Buck Lawrimore

On Oct 15, 2009, at 3:50 PM, Jon Bennett wrote:


Here's a bit more on Tarnas---hold on to your hat!
 
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Jon Bennett <jonbenn@gmail.com> wrote:
Steve, and all
 
Thanks for the comments. I've been under the weather a bit and am a little reluctant to give an off the cuff response. But this Tarnas piece, and our discussions is blowing my mind.  There is so much I want to say about it. Again I wanted to go and slow, and develop my argument carefully, so as not to be misunderstood.
 
But I can't resist a quick comment or two.
 
I think Tarnas is profoundly interesting for several reasons, some good, some bad.
I think he is a first rate writer and a legitimate scholar. The book the excerpt came from, "The Passion of the Western Mind", is one of the best, most articulate,insightful, and comprehensive reviews of Western intellectual history. His writing style is piercingly, scintillatingly, artticulate. I don't even know the word for it, but he has a great penchant for expressing complex subjects so that they come alive on the page, with brilliance and a certain panache. He is a first rate writer and scholar.
 
However, this book, the entire book, was a preparation for a much more puzzling and controversial work. "Cosmos and Psyche', which purports to show a link between these archetypal ideas and astrology, believe it or not. So this very profound scholar, imho, has a very profound flaky side. Even the stuff on Groff , I found more than a tad weird. There may be some metaphorical or psychological relevance to this work, but all in all, it is getting into very questionable territory.
 
But that article raises so many issues I want to discuss. I'm writing a book on 3 different world views. And 2 of them are the same 2 he discusses in the first part of his article. And the third view that I think provides the answer, is a Biblical world view. Tarnas, on the other hand claims to have found the resolution through another view coming from Hegel, Goethe, etc.
 
The interesting thing is that Hegel, a trained theologian, thought that he had "rationalized", or "demythologized" the truth in the Bible. That is, he saw himself as giving a rational explanation of the Christian faith, as having preserved and explained its essential message in purely logical, rational terms.
Others of course, such as Kierkegaard, thought that he utterly destroyed and strayed from the Biblical message.
 
But for now I want to make only this point. This resolution to the other two views given in the piece-the Cartesian view that the mind reflects an objective reality, and the Kantian view that the mind creates reality, through its own subjective structures, this resolution that Tarnas finds in Hegel, Goethe, and others, is very close to the resolution that I was going to offer, the Biblical resolution, accept for one very important fact.
In the Tarnas, Hegelian view, nature is substituted for God. In both my view and his the answer is in the understanding of a spiritual reality. I
 
If you read the last half of the Tarnas piece, where he offers his resolution, and every time you see the word, world, nature, or reality, substitute, God, as revealed in the Bible, you will have a pretty good explanation of the Christian, Biblical answer to this problem of the double bind we find ourselves in.
 
In particular my understanding in this has been effected by Cornelius Van Till and the Reformed Theologians of the Westminster movement.
 
I've just scratched the surface. But I will send more information later.
 
Thanks,
Jon
 


 
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net>wrote:
 



Regarding Tarnas...
 
Normally, I have some difficulty with authors who make grand claims about the future.
 
it [reintegration of our culture] will not be on the basis of any new orthodoxy, either religious or scientific. Such a new integration will be based on the rejection of all univocal understandings of reality, of all identifications of one conception of reality with reality itself.
 
However, as I think about his position, I realize that I've had some similar thoughts. Past efforts at theory-building have been  founded on the idea that we are seeking some representation of reality, some form of "truth." This has led to all sorts of difficulties and confusions. One example of that confusion is seen in the social science's persistent pursuit of the red herring of empirical "facts" as a path toward building better theories. Of course, we followed that path because the physical sciences (supposedly) used facts to develop their effective theories.
 
In contrast, I've written that building better theories rests on the internal structure of the theory. There is no great claim of "truth" as it relates to the real world. Therefore, the well-structured theory is self-justifying. Using Ohm's law as an example (relationship between volts, amps, and ohms), it makes no difference if there "really" is something called amps - only that such a thing is discernable in terms of volts and ohms.
 
Recently, I've been thinking, that the "self" and the world (or universe) are ultimately indefinable. One can seek forever, and never find the "ultimate" answer or all the truth and knowledge.
 
However, there seems to be a relationship between the self, the lens of theory, and the world. That relationship is interesting, generative, and "works." While I develop better ways to create and validate theory, I suspect that a subsequent stage in the evolution of theory will result in a different kind of theory. Imagining a theory that looks like a group of intersecting lines or dimensions... imagine that such a theory includes a line pointing "off the page" and representing the reader... another line might circle back to represent the theory's effect on itself (or, perhaps, a form of self-diagnosis) ... a third line might represent the relationship between the theory, the observer, and the universe... but I digress.
 
Then again, after Tarnas claims that our thinking will reject univocal understandings of reality, he goes on to present one:  "It will recognize the multiplicity of the human spirit"
 
He also uses dramatic verbiage and believes that certain things (e.g. the advent of Kantian thought) were "inevitable." Odd. Rambling.
 
Ah - he does note that key thinkers in epistemology are Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. I would echo his concern about Popper's idea that we find our answers by luck. Popper suggests, for example, that we should start a process of scientific investigation with (what amounts to) a random assumption of what a theory might be.
 
Popper's call for falsification is very influential. However, if our assumptions guide what we understand to be (in some sense) true, and we conduct experiments to find empirical evidence, than we are likely to reify our beliefs, rather than discover something new and amazing. Many who use computer models fall into this trap. They set up an experiment based on certain assumptions... and their assumptions are confirmed with an amazing level of regularity.
 
I think I've discussed my views on Kuhn - that he falls victim to assuming that scientific advances occur via the study of empirical analysis (outside the psychological and political forces). I think I shared my chapter where I present an alternative approach that provides a more reasonable explanation.
 
The point Tarnas seems to be making is that he agrees with Kuhn - and that Kuhn's ideas are similar to Grof's metaphor of birth. The problem with this approach is that if one has a metaphor (birth, for example) one can look at the entire world through that metaphor - and it will all make sense. The same may be said of every other metaphor. It is more useful to use multiple metaphors (see Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1991). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership).
 
"For the evolution of the Western mind has been driven by a heroic impulse to forge an autonomous rational human self by separating it from the primordial unity with nature." - this I agree is a very good point.  I find it odd, however, that he pushes the birth metaphor. Yet, in the end, concludes that we need to follow a death metaphor.
 
I think, self-contradiction aside, he makes a good point about bringing in different voices into science. Part of my own work in developing new methods of theorizing includes reaching out to non-central groups to supply them with some conceptual tools for advancing new modes of thought.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

 


Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts. This below might be helpful 
with our definitions. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html
And here is a definition of ontology I got from

wikipedia-

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

If you could resend your paper or direct me to it, that will help also.

The problem of epistemology, how we know, is subtle. Why for example, should we expect the universe to be knowable or consistent in the first place. Remember, Ptolemy's cosmology, the concentric spheres was a highly structured, and complex system with which extremely accurate predictions could be made.
And even Newton, it is very consistent and explanatory and we can make accurate predictions, up to a point.
And then another model is needed in order for knowledge to progress.

And each of these models is based on certain fundamental assumptions and claims about reality. In the case of Newton, we have the claim of an absolute space and time, which though useful, was a limited understanding, and incorrect. And even in our present state of knowledge their are many puzzles and contradictions that could call for a totally new model, with totally new assumptions about the basics.

And this is just within the realm of physical theory. What are we to make of ethical questions. What type of theory or understanding can we have about the relationship of physical to ethical to political truth.
But let me back up. Back to the point of how we know. You are assuming, it seems that man's reason is ultimate, is absolute. What about the truth of faith, or of intuition.

You want have to look far to find someone with radically  different yet "consistent" ideas that contradict your own. Can man ground his understanding in his own reason? The enlightenment era thought say, and proudly, proclaimed the triumph of reason, and that man, and his reason was the measure of all things.

But the roots of the enlightenment itself were in the Christian faith. It was the belief in a rational God, revealed by revelation, who made man in His image, that was the foundation for the belief in a rational universe. Gradually there was a shift from the belief in the truth of revelation to the truth of reason.

This was the beginning of the modern age. But this proved to be an unstable grounding and has led to the paradoxes of postmodernism.

In what way is your consistent view superior to anyone else's consistent view. Think of the gestalt images that show one image if you look at it one way, and a completely different image if you look at it another way. It's all a matter of what you take to be figure and what you take to be ground. So depending on your starting point, your assumptions, you can see a totally different image. And these visual paradoxes have their analog in thought, as in Godel incompleteness theorem, or the many paradoxes of quantum physics, or just in the every day disagreements and misunderstandings we constantly encounter-as on this list!

The enlightenment view believed in one superior view, and this grew out of a Biblical world view. But trying to maintain this view, grounded in reason alone, has led to the abyss of unreason-to a rational and existential double bind.

Consider this link for a good discussion of this progression of ideas.
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
Good to hear from you,
Jon
 

 
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net>wrote:
 



Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net>wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below] 



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's 
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past. 

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up. 

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom



 

"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 

























Reply | Messages in this Topic (9)
#1917 From: Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...>
Date: Thu Oct 15, 2009 9:31 pm
Subject: Re: On Tarnas 		jonsork
Send Email Send Email
 
Thanks Buck,
 
I do highly recommend his first book, The Passion of the Western Mind. It is truly brilliant. He makes a good case for the presence of these archetypes in the intellectual history of the West. And this is exactly what I had been studying for a couple of decades before I ever heard of him.
 
One of the opening chapters is on Ideas and Gods. I also have a very interesting paper on Newton's "ontotheology" which shows how his thinking about space, time, motion, matter, etc. was influenced by his theology. For example, modern science, and the modern world has been built around the archetypes of  uniformity, the absolute, the eternal- (the unchanging, immutable, indivisible or the invariable) all of which were derived from Newton's understanding of God.
 
And I believe we are likewise now under the influence of archetypes derived from Eastern religion. Schopenhauer said as much and he was influential in making this shift to a metaphysics based on Eastern thought. And of course he had a profound influence on many who came after him including Nietzsche and Heidegger.
 
This Eastern metaphysics and eastern archetypes are evident in physics and across the board in the cultural life of the post modern west West. Our very notions of the blurry and fuzzy boundaries, of a fluid, interactive, mutlileveld, relative reality, all of these are directly traceable THRU Hegel, to neoplatonism and forward from Schopenhauer to Hinduism.

Every world view, and their are three I want to discuss with this group as I'm trying to write a book on it, is based on how it regards the relationship of the Creator and creation. Are they dualistic and absolutely different, as in Christianity, or are they monistic as in the East, or in naturalism.
 
However this relationship is conceived determines the philosophy, science, the world view of the entire age. All of the very specific archetypes of any age are derived from the understanding of the Creator and creation relationshipp.
 
