Message 02124 [Homepage] [Navigation]
Thread: oxenT01690 Message: 18/89 L14 [In index]
[First in Thread] [Last in Thread] [Date Next] [Date Prev]
[Next in Thread] [Prev in Thread] [Next Thread] [Prev Thread]

Re: [ox-en] Germ of a new form of society ? [Philosophical Investigation]



Hi Niall, Hi List

Niall Douglas wrote:

I.
I should emphasise that I have rarely read the original works of any philosopher apart oddly enough, from Plato and Aristotle.

I think that's all that needed - I think you summed the above characters completely in your first post:

Thus, free software is entirely predicated on the existence of a rich elite whom like the ancient Greek philosophers we all know, only can have time & freedom to make art because they live off the toil, misery and death of the workers.

Western philosophy is the philosophy / language of the elite; sure, there is a lot of good stuff in it, like clean ontology and numerous self / other descriptive techniques ... but there's also a lot of mumbo-jumbo put in to just to confuse and otherwise control the women and the other workers.

I suspect / theorise that some of the self / other descriptive techniques ... views of the world, so to speak ... are flawed if adopted on mass. I am thinking specifically about Plato's ideal form which I have read and theorise is replicated in western religions and other categories of public thought. This is what I am trying to hack together in the *Meteors*

(As for summing things up about ourselves, we should remember that we are also the workers, and know we are aware, make a start.)

II.

 While
Russell's Principia Mathematica has been either praised or slated since it was written, I think I consider it (and the men who wrote it) important for only two reasons: (i) Incompleteness of number and (ii) that rigorous logic rationalises all problems.

The key with point (ii) is that logic won't solve problems. As Russell found, if you break everything into steps of logic you recurse back onto yourself - a Hofstadler G.E.B. "strange loop" but more accurately a fractal, or chaotic strange attractor.

Are these modeling techniques ?

III.

Hmm, and yours was the only reply :(

I know, this surprised me too. If its any consolation I don't get many
replies either :(  - I got two replies to my CRISmas Carol and they
both can be summed up with one phrase: "Same old same-old".

Imagine what would happen if someone built some software designed around maximising its ecosystemic effect?

Maybe we could print it on a card with an appropriate seasonal photo and send it out next year. This photo springs to mind:

http://openflows.org/~auskadi/zorionak.html
(Sorry Stefan ... just a joke ;)

IV.

 What are the boundaries of the ecosystem in your mind ?


None. Just lots of ecosystems inside ecosystems within other ecosystems which is as the universe is: fully recursive.


... and another ...

 What are the boundaries of the ecosystem in my mind ?


Also none. Indeed my mind and your mind are inextricably linked and the same, but also totally separate and different. The inevitable consequence of recursion :)

Remembering that we belong to the lager world and greater universe do you think it would be useful to theorise on how our collective *I* is becoming our collective *We* in order to demystify this phenomenon both to ourselves and others ?

V.

If you look at biological life, wherever complexity exceeds a
certain amount, new forms of order emerge. Actually this is also
true of the quantum mechanical substructure of the universe - this
universe and all matter is merely an emergent strand of new order
from increasing complexity. Thus it is inevitable that with time,
new and ever more complex species of life/order/creation of more
complexity will emerge.

I like this bit also.


What always surprises me is when people say this is not scientific fact. Not only is it obvious from quantum mechanics, scientists like Heisenburg and Bateson have been stating it for decades now. It's just our perceptual abilities haven't caught up yet.

This is why it'll be interesting to see how people handle software designed around some very odd (for them) principles.

To me this concerns folk being hooked-in to regenerated a Platonic form of one species or another ... not that Platonic forms aren't useful per se ... and I theorise non-harmful when used in conjunction with the metaphysics of Epicurus:

"Every explanation is sufficient ... [big snip]" http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg01916.html

This is why it'll be interesting to see how people handle software designed around some very odd (for them) principles.

I think they'll be hit with reality ... which is far nearer to Aristotle's description of phenomena than we have been lead to believe.

--
Adam

_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/



Thread: oxenT01690 Message: 18/89 L14 [In index]
Message 02124 [Homepage] [Navigation]