And Hegel, intentionally built his philosophy around a view that saw Creator and creation, the infinite and the finite as interpenetrating each other, as a kind of monism. He intentionally did this in modelling Greek religion because of his dislike of the Christian view that saw Creator and creation as being on an absolutely different level.
 
All of the epistemological problems that Tarnas outlines in the Double Bind, with the first two views, are the result of world views that makes man and his reason, the creature, as ultimate. This always leads to a relativity of knowledge and irrationalism. His solution, like the Biblical solution makes a spiritual agency ultimate. In his case that spiritual agency is nature (the creation); in the Christian solution, of course that spiritual agency is God, who is conceived of as above and beyond and the Creator of nature.
 
You really should look into the apologetics of Cornelius Van Till, which is faithful to a Biblical view of the world. He shows how without assuming that the Bible is true, that God revealed Himself through scripture, no knowledge is possible.
 
Again, it's pretty much the same argument of Tarnas, based on Hegel, which sees nature (the creation) as ultimate, and as a spiritual agency, instead of seeing the self attesting Creator of nature, as revealed in scripture, as ultimate. And sense Hegel set out to rationalize the message of the Bible, this is pretty much understandable.
 
Sorry to deal with so many complex and controversial issues is such a superficial way, but you've got to start somewhere.
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Buck Lawrimore <buck@...> wrote:
 

Here's a book review that tells more about Cosmos & Psyche (in one page):



I was all ready to order it after viewing Tarnas's website, but this review stopped me in my tracks. Thanks for sharing this brilliant if eccentric work, Jon.

Buck Lawrimore

On Oct 15, 2009, at 3:50 PM, Jon Bennett wrote:


Here's a bit more on Tarnas---hold on to your hat!
 
On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...> wrote:
Steve, and all
 
Thanks for the comments. I've been under the weather a bit and am a little reluctant to give an off the cuff response. But this Tarnas piece, and our discussions is blowing my mind.  There is so much I want to say about it. Again I wanted to go and slow, and develop my argument carefully, so as not to be misunderstood.
 
But I can't resist a quick comment or two.
 
I think Tarnas is profoundly interesting for several reasons, some good, some bad.
I think he is a first rate writer and a legitimate scholar. The book the excerpt came from, "The Passion of the Western Mind", is one of the best, most articulate,insightful, and comprehensive reviews of Western intellectual history. His writing style is piercingly, scintillatingly, artticulate. I don't even know the word for it, but he has a great penchant for expressing complex subjects so that they come alive on the page, with brilliance and a certain panache. He is a first rate writer and scholar.
 
However, this book, the entire book, was a preparation for a much more puzzling and controversial work. "Cosmos and Psyche', which purports to show a link between these archetypal ideas and astrology, believe it or not. So this very profound scholar, imho, has a very profound flaky side. Even the stuff on Groff , I found more than a tad weird. There may be some metaphorical or psychological relevance to this work, but all in all, it is getting into very questionable territory.
 
But that article raises so many issues I want to discuss. I'm writing a book on 3 different world views. And 2 of them are the same 2 he discusses in the first part of his article. And the third view that I think provides the answer, is a Biblical world view. Tarnas, on the other hand claims to have found the resolution through another view coming from Hegel, Goethe, etc.
 
The interesting thing is that Hegel, a trained theologian, thought that he had "rationalized", or "demythologized" the truth in the Bible. That is, he saw himself as giving a rational explanation of the Christian faith, as having preserved and explained its essential message in purely logical, rational terms.
Others of course, such as Kierkegaard, thought that he utterly destroyed and strayed from the Biblical message.
 
But for now I want to make only this point. This resolution to the other two views given in the piece-the Cartesian view that the mind reflects an objective reality, and the Kantian view that the mind creates reality, through its own subjective structures, this resolution that Tarnas finds in Hegel, Goethe, and others, is very close to the resolution that I was going to offer, the Biblical resolution, accept for one very important fact.
In the Tarnas, Hegelian view, nature is substituted for God. In both my view and his the answer is in the understanding of a spiritual reality. I
 
If you read the last half of the Tarnas piece, where he offers his resolution, and every time you see the word, world, nature, or reality, substitute, God, as revealed in the Bible, you will have a pretty good explanation of the Christian, Biblical answer to this problem of the double bind we find ourselves in.
 
In particular my understanding in this has been effected by Cornelius Van Till and the Reformed Theologians of the Westminster movement.
 
I've just scratched the surface. But I will send more information later.
 
Thanks,
Jon
 


 
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...>wrote:
 



Regarding Tarnas...
 
Normally, I have some difficulty with authors who make grand claims about the future.
 
it [reintegration of our culture] will not be on the basis of any new orthodoxy, either religious or scientific. Such a new integration will be based on the rejection of all univocal understandings of reality, of all identifications of one conception of reality with reality itself.
 
However, as I think about his position, I realize that I've had some similar thoughts. Past efforts at theory-building have been  founded on the idea that we are seeking some representation of reality, some form of "truth." This has led to all sorts of difficulties and confusions. One example of that confusion is seen in the social science's persistent pursuit of the red herring of empirical "facts" as a path toward building better theories. Of course, we followed that path because the physical sciences (supposedly) used facts to develop their effective theories.
 
In contrast, I've written that building better theories rests on the internal structure of the theory. There is no great claim of "truth" as it relates to the real world. Therefore, the well-structured theory is self-justifying. Using Ohm's law as an example (relationship between volts, amps, and ohms), it makes no difference if there "really" is something called amps - only that such a thing is discernable in terms of volts and ohms.
 
Recently, I've been thinking, that the "self" and the world (or universe) are ultimately indefinable. One can seek forever, and never find the "ultimate" answer or all the truth and knowledge.
 
However, there seems to be a relationship between the self, the lens of theory, and the world. That relationship is interesting, generative, and "works." While I develop better ways to create and validate theory, I suspect that a subsequent stage in the evolution of theory will result in a different kind of theory. Imagining a theory that looks like a group of intersecting lines or dimensions... imagine that such a theory includes a line pointing "off the page" and representing the reader... another line might circle back to represent the theory's effect on itself (or, perhaps, a form of self-diagnosis) ... a third line might represent the relationship between the theory, the observer, and the universe... but I digress.
 
Then again, after Tarnas claims that our thinking will reject univocal understandings of reality, he goes on to present one:  "It will recognize the multiplicity of the human spirit"
 
He also uses dramatic verbiage and believes that certain things (e.g. the advent of Kantian thought) were "inevitable." Odd. Rambling.
 
Ah - he does note that key thinkers in epistemology are Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. I would echo his concern about Popper's idea that we find our answers by luck. Popper suggests, for example, that we should start a process of scientific investigation with (what amounts to) a random assumption of what a theory might be.
 
Popper's call for falsification is very influential. However, if our assumptions guide what we understand to be (in some sense) true, and we conduct experiments to find empirical evidence, than we are likely to reify our beliefs, rather than discover something new and amazing. Many who use computer models fall into this trap. They set up an experiment based on certain assumptions... and their assumptions are confirmed with an amazing level of regularity.
 
I think I've discussed my views on Kuhn - that he falls victim to assuming that scientific advances occur via the study of empirical analysis (outside the psychological and political forces). I think I shared my chapter where I present an alternative approach that provides a more reasonable explanation.
 
The point Tarnas seems to be making is that he agrees with Kuhn - and that Kuhn's ideas are similar to Grof's metaphor of birth. The problem with this approach is that if one has a metaphor (birth, for example) one can look at the entire world through that metaphor - and it will all make sense. The same may be said of every other metaphor. It is more useful to use multiple metaphors (see Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1991). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership).
 
"For the evolution of the Western mind has been driven by a heroic impulse to forge an autonomous rational human self by separating it from the primordial unity with nature." - this I agree is a very good point.  I find it odd, however, that he pushes the birth metaphor. Yet, in the end, concludes that we need to follow a death metaphor.
 
I think, self-contradiction aside, he makes a good point about bringing in different voices into science. Part of my own work in developing new methods of theorizing includes reaching out to non-central groups to supply them with some conceptual tools for advancing new modes of thought.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

 


Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts. This below might be helpful 
with our definitions. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html
And here is a definition of ontology I got from

wikipedia-

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

If you could resend your paper or direct me to it, that will help also.

The problem of epistemology, how we know, is subtle. Why for example, should we expect the universe to be knowable or consistent in the first place. Remember, Ptolemy's cosmology, the concentric spheres was a highly structured, and complex system with which extremely accurate predictions could be made.
And even Newton, it is very consistent and explanatory and we can make accurate predictions, up to a point.
And then another model is needed in order for knowledge to progress.

And each of these models is based on certain fundamental assumptions and claims about reality. In the case of Newton, we have the claim of an absolute space and time, which though useful, was a limited understanding, and incorrect. And even in our present state of knowledge their are many puzzles and contradictions that could call for a totally new model, with totally new assumptions about the basics.

And this is just within the realm of physical theory. What are we to make of ethical questions. What type of theory or understanding can we have about the relationship of physical to ethical to political truth.
But let me back up. Back to the point of how we know. You are assuming, it seems that man's reason is ultimate, is absolute. What about the truth of faith, or of intuition.

You want have to look far to find someone with radically  different yet "consistent" ideas that contradict your own. Can man ground his understanding in his own reason? The enlightenment era thought say, and proudly, proclaimed the triumph of reason, and that man, and his reason was the measure of all things.

But the roots of the enlightenment itself were in the Christian faith. It was the belief in a rational God, revealed by revelation, who made man in His image, that was the foundation for the belief in a rational universe. Gradually there was a shift from the belief in the truth of revelation to the truth of reason.

This was the beginning of the modern age. But this proved to be an unstable grounding and has led to the paradoxes of postmodernism.

In what way is your consistent view superior to anyone else's consistent view. Think of the gestalt images that show one image if you look at it one way, and a completely different image if you look at it another way. It's all a matter of what you take to be figure and what you take to be ground. So depending on your starting point, your assumptions, you can see a totally different image. And these visual paradoxes have their analog in thought, as in Godel incompleteness theorem, or the many paradoxes of quantum physics, or just in the every day disagreements and misunderstandings we constantly encounter-as on this list!

The enlightenment view believed in one superior view, and this grew out of a Biblical world view. But trying to maintain this view, grounded in reason alone, has led to the abyss of unreason-to a rational and existential double bind.

Consider this link for a good discussion of this progression of ideas.
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
Good to hear from you,
Jon
 

 
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...>wrote:
 



Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...>wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below] 



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's 
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past. 

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up. 

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom



 

"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 


























Reply | Messages in this Topic (9)
#1918 From: shumate <dshumate@...>
Date: Fri Oct 16, 2009 2:46 am
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		shumatedeborah
Send Email Send Email
  
and too the below Jon.   "how do we know what we know?"

We don't.  That is what makes life interesting.Worth living just to
never find out but always to try.

Think about it.

Gets all fuzzy, even though you know.  Or have the feeling you know.

Deborah

Jon Bennett wrote:
>
>
> I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my
> question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been
> discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
> For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which
> are translated into law) and your politics, etc.
>
> So the key question is how do we know what we know?
>
> On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis
> <swallis@... <mailto:swallis@...>> wrote:
>
>
>     [Attachment(s) <#1243b052baefad67_TopText> from Steven E. Wallis
>     included below]
>
>     
>
>     John M,
>
>     Sure - here it is.
>
>     To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as
>     important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is
>     ethical or moral).
>
>     Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be
>     accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question?
>     If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and
>     everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is
>     acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a
>     position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop
>     vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which
>     culture is "best."
>
>     Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are
>     thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of
>     conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc)
>     are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study
>     (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by
>     adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget
>     about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
>
>     When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I
>     staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample
>     by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively
>     objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the
>     methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
>
>     Thanks,
>
>     Steve
>
>
>     Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
>
>     Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
>     Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
>
>     http://projectfast.org/ <http://projectfast.org/>
>
>     swallis@... <mailto:swallis@...>
>
>
>
>         ----- Original Message -----
>         *From:* John - M <mailto:jamikes@...>
>         *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>         <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>         *Cc:* swallis@... <mailto:swallis@...>
>         *Sent:* Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
>         *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is
>         there Evil in the world?
>
>         Steven, a belated reflection:
>
>         If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see
>         your "analysis" of Gandhi's
>         /_"ethics"_ - /a term in my view as an accepted position
>         within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more
>         compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their
>         allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond
>         which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic'
>         process.
>
>         The way I use /_'analysis'_/ is a study of a closed model for
>         and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of
>         (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its
>         ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The
>         term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of
>         'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics
>         that were included in the closed/ model of interest/ in the
>         particular case).
>
>         Regards
>
>         John M
>
>
>             ----- Original Message -----
>             *From:* Steven E. Wallis <mailto:swallis@...>
>             *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>             <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>             *Sent:* Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
>             *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men -
>             Is there Evil in the world?
>
>             
>             Tom,
>
>             You ask some good questions.
>
>             Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is
>             first-generation American (her parents emigrated from
>             Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for
>             our nation's history of slavery! In my family history,
>             there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I
>             apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
>
>             My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do
>             "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support
>             the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the
>             ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame
>             a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of
>             farting).
>
>             On another level, we do have the ability to improve
>             ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect
>             that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way
>             out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run)
>             and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in
>             the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more
>             difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run
>             (stuff like education, hard work).
>
>             To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be
>             followed - because (in time) the rules always change.
>             instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a
>             little better" than the average that is set by the rules.
>             That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of
>             "good" (whatever that might be).
>
>             Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex
>             (and sometimes contradictory).
>
>             Thanks,
>
>             Steve
>
>
>
>
>             Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
>
>             Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
>             Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate
>             University
>
>             http://projectfast.org/ <http://projectfast.org/>
>
>             swallis@... <mailto:swallis@...>
>
>
>
>                 ----- Original Message -----
>                 *From:* toml1777@... <mailto:toml1777@...>
>                 *To:* ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com
>                 <mailto:ISCE_complex-M@yahoogroups.com>
>                 *Sent:* Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
>                 *Subject:* Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men
>                 - Is there Evil in the world?
>
>
>
>                 I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to
>                 number your own calendar." And yes, those on the
>                 winning side of conflicts get to write the history.
>                 Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat
>                 me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that
>                 is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction
>                 and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of
>                 view of everyone else besides White Males raised in
>                 Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices
>                 of women, minorities, people of color, people from
>                 Africa, people from South American, people of
>                 alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western
>                 church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it
>                 leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does
>                 their voice have in the conversation? Are they
>                 responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.
>
>                 I don't apologize for living in a country that has
>                 been on the winning side of history. I am not against
>                 anyone else with a different point of view. I just
>                 don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge
>                 others to add their voices to the mix.
>
>                 In many senses, in the final analysis, military power
>                 does have the final say. Financial power also has
>                 great influence. The question is: What is the purpose
>                 of morality? If we are to ship food to staving
>                 children overseas, those convoys need to protected by
>                 soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations.
>                 But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.
>
>                 There is a continuing debate in India about whether
>                 Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that
>                 debate and every debate. Many people in India believe
>                 that Gandhi example held India back from moving into
>                 the modern world. How many people will sell all their
>                 possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree?
>                 Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had
>                 the backing of a rich financier who at one point said,
>                 "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor."
>                 Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John
>                 Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.
>
>                 I'm just saying there are always more than one side to
>                 any debate. Take care, Tom
>
>
>
>                 
>
>                 "If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
>
>                 So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at
>                 least the application of force creates a
>                 shared context - although far from consensual. So...
>                 why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the
>                 nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it
>                 an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a
>                 philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join
>                 voluntarily the context that was created by force?
>
>                 Thanks,
>
>                 Steve
>
>
>
>
>                 Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
>
>                 Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
>                 Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding
>                 Graduate University
>                 http://projectfast.org/ <http://projectfast.org/>
>
>                 swallis@... <mailto:swallis@...>
>
>
>
>

Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1919 From: Jon Bennett <jonbenn@...>
Date: Fri Oct 16, 2009 6:51 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		jonsork
Send Email Send Email
 
Steve, John, Deb and other relativists,
 
When you say that nothing can be none in an absolute way, that the universe is not built that way, I must ask, and seriously-How do you know????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
 
No joking, is that statement of yours meant to be an absolute? And whatever kind of statement it is on what grounds do you make it?  By what standard are you making it? Are you not judging based on the assumption of the ulitmacy of your knowledge, or of man's reason?
 
This is the whole point of the Post Copernican Double bind. It means that if you start with the ultimacy of reason, making man and his reason ultimate, that you end up being rational and irrational at the same time!
 
You can't avoid it or live up to your own denouncement of absolutes. You are inevitably forced to use absolutes, to approve and believe and proclaim them one minute, and the next minute denounce them. It's unavoidable, absolutely unavoidable. You can't live up to your own  faith.
 
I challenge you to look and see where you are selectively using and selectively denying absolutes. Do you not believe in an unconscious, or in denial. Do you not think you could possibly be harboring some absolutes in your unconscious-denying and projecting them. Of course if they are in your unconscious you wont see them.
But you are assuming that you are not in denial, or unconscious of something, you are assuming your very own knowledge to be absolute!
 
If your statement that their are no absolutes is not absolute, then it is only relatively meaningful. That means, your relative negation of absolutes leaves room for absolute truth now or in the future as knowledge evolves.
 
A statement such as their are no absolutes, or that we can never no, is a faith based statement! It's based on the presupposition that finite man can have absolute knowledge of himself and his world. Their is no logical or rational or experiential way to reach that conclusion on your OWN premise! Hence, the double bind and the irrationals that goes with it.
 
And when you get to morality or politics. or law. What will you say when someone steals from you, kills a family member, or if the government came to arrest you and imprison or torture you. What would you say?
This is unjust!! I have rights!! You are wrong to do that to me!! But you have already claimed there is no such things as justice, rights, or wrongs, etc.
 
 
So how will you base your argument or complaint? You wont have an absolute leg to stand on, or an absolute right to defend.
 
And of course, all the rights you do enjoy, are of course, grounded in, and the expression of absolutes!
 
Absolutely yours,
Jon
 
 
P.S
 
Do any of you not see how your position is the direct outcome of the influence of Eastern thought on which our current paradigm is based? This is the stated position of Hinduism. Ultimate reality is said to be an undifferentiated Oneness. All surface phenomena, physical or mental are only illusion, the veil of Mara. Hence, the world is only your (and Schopenhauer's) idea.
 
This is always the result of any world view that makes the creature (man and his reason), or the creation as ultimate. All such monistic systems, like Eastern thought, and Hegel and the German idealists, and the Greeks they emulated, and the Romantics, inevitably will end in this result-with the same moral, political, even philosophical,even scientific, outcomes.
 
Peace out

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
Wonderful - phun with filosofy.
 
Was it Bacon who said that we would torture nature to force her to reveal her secrets? I suspect it is we who have been tortured - and it has revealed that every secret, every bit of knowledge has a (for want of a better word) "space" or openness. There is nothing that can be known in any absolute sense... the universe is simply not built that way.
 
I've hear talk over the past few years that has been more towards "saticficing" or "actionable knowledge." Reminiscent of "Ralph's Good Enough Grocery."
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 



Jon:
we don't.
 
More explained: We don't know how we know what we (may not even ???) know.
We don 't even know what it means "to know". We THINK we know. Whatever we may 'know' is a partial representation of something we have no capabilites to identify in toto.
I speak about an 'epistemic enrichment' leading to our (mostly acceptably) increasing cognitive inventory. (That is for humanity in recent millennia). We 'know'(!?) about more (details? complexities?) of the world (right or wrong) than our predeccessors did.
(Just as I have no idea what it means "to think".
 I may think of something, but I don't know - ha ha).
Do you know how to think about these things?
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@...> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 



Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1920 From: "John - M" <jamikes@...>
Date: Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:30 pm
Subject: Absolute...Absolute 		jami_kes
Send Email Send Email
 
Jon, what have I committed to deserve your absolute denigratory tirade? I absolutely don't know. The only 'absolute' I use in my positions is the ignorance, what I call my scientidic agnosticism to allow a latitude of additional knowledge (errors included) to be added to everything we think we know.
And yes, I cannot base my thinking on a higher authority than my thinking. I cannot think with your mind. If I don't believe my own ways/conclusions I have a reserved place in the nuthouse.
To your question with 56 ?s (you left a lot of more space unused in the line!) I already gave my answer and I quote:
----------------
Jon:
we don't
----------------
That was all.
And one more thing: I have (absolutely) no intentions to 'convert' anybody into accepting my ideas (and that is an absolute statement). I tell my ideas to trigger opposition from which I may learn (if not laugh at) and keep an exchange of (relative?) ideas flowing.
I allow myself to be wrong. (Happens even if I did not 'allow' it to myself). And with good argumentative skills one can deduce anything from Eastern ideas, even the contrary of them.
I started a new thread, because the copied oldies 'thinned' into a one-word-per-line farce.
BTW: did I respond to your text directed to me? I am not absolutely sure.
If not, please forgive....
 
John M
 

Reply | Messages in this Topic (5)
#1921 From: toml1777@...
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2009 6:39 am
Subject: Re: Absolute...Absolute 		toml1777
Send Email Send Email
 
I received the following email just this evening asking the question: Is there such a thing as relative truth? It is written from a Christian perspective. And I think there is a fundamental divide between those who believe that there is absolute truth and others who believe that it is impossible to nail truth to the wall. I think each view has merits. I tend to approach an argument from the entry point of language. How can we discuss anything if we do not agree on what words mean? Perhaps, that proves the opposite case, that we can't agree on anything. It is my belief that much more than people realize is opinion. Even when discussing Physics, supposedly agreed upon, measurable facts, our interpretation of what they mean or which are most important, always comes into play.

Between different world views, I think a crucial issue is whether one is an Absolutist or a Relativist, akin to being a Whig or a Torrey, a Hatfield or McCoy. God Save the King! or All Truth is Relative! are fighting words to some. I think we have stumbled onto a fundamental divide among world views.

Below is an article written from a Christian perspective, in what seems to be common sense language as opposed to technical philosophical language. I think we were staring too intently into the microscope and stepped on someone's toes. By the way, I worked 60 hours this week since Monday, working 14 hour days at the group home I manage. Two of the autistic clients who live at the group home are off this week due to Fall Break. When they get a vacation, I get to work overtime.

Here is the article. It may start a fistfight but that's fine too. The article is clearly slanted. My point is that all truth is slanted. The problem is thinking that we are walking upright when we are on a tilt. Take care, Tom

Question: "Is there such a thing as absolute truth / universal truth?"

Answer: In order to understand absolute or universal truth, we must begin by defining truth. Truth, according to the dictionary, is “conformity to fact or actuality; a statement proven to be or accepted as true.” Some people would say that there is no true reality, only perceptions and opinions. Others would argue that there must be some absolute reality or truth.

One view says that there are no absolutes that define reality. Those who hold this view believe everything is relative to something else, and thus there can be no actual reality. Because of that, there are ultimately no moral absolutes, no authority for deciding if an action is positive or negative, right or wrong. This view leads to “situational ethics,” the belief that what is right or wrong is relative to the situation. There is no right or wrong; therefore, whatever feels or seems right at the time and in that situation is right. Of course, situational ethics leads to a subjective, “whatever feels good” mentality and lifestyle, which has a devastating effect on society and individuals. This is postmodernism, creating a society that regards all values, beliefs, lifestyles, and truth claims as equally valid.

The other view holds that there are indeed absolute realities and standards that define what is true and what is not. Therefore, actions can be determined to be either right or wrong by how they measure up to those absolute standards. If there are no absolutes, no reality, chaos ensues. Take the law of gravity, for instance. If it were not an absolute, we could not be certain we could stand or sit in one place until we decided to move. Or if two plus two did not always equal four, the effects on civilization would be disastrous. Laws of science and physics would be irrelevant, and commerce would be impossible. What a mess that would be! Thankfully, two plus two does equal four. There is absolute truth, and it can be found and understood.

To make the statement that there is no absolute truth is illogical. Yet, today, many people are embracing a cultural relativism that denies any type of absolute truth. A good question to ask people who say, “There is no absolute truth” is this: “Are you absolutely sure of that?” If they say “yes,” they have made an absolute statement—which itself implies the existence of absolutes. They are saying that the very fact there is no absolute truth is the one and only absolute truth.

Beside the problem of self-contradiction, there are several other logical problems one must overcome to believe that there are no absolute or universal truths. One is that all humans have limited knowledge and finite minds and, therefore, cannot logically make absolute negative statements. A person cannot logically say, “There is no God” (even though many do so), because, in order to make such a statement, he would need to have absolute knowledge of the entire universe from beginning to end. Since that is impossible, the most anyone can logically say is “With the limited knowledge I have, I do not believe there is a God.”

Another problem with the denial of absolute truth/universal truth is that it fails to live up to what we know to be true in our own consciences, our own experiences, and what we see in the real world. If there is no such thing as absolute truth, then there is nothing ultimately right or wrong about anything. What might be “right” for you does not mean it is “right” for me. While on the surface this type of relativism seems to be appealing, what it means is that everybody sets his own rules to live by and does what he thinks is right. Inevitably, one person’s sense of right will soon clash with another’s. What happens if it is “right” for me to ignore traffic lights, even when they are red? I put many lives at risk. Or I might think it is right to steal from you, and you might think it is not right. Clearly, our standards of right and wrong are in conflict. If there is no absolute truth, no standard of right and wrong that we are all accountable to, then we can never be sure of anything. People would be free to do whatever they want—murder, rape, steal, lie, cheat, etc., and no one could say those things would be wrong. There could be no government, no laws, and no justice, because one could not even say that the majority of the people have the right to make and enforce standards upon the minority. A world without absolutes would be the most horrible world imaginable.

From a spiritual standpoint, this type of relativism results in religious confusion, with no one true religion and no way of having a right relationship with God. All religions would therefore be false because they all make absolute claims regarding the afterlife. It is not uncommon today for people to believe that two diametrically opposed religions could both be equally “true,” even though both religions claim to have the only way to heaven or teach two totally opposite “truths.” People who do not believe in absolute truth ignore these claims and embrace a more tolerant universalism that teaches all religions are equal and all roads lead to heaven. People who embrace this worldview vehemently oppose evangelical Christians who believe the Bible when it says that Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life” and that He is the ultimate manifestation of truth and the only way one can get to heaven (John 14:6).

Tolerance has become the one cardinal virtue of the postmodern society, the one absolute, and, therefore, intolerance is the only evil. Any dogmatic belief—especially a belief in absolute truth—is viewed as intolerance, the ultimate sin. Those who deny absolute truth will often say that it is alright to believe what you want, as long as you do not try to impose your beliefs on others. But this view itself is a belief about what is right and wrong, and those who hold this view most definitely do try to impose it on others. They set up a standard of behavior which they insist others follow, thereby violating the very thing they claim to uphold—another self-contradicting position. Those who hold such a belief simply do not want to be accountable for their actions. If there is absolute truth, then there are absolute standards of right and wrong, and we are accountable to those standards. This accountability is what people are really rejecting when they reject absolute truth.

The denial of absolute truth/universal truth and the cultural relativism that comes with it are the logical result of a society that has embraced the theory of evolution as the explanation for life. If naturalistic evolution is true, then life has no meaning, we have no purpose, and there cannot be any absolute right or wrong. Man is then free to live as he pleases and is accountable to no one for his actions. Yet no matter how much sinful men deny the existence of God and absolute truth, they still will someday stand before Him in judgment. The Bible declares that “…what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:19-22).

Is there any evidence for the existence of absolute truth? Yes. First, there is the human conscience, that certain “something” within us that tells us the world should be a certain way, that some things are right and some are wrong. Our conscience convinces us there is something wrong with suffering, starvation, rape, pain, and evil, and it makes us aware that love, generosity, compassion, and peace are positive things for which we should strive. This is universally true in all cultures in all times. The Bible describes the role of the human conscience in Romans 2:14-16: “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.”

The second evidence for the existence of absolute truth is science. Science is simply the pursuit of knowledge, the study of what we know and the quest to know more. Therefore, all scientific study must by necessity be founded upon the belief that there are objective realities existing in the world and these realities can be discovered and proven. Without absolutes, what would there be to study? How could one know that the findings of science are real? In fact, the very laws of science are founded on the existence of absolute truth.

The third evidence for the existence of absolute truth/universal truth is religion. All the religions of the world attempt to give meaning and definition to life. They are born out of mankind’s desire for something more than simple existence. Through religion, humans seek God, hope for the future, forgiveness of sins, peace in the midst of struggle, and answers to our deepest questions. Religion is really evidence that mankind is more than just a highly evolved animal. It is evidence of a higher purpose and of the existence of a personal and purposeful Creator who implanted in man the desire to know Him. And if there is indeed a Creator, then He becomes the standard for absolute truth, and it is His authority that establishes that truth.

Fortunately, there is such a Creator, and He has revealed His truth to us through His Word, the Bible. Knowing absolute truth/universal truth is only possible through a personal relationship with the One who claims to be the Truth—Jesus Christ. Jesus claimed to be the only way, the only truth, the only life and the only path to God (John 14:6). The fact that absolute truth does exist points us to the truth that there is a sovereign God who created the heavens and the earth and who has revealed Himself to us in order that we might know Him personally through His Son Jesus Christ. That is the absolute truth.

Recommended Resource: True Truth: Defending Absolute Truth in a Relativistic World by Art Lindsley.

Reply | Messages in this Topic (5)
#1922 From: mmbtupr@...
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2009 10:04 am
Subject: Re: Absolute...Absolute 		mmbtupr@...
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               from          Lewis L. Smith

The sender has been an energy economist since 1961 and a science buff since childhood. He is not a theologian. However, in self defense, he has had to learn something about theology because a lot of people for whom theology is more important than oil, are so to speak, "messing around with his oil wells". These include various jihadist groups in Islam and the members of the "rapture" movement within Christianity. He has also read something of Aquinas and Dawkins.

His perspective on the matter of "absolute" and "relative" truth includes the following  >>

[1]     We live in a mysterious universe. No matter by what means or within what discipline we seek to ascertain truth, there will remain open questions within each field which human beings will never be able to answer, at least not satisfactorily. If this situation makes you uncomfortable, go find another universe !

For example  >>

[a]          Was the Big Bang the beginning of the universe ?

[b]     Who or what set it off, and why did they bother ?

[2]     There are many ways of ascertaining truth, of which the scientific method is only one, albeit one of the most important. Among the additional means, I include such ones as creating something of artistic value and having a mystic experience. Sometimes there are more than one way within a single discipline.

[Within a scientific discipline, for example, one may use econometric analysis, experiment, observation, mathematical reasoning and/or statistical analysis. The reliability of ascertained "truth" varies in the degree of certainty. Some of them are certainly not absolute, just probable in some degree. On the subject of artistic value, see Picasso. Would have loved to have heard him debate Dawkins. ]

[3]     The conclusions of the scientific method are always are tentative, good only until someone comes along with "a better mousetrap".  However, in this interim, they are as if they were absolute truth.

[4]     The reliability of the truths which we ascertain cannot be separated from the means by which we ascertain them.

[This point is usually ignored in debates over truth.]

[5]     What is most important about truth is the kind of decisions which we have to make on the basis of a particular assertion which claims to be "the truth". The most critical question is not how certain are we about something, but whether its certainty is good enough for us to make the decision.

[6]     Contrary to popular belief not all Christians, Jews or Muslims worship the same God. For example, it is my conclusion that  >>

[a]          The Sunni al Qaeda do not worship the same god as the Sunni mystics called Sufis.

[b]     Neither worship the same god as Christians and Jews.

[c]          The rapture Christians do not worship the same god as do Catholic and Orthodox Christians or as do Jews and Muslims.

[7]     The argument over absolute versus relative truth misses two other points  >>

[a]          There are some relative truths in science. For example, depending on object size, temperature and velocity, the rules for object interaction vary. We must choose between quantum mechanics, Bose-Einstein rules, Newton's mechanics and Einstein's relativity.  Each set of "rules" is absolute within its domain, but the choice between rules is relative to the situation !

[b]     Situations can arise in which rules which are "absolute" in some sense or some situations, lead to conflicts between rules, requiring some kind of judgment relative to the situation. As pointed out by Aristotle and repeated by Clarence Thomas, Doa Sonia and others, the law is couched in generalities but must be applied to specific situation.

As Soloman's tentative decision to "split the baby" in half shows, this is not always easy.

[He opted for a two-stage decision-making process, another complication ignored in the truth debate.]

Abortion is an even better example. In evaluating it morally, one must take into account the health of the mother, her economic condition, the presence of dependent children, the potential of the fetus for life, ones theological beliefs about souls and, if they exist, when and how they enter into the body, and so on. So a moral decision on abortion is perforce a decision relative to the situation, even though one may be applying some truths which one considers absolute, when taken individually.

I could go on, but I think that I have "stirred the pot" sufficiently !

Cordially.  ###

Reply | Messages in this Topic (5)
#1923 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2009 3:14 pm
Subject: Re: On Tarnas 		stevenewallis
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Jon,
 
You mention two perspectives (Cartesian - mind reflects objective reality and Kantian - mind creates reality).
 
A third view might be termed a "received" point of view. By reading a book (be it chemistry text, science fiction, history, or bible), one's mind is presented with an alternative view - a different way to perceive, understand, and interact with the world.
 
I'd also say that all three processes seem to overlap (ala Venn diagram).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] On Tarnas

 

Steve, and all
 
Thanks for the comments. I've been under the weather a bit and am a little reluctant to give an off the cuff response. But this Tarnas piece, and our discussions is blowing my mind.  There is so much I want to say about it. Again I wanted to go and slow, and develop my argument carefully, so as not to be misunderstood.
 
But I can't resist a quick comment or two.
 
I think Tarnas is profoundly interesting for several reasons, some good, some bad.
I think he is a first rate writer and a legitimate scholar. The book the excerpt came from, "The Passion of the Western Mind", is one of the best, most articulate,insightful, and comprehensive reviews of Western intellectual history. His writing style is piercingly, scintillatingly, artticulate. I don't even know the word for it, but he has a great penchant for expressing complex subjects so that they come alive on the page, with brilliance and a certain panache. He is a first rate writer and scholar.
 
However, this book, the entire book, was a preparation for a much more puzzling and controversial work. "Cosmos and Psyche', which purports to show a link between these archetypal ideas and astrology, believe it or not. So this very profound scholar, imho, has a very profound flaky side. Even the stuff on Groff , I found more than a tad weird. There may be some metaphorical or psychological relevance to this work, but all in all, it is getting into very questionable territory.
 
But that article raises so many issues I want to discuss. I'm writing a book on 3 different world views. And 2 of them are the same 2 he discusses in the first part of his article. And the third view that I think provides the answer, is a Biblical world view. Tarnas, on the other hand claims to have found the resolution through another view coming from Hegel, Goethe, etc.
 
The interesting thing is that Hegel, a trained theologian, thought that he had "rationalized", or "demythologized" the truth in the Bible. That is, he saw himself as giving a rational explanation of the Christian faith, as having preserved and explained its essential message in purely logical, rational terms.
Others of course, such as Kierkegaard, thought that he utterly destroyed and strayed from the Biblical message.
 
But for now I want to make only this point. This resolution to the other two views given in the piece-the Cartesian view that the mind reflects an objective reality, and the Kantian view that the mind creates reality, through its own subjective structures, this resolution that Tarnas finds in Hegel, Goethe, and others, is very close to the resolution that I was going to offer, the Biblical resolution, accept for one very important fact.
In the Tarnas, Hegelian view, nature is substituted for God. In both my view and his the answer is in the understanding of a spiritual reality. I
 
If you read the last half of the Tarnas piece, where he offers his resolution, and every time you see the word, world, nature, or reality, substitute, God, as revealed in the Bible, you will have a pretty good explanation of the Christian, Biblical answer to this problem of the double bind we find ourselves in.
 
In particular my understanding in this has been effected by Cornelius Van Till and the Reformed Theologians of the Westminster movement.
 
I've just scratched the surface. But I will send more information later.
 
Thanks,
Jon
 


 
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 



Regarding Tarnas...
 
Normally, I have some difficulty with authors who make grand claims about the future.
 
it [reintegration of our culture] will not be on the basis of any new orthodoxy, either religious or scientific. Such a new integration will be based on the rejection of all univocal understandings of reality, of all identifications of one conception of reality with reality itself.
 
However, as I think about his position, I realize that I've had some similar thoughts. Past efforts at theory-building have been  founded on the idea that we are seeking some representation of reality, some form of "truth." This has led to all sorts of difficulties and confusions. One example of that confusion is seen in the social science's persistent pursuit of the red herring of empirical "facts" as a path toward building better theories. Of course, we followed that path because the physical sciences (supposedly) used facts to develop their effective theories.
 
In contrast, I've written that building better theories rests on the internal structure of the theory. There is no great claim of "truth" as it relates to the real world. Therefore, the well-structured theory is self-justifying. Using Ohm's law as an example (relationship between volts, amps, and ohms), it makes no difference if there "really" is something called amps - only that such a thing is discernable in terms of volts and ohms.
 
Recently, I've been thinking, that the "self" and the world (or universe) are ultimately indefinable. One can seek forever, and never find the "ultimate" answer or all the truth and knowledge.
 
However, there seems to be a relationship between the self, the lens of theory, and the world. That relationship is interesting, generative, and "works." While I develop better ways to create and validate theory, I suspect that a subsequent stage in the evolution of theory will result in a different kind of theory. Imagining a theory that looks like a group of intersecting lines or dimensions... imagine that such a theory includes a line pointing "off the page" and representing the reader... another line might circle back to represent the theory's effect on itself (or, perhaps, a form of self-diagnosis) ... a third line might represent the relationship between the theory, the observer, and the universe... but I digress.
 
Then again, after Tarnas claims that our thinking will reject univocal understandings of reality, he goes on to present one:  "It will recognize the multiplicity of the human spirit"
 
He also uses dramatic verbiage and believes that certain things (e.g. the advent of Kantian thought) were "inevitable." Odd. Rambling.
 
Ah - he does note that key thinkers in epistemology are Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. I would echo his concern about Popper's idea that we find our answers by luck. Popper suggests, for example, that we should start a process of scientific investigation with (what amounts to) a random assumption of what a theory might be.
 
Popper's call for falsification is very influential. However, if our assumptions guide what we understand to be (in some sense) true, and we conduct experiments to find empirical evidence, than we are likely to reify our beliefs, rather than discover something new and amazing. Many who use computer models fall into this trap. They set up an experiment based on certain assumptions... and their assumptions are confirmed with an amazing level of regularity.
 
I think I've discussed my views on Kuhn - that he falls victim to assuming that scientific advances occur via the study of empirical analysis (outside the psychological and political forces). I think I shared my chapter where I present an alternative approach that provides a more reasonable explanation.
 
The point Tarnas seems to be making is that he agrees with Kuhn - and that Kuhn's ideas are similar to Grof's metaphor of birth. The problem with this approach is that if one has a metaphor (birth, for example) one can look at the entire world through that metaphor - and it will all make sense. The same may be said of every other metaphor. It is more useful to use multiple metaphors (see Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1991). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership).
 
"For the evolution of the Western mind has been driven by a heroic impulse to forge an autonomous rational human self by separating it from the primordial unity with nature." - this I agree is a very good point.  I find it odd, however, that he pushes the birth metaphor. Yet, in the end, concludes that we need to follow a death metaphor.
 
I think, self-contradiction aside, he makes a good point about bringing in different voices into science. Part of my own work in developing new methods of theorizing includes reaching out to non-central groups to supply them with some conceptual tools for advancing new modes of thought.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

 


Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts. This below might be helpful
with our definitions. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html
And here is a definition of ontology I got from

wikipedia-

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

If you could resend your paper or direct me to it, that will help also.

The problem of epistemology, how we know, is subtle. Why for example, should we expect the universe to be knowable or consistent in the first place. Remember, Ptolemy's cosmology, the concentric spheres was a highly structured, and complex system with which extremely accurate predictions could be made.
And even Newton, it is very consistent and explanatory and we can make accurate predictions, up to a point.
And then another model is needed in order for knowledge to progress.

And each of these models is based on certain fundamental assumptions and claims about reality. In the case of Newton, we have the claim of an absolute space and time, which though useful, was a limited understanding, and incorrect. And even in our present state of knowledge their are many puzzles and contradictions that could call for a totally new model, with totally new assumptions about the basics.

And this is just within the realm of physical theory. What are we to make of ethical questions. What type of theory or understanding can we have about the relationship of physical to ethical to political truth.
But let me back up. Back to the point of how we know. You are assuming, it seems that man's reason is ultimate, is absolute. What about the truth of faith, or of intuition.

You want have to look far to find someone with radically  different yet "consistent" ideas that contradict your own. Can man ground his understanding in his own reason? The enlightenment era thought say, and proudly, proclaimed the triumph of reason, and that man, and his reason was the measure of all things.

But the roots of the enlightenment itself were in the Christian faith. It was the belief in a rational God, revealed by revelation, who made man in His image, that was the foundation for the belief in a rational universe. Gradually there was a shift from the belief in the truth of revelation to the truth of reason.

This was the beginning of the modern age. But this proved to be an unstable grounding and has led to the paradoxes of postmodernism.

In what way is your consistent view superior to anyone else's consistent view. Think of the gestalt images that show one image if you look at it one way, and a completely different image if you look at it another way. It's all a matter of what you take to be figure and what you take to be ground. So depending on your starting point, your assumptions, you can see a totally different image. And these visual paradoxes have their analog in thought, as in Godel incompleteness theorem, or the many paradoxes of quantum physics, or just in the every day disagreements and misunderstandings we constantly encounter-as on this list!

The enlightenment view believed in one superior view, and this grew out of a Biblical world view. But trying to maintain this view, grounded in reason alone, has led to the abyss of unreason-to a rational and existential double bind.

Consider this link for a good discussion of this progression of ideas.
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
Good to hear from you,
Jon
 

 
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 




Reply | Messages in this Topic (9)
#1924 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2009 4:33 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		stevenewallis
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Jon,
 
Rational and irrational at the same time? Is there a problem with that? These appear to be absolutist claims. Can one be both east and west at the same time? Certainly - it depends on one's perspective (and the perspectives of others).
 
One can be more or less absolute - depending on the situation. For example, I may decide I want Greek food for dinner (absolutely) and yet not decide specifically what kind of Greek food that I want. Or, alternatively, I might think that I am more inclined to Greek food than Italian food.
 
I do not assume my knowledge to be absolute. And, I make that assumption along many dimensions. First, the knowledge that I seem to have and use changes. Sometimes on a daily basis. Second, my knowledge is different than yours (which, may serve as a proof that nothing is absolute (or at least some things are not absolute?). Finally, I realize all too well that my knowledge is not absolute because when I die, all my knowledge will disappear. Therefore, my knowledge is not absolute in time. Hmm... I suppose since I move around, that my knowledge is not absolute in space, either.
 
The potential evolution of an absolute knowledge is, I think a bit far fetched. That seems to be a temporal variation on the argument... in an infinite universe all things must exist somewhere. Just because absolute knowledge *might* evolve does not mean it will evolve.
 
Here's another way to look at it.
 
First, there is no such thing as zero and there is no such thing as infinity. Indeed, advanced mathematical theory (and I'm not a mathematician, so I use these terms loosely) suggests that there are no such things as absolute numbers (e.g. "2") there are only close approximations.
 
When I analyze a theory, I place it on a scale *between* zero and one. Closer to one are the more effective theories (e.g. complexity theory) and closer to zero are the less effective theories (e.g. integral theory).  A list of ideas would rate a "zero" and, technically, is not a theory. So, that "rule of relativity" is not violated.
 
Also, I support a sense of relativism because I assume two things. First, that everything in the universe is connected. Second, that some things are more connected than others. From this, I would suggest that if there was any one absolute thing in the universe, than nothing would "work." That absolute thing would be absolutely connected to everything - allowing no opportunity for any other connections. It would all be "one." A biblical example might be seen in the idea of an "unchanging god." If that being did not change, how does it feel, listen, think, or communicate? How could it do anything but "be?" A counter argument would be that its "essential nature" does not change. Yet, that moves the argument out of the "absolute" realm and into a relativist realm. The claim of absoluteness is lost and we must talk about how much does it change.
 
I do not need concepts such as "justice" to defend against an attacker. Surely, the rabbit does not consider its "rights" when it flees the fox?
 
I don't recall claiming that there is no such thing as "justice," etc. And, I do enjoy such things as rights and justice. Yet, those are not absolutes. Some people have more rights than others. The declaration of independence is clearly self-contradictory in many claims. For example, if all men are endowed with inalienable rights, why is there a need for revolution... where did those rights disappear to if they are inalienable?
 
A more useful way of expressing that position might be to say, "The assumption of absolutes (or near absolutes) is needed for our human functioning." Yet, even those things that we consider to be absolute (for the purpose of eating an apple, typing on a keyboard, or making major life decisions)... these too will change. So, each "sense of absoluteness" must exist within a particular psycho-cultural framework. And, because those are transitory, our sense of absoluteness must also be relatively short.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
PS - for expanding one's mind in many dimensions, I strongly suggest reading : Abbott, E. A. (1984). Flatland: A romance in many dimensions: Signet Classics. It is a very easy read - yet rather thought-provoking. Written in 1884 by a theologian
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

Steve, John, Deb and other relativists,
 
When you say that nothing can be none in an absolute way, that the universe is not built that way, I must ask, and seriously-How do you know????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
 
No joking, is that statement of yours meant to be an absolute? And whatever kind of statement it is on what grounds do you make it?  By what standard are you making it? Are you not judging based on the assumption of the ulitmacy of your knowledge, or of man's reason?
 
This is the whole point of the Post Copernican Double bind. It means that if you start with the ultimacy of reason, making man and his reason ultimate, that you end up being rational and irrational at the same time!
 
You can't avoid it or live up to your own denouncement of absolutes. You are inevitably forced to use absolutes, to approve and believe and proclaim them one minute, and the next minute denounce them. It's unavoidable, absolutely unavoidable. You can't live up to your own  faith.
 
I challenge you to look and see where you are selectively using and selectively denying absolutes. Do you not believe in an unconscious, or in denial. Do you not think you could possibly be harboring some absolutes in your unconscious-denying and projecting them. Of course if they are in your unconscious you wont see them.
But you are assuming that you are not in denial, or unconscious of something, you are assuming your very own knowledge to be absolute!
 
If your statement that their are no absolutes is not absolute, then it is only relatively meaningful. That means, your relative negation of absolutes leaves room for absolute truth now or in the future as knowledge evolves.
 
A statement such as their are no absolutes, or that we can never no, is a faith based statement! It's based on the presupposition that finite man can have absolute knowledge of himself and his world. Their is no logical or rational or experiential way to reach that conclusion on your OWN premise! Hence, the double bind and the irrationals that goes with it.
 
And when you get to morality or politics. or law. What will you say when someone steals from you, kills a family member, or if the government came to arrest you and imprison or torture you. What would you say?
This is unjust!! I have rights!! You are wrong to do that to me!! But you have already claimed there is no such things as justice, rights, or wrongs, etc.
 
 
So how will you base your argument or complaint? You wont have an absolute leg to stand on, or an absolute right to defend.
 
And of course, all the rights you do enjoy, are of course, grounded in, and the expression of absolutes!
 
Absolutely yours,
Jon
 
 
P.S
 
Do any of you not see how your position is the direct outcome of the influence of Eastern thought on which our current paradigm is based? This is the stated position of Hinduism. Ultimate reality is said to be an undifferentiated Oneness. All surface phenomena, physical or mental are only illusion, the veil of Mara. Hence, the world is only your (and Schopenhauer's) idea.
 
This is always the result of any world view that makes the creature (man and his reason), or the creation as ultimate. All such monistic systems, like Eastern thought, and Hegel and the German idealists, and the Greeks they emulated, and the Romantics, inevitably will end in this result-with the same moral, political, even philosophical,even scientific, outcomes.
 
Peace out

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
Wonderful - phun with filosofy.
 
Was it Bacon who said that we would torture nature to force her to reveal her secrets? I suspect it is we who have been tortured - and it has revealed that every secret, every bit of knowledge has a (for want of a better word) "space" or openness. There is nothing that can be known in any absolute sense... the universe is simply not built that way.
 
I've hear talk over the past few years that has been more towards "saticficing" or "actionable knowledge." Reminiscent of "Ralph's Good Enough Grocery."
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 



Jon:
we don't.
 
More explained: We don't know how we know what we (may not even ???) know.
We don 't even know what it means "to know". We THINK we know. Whatever we may 'know' is a partial representation of something we have no capabilites to identify in toto.
I speak about an 'epistemic enrichment' leading to our (mostly acceptably) increasing cognitive inventory. (That is for humanity in recent millennia). We 'know'(!?) about more (details? complexities?) of the world (right or wrong) than our predeccessors did.
(Just as I have no idea what it means "to think".
 I may think of something, but I don't know - ha ha).
Do you know how to think about these things?
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 



Reply | Messages in this Topic (67)
#1925 From: "Steven E. Wallis" <swallis@...>
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2009 4:34 pm
Subject: Re: No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world? 		stevenewallis
Send Email Send Email
 

Jon,
 
The general idea, I'll address here - some more specific points in another email...
 
PS first.. yes, our views are certainly shaped by historical developments in thinking - secular and religious. And, by being aware of the background, we are able to deconstruct it and create something better (however that may be understood). Of course, that deconstruction is also limited (and empowered) by that same history of thought. Yet, the fact that we can understand that there is a history, provides us with a new perspective - providing us with the ability to do something differently than those who existed before that perspective. That is a point I make in my writings on metatheory - that the study of theory could not have emerged before the emergence of theory gave us something to study!
 
Part of the difficulty here is the "absolute" statement that there are no absolutes. Similarly, terms like "knowing" (argument, complaint, justice, rights, wrongs, etc) also imply that such a thing is an absolute.
 
These may be understood as binary terms. That is to say, they suggest that such a thing either exists or does not. For example, on a math test, either I "know" that 2+2=4 or I don't. No in-between. This approach seems all well and good. Just as a binary or absolute approach seems to be valid and useful when one is hungry and must decide whether to eat an apple or a rock.
 
If we rely on such absolute statements we will be stuck in the double blind. There are, however, paths to escape that trap.
 
When I find myself stuck, one approach I use is to take the binary term and "stretch" it into a "scalar" term. For example, rather than claim that one has knowledge, one might say that one has more or less knowledge. This becomes rather complicated. Drawing on the math example above, one might not "know" the answer to 2+2, but one might know the answer to 2+1 and 2+3. Or, along another dimension, one might not know the answer to 2+2, but one might know how addition works. Both of those "near knowings" would allow one to extrapolate the answer to 2+2. And, so one gains "more" knowledge.
 
My assumption (assumed to be "less" certain than an absolute claim, yet more certain than a lack of knowledge) is that there seems to be a universe and within that universe, there seems to be an observer (self), and within that observer there seems to be a theory or set of theories. These all seem to have an interrelationship. It may be that I cannot "prove" such a relationship - because there are difficulties in shifting from one paradigm of thought (e.g. relativist) to another (e.g. absolutist). However, one cannot claim that an absolutist paradigm is "wrong" and then expect to receive absolute proof.
 
I make a similar argument in the attached paper where I note that there are different ways of determining the efficacy of theory. And, they do not necessarily overlap. For example, if I watch the sun rise and set, that might "prove" that their earth circles around the sun (if I use a heliocentric theory), or it may "prove" that the sun circles the earth (if I use a geocentric theory).
 
So, I need not rest on an absolute claim. Instead, there is a relativist claim, that some claims are more useful than others.
 
Usefully, and relatively yours,
 
Steve
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

Steve, John, Deb and other relativists,
 
When you say that nothing can be none in an absolute way, that the universe is not built that way, I must ask, and seriously-How do you know????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
 
No joking, is that statement of yours meant to be an absolute? And whatever kind of statement it is on what grounds do you make it?  By what standard are you making it? Are you not judging based on the assumption of the ulitmacy of your knowledge, or of man's reason?
 
This is the whole point of the Post Copernican Double bind. It means that if you start with the ultimacy of reason, making man and his reason ultimate, that you end up being rational and irrational at the same time!
 
You can't avoid it or live up to your own denouncement of absolutes. You are inevitably forced to use absolutes, to approve and believe and proclaim them one minute, and the next minute denounce them. It's unavoidable, absolutely unavoidable. You can't live up to your own  faith.
 
I challenge you to look and see where you are selectively using and selectively denying absolutes. Do you not believe in an unconscious, or in denial. Do you not think you could possibly be harboring some absolutes in your unconscious-denying and projecting them. Of course if they are in your unconscious you wont see them.
But you are assuming that you are not in denial, or unconscious of something, you are assuming your very own knowledge to be absolute!
 
If your statement that their are no absolutes is not absolute, then it is only relatively meaningful. That means, your relative negation of absolutes leaves room for absolute truth now or in the future as knowledge evolves.
 
A statement such as their are no absolutes, or that we can never no, is a faith based statement! It's based on the presupposition that finite man can have absolute knowledge of himself and his world. Their is no logical or rational or experiential way to reach that conclusion on your OWN premise! Hence, the double bind and the irrationals that goes with it.
 
And when you get to morality or politics. or law. What will you say when someone steals from you, kills a family member, or if the government came to arrest you and imprison or torture you. What would you say?
This is unjust!! I have rights!! You are wrong to do that to me!! But you have already claimed there is no such things as justice, rights, or wrongs, etc.
 
 
So how will you base your argument or complaint? You wont have an absolute leg to stand on, or an absolute right to defend.
 
And of course, all the rights you do enjoy, are of course, grounded in, and the expression of absolutes!
 
Absolutely yours,
Jon
 
 
P.S
 
Do any of you not see how your position is the direct outcome of the influence of Eastern thought on which our current paradigm is based? This is the stated position of Hinduism. Ultimate reality is said to be an undifferentiated Oneness. All surface phenomena, physical or mental are only illusion, the veil of Mara. Hence, the world is only your (and Schopenhauer's) idea.
 
This is always the result of any world view that makes the creature (man and his reason), or the creation as ultimate. All such monistic systems, like Eastern thought, and Hegel and the German idealists, and the Greeks they emulated, and the Romantics, inevitably will end in this result-with the same moral, political, even philosophical,even scientific, outcomes.
 
Peace out

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
Wonderful - phun with filosofy.
 
Was it Bacon who said that we would torture nature to force her to reveal her secrets? I suspect it is we who have been tortured - and it has revealed that every secret, every bit of knowledge has a (for want of a better word) "space" or openness. There is nothing that can be known in any absolute sense... the universe is simply not built that way.
 
I've hear talk over the past few years that has been more towards "saticficing" or "actionable knowledge." Reminiscent of "Ralph's Good Enough Grocery."
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Monday, October 12, 2009 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 



Jon:
we don't.
 
More explained: We don't know how we know what we (may not even ???) know.
We don 't even know what it means "to know". We THINK we know. Whatever we may 'know' is a partial representation of something we have no capabilites to identify in toto.
I speak about an 'epistemic enrichment' leading to our (mostly acceptably) increasing cognitive inventory. (That is for humanity in recent millennia). We 'know'(!?) about more (details? complexities?) of the world (right or wrong) than our predeccessors did.
(Just as I have no idea what it means "to think".
 I may think of something, but I don't know - ha ha).
Do you know how to think about these things?
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 



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#1926 From: "John - M" <jamikes@...>
Date: Sat Oct 17, 2009 10:10 pm
Subject: Re: On Tarnas 		jami_kes
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Steven and others trapped in the 'absolutistic' ideas:
(quite a stir Jon evoked...)
I try to reflect to some points I can (with my agnostic mind of course) as briefly as it goes. (Don't take my brevity too seriously, please).
*
I looked up Tarnas and found lots of reflections to astrology, what made me cringe:
I was a practicing astrologer in the early 40s - saved lives by my horoscope-evaluations, including my own one, predicted some events that realized indeed and later speculated how that happened? Well, it is a link to some calculable astroNOMical events that will occur and most likely have strong effect on us (no clue, how?) and our surrounding: the planetary movements, you just need an intuitive connectivity to distinguish those effects into the right practical domains and 'guess' right if it will only be a nervous day, or you'll be dying by a fatal torture in a nazi dungeon...what I seemingly guessed right in those turbulent and stressful days. I could not do it later. My astrological skills did not stay with me after the stressful WWII-times.
Second personal involvement: after a religious faith in my youth: I got reincarnationalist and practiced Ouijji-board spiritism - with incredible true success, - similarly later-on  not repeatable in practice. I later on developed my criticism about this belief as well.
*
I am a believer of individual differences: no information (reality, truth, written/told words, learned faith (divine- or science- religion) can be transferred "as is", only in personally adjusted form as a 1st person info. You tell me your opinion and I understand it my way.
No two minds work with identical genetic tool (DNA-based neuronal brainfunction) AND applies the identical personally achieved personal experience that fashions the thinking. So Kantian, Cartesian, etc. ideas - even physical conclusions - are differently realized in all persons. OUR absolute is just that: OUR.. A 'received' version settles as OUR version. We may concentrate on the part that matches and ignore the different ones.
*
Lewis wrote quite a few smart observations, I find his diversity in the "GOD" concept (if we include such ) natural (see above), his [3] point is excellent. I don't buy the "if..."part. I am (scientifically) agnostic.
To his [a] and [b] dilemma I have a tentative reply published in 2003 at the WEB journal Karl Jaspers Forum (TA-62MIK - Networks) accepting [a] with an 'if' and explaining [b] my way. The publication is a bit obsolete to my present views, but I never updated it.
*
Tom quotes the popular dictionary on truth, I hope we (on this list at least) go beyond those conservative definitions of the past and generate newer ideas. I "absolutely" do not know what "truth" may be (beyond the dictionary definition) nor what "soul" may mean.
Does the geneticist carry the authority to compell "God" (by any definition) to provide a (or more) soul(s) into his test-tube when he combines eggs with sperm into a 'baby'?
I like the punny joke about 'absolute'. I would extract one sentence if I may to illustrate moral/ethical generalities beyond(?) cultural boundaries:
What might be “right” for you does not mean it is “right” for me.
I appreciate this.
 
Maybe I should write about more in those well crafted posts, I may, later on.
 
Best regards
 
John M
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 11:14 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] On Tarnas


Jon,
 
You mention two perspectives (Cartesian - mind reflects objective reality and Kantian - mind creates reality).
 
A third view might be termed a "received" point of view. By reading a book (be it chemistry text, science fiction, history, or bible), one's mind is presented with an alternative view - a different way to perceive, understand, and interact with the world.
 
I'd also say that all three processes seem to overlap (ala Venn diagram).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] On Tarnas

 

Steve, and all
 
Thanks for the comments. I've been under the weather a bit and am a little reluctant to give an off the cuff response. But this Tarnas piece, and our discussions is blowing my mind.  There is so much I want to say about it. Again I wanted to go and slow, and develop my argument carefully, so as not to be misunderstood.
 
But I can't resist a quick comment or two.
 
I think Tarnas is profoundly interesting for several reasons, some good, some bad.
I think he is a first rate writer and a legitimate scholar. The book the excerpt came from, "The Passion of the Western Mind", is one of the best, most articulate,insightful, and comprehensive reviews of Western intellectual history. His writing style is piercingly, scintillatingly, artticulate. I don't even know the word for it, but he has a great penchant for expressing complex subjects so that they come alive on the page, with brilliance and a certain panache. He is a first rate writer and scholar.
 
However, this book, the entire book, was a preparation for a much more puzzling and controversial work. "Cosmos and Psyche', which purports to show a link between these archetypal ideas and astrology, believe it or not. So this very profound scholar, imho, has a very profound flaky side. Even the stuff on Groff , I found more than a tad weird. There may be some metaphorical or psychological relevance to this work, but all in all, it is getting into very questionable territory.
 
But that article raises so many issues I want to discuss. I'm writing a book on 3 different world views. And 2 of them are the same 2 he discusses in the first part of his article. And the third view that I think provides the answer, is a Biblical world view. Tarnas, on the other hand claims to have found the resolution through another view coming from Hegel, Goethe, etc.
 
The interesting thing is that Hegel, a trained theologian, thought that he had "rationalized", or "demythologized" the truth in the Bible. That is, he saw himself as giving a rational explanation of the Christian faith, as having preserved and explained its essential message in purely logical, rational terms.
Others of course, such as Kierkegaard, thought that he utterly destroyed and strayed from the Biblical message.
 
But for now I want to make only this point. This resolution to the other two views given in the piece-the Cartesian view that the mind reflects an objective reality, and the Kantian view that the mind creates reality, through its own subjective structures, this resolution that Tarnas finds in Hegel, Goethe, and others, is very close to the resolution that I was going to offer, the Biblical resolution, accept for one very important fact.
In the Tarnas, Hegelian view, nature is substituted for God. In both my view and his the answer is in the understanding of a spiritual reality. I
 
If you read the last half of the Tarnas piece, where he offers his resolution, and every time you see the word, world, nature, or reality, substitute, God, as revealed in the Bible, you will have a pretty good explanation of the Christian, Biblical answer to this problem of the double bind we find ourselves in.
 
In particular my understanding in this has been effected by Cornelius Van Till and the Reformed Theologians of the Westminster movement.
 
I've just scratched the surface. But I will send more information later.
 
Thanks,
Jon
 


 
On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:11 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 



Regarding Tarnas...
 
Normally, I have some difficulty with authors who make grand claims about the future.
 
it [reintegration of our culture] will not be on the basis of any new orthodoxy, either religious or scientific. Such a new integration will be based on the rejection of all univocal understandings of reality, of all identifications of one conception of reality with reality itself.
 
However, as I think about his position, I realize that I've had some similar thoughts. Past efforts at theory-building have been  founded on the idea that we are seeking some representation of reality, some form of "truth." This has led to all sorts of difficulties and confusions. One example of that confusion is seen in the social science's persistent pursuit of the red herring of empirical "facts" as a path toward building better theories. Of course, we followed that path because the physical sciences (supposedly) used facts to develop their effective theories.
 
In contrast, I've written that building better theories rests on the internal structure of the theory. There is no great claim of "truth" as it relates to the real world. Therefore, the well-structured theory is self-justifying. Using Ohm's law as an example (relationship between volts, amps, and ohms), it makes no difference if there "really" is something called amps - only that such a thing is discernable in terms of volts and ohms.
 
Recently, I've been thinking, that the "self" and the world (or universe) are ultimately indefinable. One can seek forever, and never find the "ultimate" answer or all the truth and knowledge.
 
However, there seems to be a relationship between the self, the lens of theory, and the world. That relationship is interesting, generative, and "works." While I develop better ways to create and validate theory, I suspect that a subsequent stage in the evolution of theory will result in a different kind of theory. Imagining a theory that looks like a group of intersecting lines or dimensions... imagine that such a theory includes a line pointing "off the page" and representing the reader... another line might circle back to represent the theory's effect on itself (or, perhaps, a form of self-diagnosis) ... a third line might represent the relationship between the theory, the observer, and the universe... but I digress.
 
Then again, after Tarnas claims that our thinking will reject univocal understandings of reality, he goes on to present one:  "It will recognize the multiplicity of the human spirit"
 
He also uses dramatic verbiage and believes that certain things (e.g. the advent of Kantian thought) were "inevitable." Odd. Rambling.
 
Ah - he does note that key thinkers in epistemology are Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend. I would echo his concern about Popper's idea that we find our answers by luck. Popper suggests, for example, that we should start a process of scientific investigation with (what amounts to) a random assumption of what a theory might be.
 
Popper's call for falsification is very influential. However, if our assumptions guide what we understand to be (in some sense) true, and we conduct experiments to find empirical evidence, than we are likely to reify our beliefs, rather than discover something new and amazing. Many who use computer models fall into this trap. They set up an experiment based on certain assumptions... and their assumptions are confirmed with an amazing level of regularity.
 
I think I've discussed my views on Kuhn - that he falls victim to assuming that scientific advances occur via the study of empirical analysis (outside the psychological and political forces). I think I shared my chapter where I present an alternative approach that provides a more reasonable explanation.
 
The point Tarnas seems to be making is that he agrees with Kuhn - and that Kuhn's ideas are similar to Grof's metaphor of birth. The problem with this approach is that if one has a metaphor (birth, for example) one can look at the entire world through that metaphor - and it will all make sense. The same may be said of every other metaphor. It is more useful to use multiple metaphors (see Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1991). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership).
 
"For the evolution of the Western mind has been driven by a heroic impulse to forge an autonomous rational human self by separating it from the primordial unity with nature." - this I agree is a very good point.  I find it odd, however, that he pushes the birth metaphor. Yet, in the end, concludes that we need to follow a death metaphor.
 
I think, self-contradiction aside, he makes a good point about bringing in different voices into science. Part of my own work in developing new methods of theorizing includes reaching out to non-central groups to supply them with some conceptual tools for advancing new modes of thought.
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] How do we know what we know?

 


Hi Steve,

Thanks for your thoughts. This below might be helpful
with our definitions. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html
And here is a definition of ontology I got from

wikipedia-

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being neuter participle of εἶναι: to be) and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

If you could resend your paper or direct me to it, that will help also.

The problem of epistemology, how we know, is subtle. Why for example, should we expect the universe to be knowable or consistent in the first place. Remember, Ptolemy's cosmology, the concentric spheres was a highly structured, and complex system with which extremely accurate predictions could be made.
And even Newton, it is very consistent and explanatory and we can make accurate predictions, up to a point.
And then another model is needed in order for knowledge to progress.

And each of these models is based on certain fundamental assumptions and claims about reality. In the case of Newton, we have the claim of an absolute space and time, which though useful, was a limited understanding, and incorrect. And even in our present state of knowledge their are many puzzles and contradictions that could call for a totally new model, with totally new assumptions about the basics.

And this is just within the realm of physical theory. What are we to make of ethical questions. What type of theory or understanding can we have about the relationship of physical to ethical to political truth.
But let me back up. Back to the point of how we know. You are assuming, it seems that man's reason is ultimate, is absolute. What about the truth of faith, or of intuition.

You want have to look far to find someone with radically  different yet "consistent" ideas that contradict your own. Can man ground his understanding in his own reason? The enlightenment era thought say, and proudly, proclaimed the triumph of reason, and that man, and his reason was the measure of all things.

But the roots of the enlightenment itself were in the Christian faith. It was the belief in a rational God, revealed by revelation, who made man in His image, that was the foundation for the belief in a rational universe. Gradually there was a shift from the belief in the truth of revelation to the truth of reason.

This was the beginning of the modern age. But this proved to be an unstable grounding and has led to the paradoxes of postmodernism.

In what way is your consistent view superior to anyone else's consistent view. Think of the gestalt images that show one image if you look at it one way, and a completely different image if you look at it another way. It's all a matter of what you take to be figure and what you take to be ground. So depending on your starting point, your assumptions, you can see a totally different image. And these visual paradoxes have their analog in thought, as in Godel incompleteness theorem, or the many paradoxes of quantum physics, or just in the every day disagreements and misunderstandings we constantly encounter-as on this list!

The enlightenment view believed in one superior view, and this grew out of a Biblical world view. But trying to maintain this view, grounded in reason alone, has led to the abyss of unreason-to a rational and existential double bind.

Consider this link for a good discussion of this progression of ideas.
http://www.gaiamind.org/Tarnas.html
 
Good to hear from you,
Jon
 

 
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 



Jon,
 
That is a most profound question. In that ethics paper, I make some progress towards an answer.
 
To back up for a moment (just to clarify what we are talking about here) I would say that metaphysics relates to questions of existence and how the universe works. Ontology is the study of belief - now what we believe but how we believe. Epistemology is the study of the nature of truth.
 
My approach (I think) simplifies some of the manifold concerns and confusions around the relationships between these. Epistemologically, I say that something is "true" if it fits a theory. For example, Newton's law states that there are certain relationships between force, mass, and acceleration. If one makes a statement that does not "fit" that theory, such a statement may be considered epistemologically incorrect.
 
The question then becomes how do we know that the theory is valid (a question of ontology). I suggest that theories with a higher level of formal robustness or structure are more valid. For example, Newton's law is highly structured, while a pile of fortune cookies are less so. So, I would tend to believe Newton's law instead of the fortune cookies.
 
Why is my view on structure of theory correct (if it is)? Well, that is a question of metaphysics (addressing questions of existence and the universe) where I suggest that (among other ideas) everything in the universe is connected and some things are more connected than others.
 
Bringing it all full circle, I would suggest that there is a connection between theory, perception, and action. And, that the more effective theory is the one that will allow us to make the greatest change in the world (there is a whole 'nother conversation there about predictable and unpredictable change, but that is another story). The more we know, and the more structured that knowledge is, the greater effect we are able to have on the world.
 
For a more mundane example, if one has a bag of cell phone parts that cell phone will not work well - the parts are not well structured. On the other hand, if those parts are carefully interconnected, the cell phone will work effectively.
 
In short, I believe that the things I know are valid because they enable me to take action that produces more expected and unexpected change in the world (for myself and for others). If I were merely delusional, my actions would not be effective in changing the world for others - only myself (so, I hope someone is reading this - and I'm not completely delusional).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I haven't followed this thread as I could have. But here is my question-has the relationship between epitemology and ethics been discussed. The real question seems to be: how do you know?
For from your epistemology comes your metaphysics, your ethics, (which are translated into law) and your politics, etc.

So the key question is how do we know what we know?

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Steven E. Wallis <swallis@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 
[Attachment(s) from Steven E. Wallis included below]



John M,
 
Sure - here it is.
 
To me, the differences between ethics and morals are not as important as understanding how they work (I'm not sure if that is ethical or moral).
 
Your view of what ethics seems entirely normal (it would be accepted within a cultural framework). Does that beg a question? If everything is acceptable within a cultural framework, and everything exists within a cultural framework, then everything is acceptable? Hmmmm... not impossible. It does however put us in a position of comparing frameworks (Dictator vs. Socialist or cop vs. crook). Which, brings us back again to the question of which culture is "best."
 
Your use of analysis works for me as well. I like the way you are thinking here... and I suspect that is why these kinds of conversations (online, in person, in the academic literature, etc) are so challenging. As soon as someone presents a sample for study (e.g. "Let's talk about A.") someone else changes the sample by adding components (e.g. "We can explain A by B and C." or "Forget about A what is really important is X & Y & Z.").
 
When I analyze a set of ethics (or theories, or policies) I staunchly avoid interpretation (that would contaminate the sample by adding ABC-XYZ-etc). Also, I use specific, relatively objective, methods for the analysis. I think (and hope) the methods are repeatable... but that will require additional study!
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: John - M
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 12:56 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

Steven, a belated reflection:
 
If it is sendable, (or URL-wise readable) I would love to see your "analysis" of Gandhi's
"ethics" - a term in my view as an accepted position within a cultural framework (same as 'morale'? maybe more compromised). With diverse positions of interest and their allowable extent complemented into a final composition, beyond which damage would be done to interest-groups. A 'democratic' process.
 
The way I use 'analysis' is a study of a closed model for and restricted to its ingredients - period. The network of (applicable?) meanings goes further, maybe unlimited in its ramifications, so no 'analysis' can encompass 'all of it'. The term refers to an in-model study. (I performed lots of 'chemical' analyses, never went beyond those characteristics that were included in the closed model of interest in the particular case).
 
Regards
 
John M
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?


Tom,
 
You ask some good questions.
 
Regarding slavery (just as an example) my wife is first-generation American (her parents emigrated from Hungary). She cheerfully rejects any responsibility for our nation's history of slavery! In my family history, there are slave owners (one a preacher). Should I apologize? I don't think so. Original sin? Not my fault!
 
My sense is that on some level we cannot help but to do "good." Even if one does "evil," those acts still support the process of evolution and emergence that *might* be the ultimate "goal" of the universe. After all, we can't blame a cow for viciously eating the grass (or the evils of farting).
 
On another level, we do have the ability to improve ourselves - to reach out for something more. I suspect that whatever situation we face, if we take the easy way out, we make life easier for ourselves (in the short run) and more difficult for others (and, perhaps ourselves, in the long run). On the other hand, if we choose the more difficult path, we make our life easier in the long run (stuff like education, hard work).
 
To my mind, there is no set of absolute rules that must be followed - because (in time) the rules always change. instead, I see "good" from the perspective of being "a little better" than the average that is set by the rules. That keeps us moving up to better and better levels of "good" (whatever that might be).
 
Did I send you my analysis of Gandhi's ethics? Complex  (and sometimes contradictory).
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 10:12 AM
Subject: Re: [ISCE_complex-M] No Country for Old Men - Is there Evil in the world?

 

I think I said, "Hey, if you win the wars, you get to number your own calendar." And yes, those on the winning side of conflicts get to write the history. Winston Churchill said, "I believe history will treat me favorably because I plan to write it." All of that is the opposite of the main point of Deconstruction and the Post-Modern ethic, which is to emphasize of view of everyone else besides White Males raised in Western Society. Post-modernism champions the voices of women, minorities, people of color, people from Africa, people from South American, people of alternate lifestyles (other than middle-western church-going Christians) which is all fine. But it leaves White Males with a dilemma. What place does their voice have in the conversation? Are they responsible for all the wrongs done in the past.

I don't apologize for living in a country that has been on the winning side of history. I am not against anyone else with a different point of view. I just don't want my own voice to be silenced. I challenge others to add their voices to the mix.

In many senses, in the final analysis, military power does have the final say. Financial power also has great influence. The question is: What is the purpose of morality? If we are to ship food to staving children overseas, those convoys need to protected by soldiers, either from the US or the United Nations. But then the voices of the downtrodden being to boil up.

There is a continuing debate in India about whether Gandhi was good for India. There are two sides to that debate and every debate. Many people in India believe that Gandhi example held India back from moving into the modern world. How many people will sell all their possessions and spin cloth in the shade of a tree? Gandhi did not treat his wide as an equal. Gandhi had the backing of a rich financier who at one point said, "You don't know how much it costs to keep you poor." Also Gandhi was on television. I think it was John Cameron Swayze who discovered Gandhi and made him famous.

I'm just saying there are always more than one side to any debate. Take care, Tom





"If you win the war you get to number your own calendar"
 
So, I guess that proves "might makes right." Or, at least the application of force creates a shared context - although far from consensual. So... why worry about ethics if you have power? Is it the nagging sense that something is not quite right? Is it an opportunity to improve one's self? Or, is it a philosophical sales-pitch to convince others to join voluntarily the context that was created by force?
 
Thanks,
 
Steve
 
 
 

Steven E. Wallis, Ph.D.
 
Director, Foundation for the Advancement of Social Theory
Fellow, Institute for Social Innovation, Fielding Graduate University
 
 




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