"We think in generalities, we live in details"
RE: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« on: 2004-03-27 05:57:14 »
[Blunderov] I think it was Parmenides who formalized the rule that 'nothing comes from nothing' (ex nihilo nihil fit). IM(V)HO Plato may have misunderstood Parmenides argument when he said (if I recall correctly) that this must imply that nothing could change; my understanding of Parmenides is that he said everything that exists, has always existed. I do not understand him to mean that 'existence' is synonymous with 'form'.
The thought strikes me that 'nothing comes from nothing' may offer a litmus-test in the problem of how to discriminate between abstract and concrete. How about the proposition that: if a thing can be described as having the ability to increase without this increase being at the expense of some other thing, then that concept is an abstract concept?
For instance is it possible that we can imagine more 'love' in the world without it being at the expense of something else? Quite easily it seems to me. Abstract.
Likewise with 'information'.
Conversely, is it possible to imagine more chairs in the world without them being at the expense of some other thing. Well, no. Concrete.
I ran into a bit of a difficulty with 'chastity'. I'm not too sure whether chastity wouldn't be at the expense of 'sex' and vice versa, although I suspect that this may not be necessarily true. I can't make up my mind as to whether this falsifies my notion or not.
(Much more likely is that I have overlooked some completely obvious falsification.)
Re: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« Reply #1 on: 2004-03-27 09:59:50 »
All things have some expense.
Information is gained at the expense of storage and transmission capacity.
Memes fight for concious mindshare. Conciousness is a very limited resource. --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
True enough; information (meaningful pattern) does not exist in the abstract, as pure form. It must be instantiated (coded) in matter/energy. Even our 'abstract' thoughts likewise are encoded in dynamic energy patterns flitting through our neurons and synapses. Perceived pattern is meaningful insomuch as it triggers a patterned response (recognition/recall based upon relationship to past experience) in the cognitive neuron/synapse network which it reaches via the senses (vision, audition, olfaction, gustation and taction). All concepts are grounded in percepts, and recurse to inform them.
A phenomenological interpretation of Parmenides appear when one considers our various sensory modalities as constant form-specific containers, and their received contents as the variable matter. Thus, the Heraclitan stimuli flit into and out of our perceptual fields, while they, form-wise, Remain-Here-Now in an Eternal-Present, Parminidean manner.
True enough; information (meaningful pattern) does not exist in the abstract, as pure form. It must be instantiated (coded) in matter/energy. Even our 'abstract' thoughts likewise are encoded in dynamic energy patterns flitting through our neurons and synapses. Perceived pattern is meaningful insomuch as it triggers a patterned response (recognition/recall based upon relationship to past experience) in the cognitive neuron/synapse network which it reaches via the senses (vision, audition, olfaction, gustation and taction). All concepts are grounded in percepts, and recurse to inform them.
"We think in generalities, we live in details"
RE: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« Reply #6 on: 2004-03-27 12:50:29 »
Erik Aronesty Sent: 27 March 2004 05:00 PM To: Church of Virus Subject: Re: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
All things have some expense.
Information is gained at the expense of storage and transmission capacity.
Memes fight for concious mindshare. Conciousness is a very limited resource.
[Blunderov]Mmm. Not looking good for the hypothesis. But I haven't quiet abandoned it yet - every daddys' duckling is a swan.
I still puzzling about whether information can be said to have an existence which is in any way separate from its' residence. Can a thing be said to be stored in itself? Would this make a difference either way? I'm a bit stuck I admit.
Thanks to all who provided their thoughts. I've a long way to go with this one.
RE: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« Reply #7 on: 2004-03-27 14:57:28 »
--- Blunderov <squooker@mweb.co.za> wrote: > The thought strikes me that 'nothing comes from > nothing' may offer a > litmus-test in the problem of how to discriminate > between abstract and > concrete. How about the proposition that: if a thing > can be described as > having the ability to increase without this increase > being at the > expense of some other thing, then that concept is an > abstract concept? > > For instance is it possible that we can imagine more > 'love' in the world > without it being at the expense of something else? > Quite easily it seems > to me. Abstract.
An abstract increases at the expense of other abstracts. "Love", for instance, could be said to increase at the expense of "hate", "rejection", or "disgust". This thus does not seem like a good test for abstractness to me, since you'd have to already have determined whether the things it's at the cost of are themselves abstracts.
"We think in generalities, we live in details"
RE: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« Reply #8 on: 2004-03-27 16:03:57 »
Eva-Lise Carlstrom Sent: 27 March 2004 09:57 PM
An abstract increases at the expense of other abstracts. "Love", for instance, could be said to increase at the expense of "hate", "rejection", or "disgust". This thus does not seem like a good test for abstractness to me, since you'd have to already have determined whether the things it's at the cost of are themselves abstracts.
[Blunderov]Surely not? If I have another child does it mean that my love for any others becomes diminished? Or that my hate for, say, infomercials is reduced?
(True, I'm clinging to my premise that information is abstract.)
Re: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« Reply #9 on: 2004-03-27 22:32:48 »
Love itself is not a limited resource, since one can, quite easily, love all of mankind, or even the whole universe in one instant, and then, equally, think is's all a bunch of crap in the next.
Incidentally, I tend to waffle between those two states fairly often...
Love decreaes hate, but not love.
Perhaps abstracts, when used or wielded (in the strictly nethackian sense) decrease the availability of inverse/competing abstracts, but not the availability of themselves, they are limited only by mind-space.
"We think in generalities, we live in details"
RE: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« Reply #10 on: 2004-03-28 01:36:20 »
Jonathan Davis Sent: 27 March 2004 05:47 PM To: virus@lucifer.com Subject: RE: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
Welcome back Joe. I am genuinely delighted to see you back again. Thanks Blunderov for husbanding this happy outcome.
It would be great if we could get all the great Virians back. With Joe back, one in particular remains sorely missed.
[Blunderov]A pleasure Jonathan. Bear in mind that Joe deserves half of the credit. Which reminds me -welcome back Joe! Other strayed sheep? Well, we live in hope. Best regards
I sincerely hope that the Pied Piper guru of other-than-worshipful-clone totalitarian intolerance, logorrheal browbeating, Stalinist silencing, vicious, vituperative ad hominem, off-list conspiratorial plotting, and cornucopially vomitous and vile mother-slander is not being invited back from his most blessedly long absence to infect and inflict his megalomaniacal self upon this beleaguered site yet again. That long absence is the only reason I agreed to forgive the unjust and unfair railroading I experienced here and return at all, hoping that time had clarified and cleansed the poisoned well which, with his twisted help, this forum had become. I had actually despaired of its ever recovering from such extremist fanatically fervent zealotry as he had nurtured and, by example, inspired in some emotionally-blinded-to-logic-and-evidence dittohead minion sheeple here, and had actually, and sadly, expected him to succeed in his stated ambition of ramrodding this site into completely abandoning any pretense to balance and objectivity and becoming just another nauseous Said-Rall-Fisk-Pilger+Chomsky-genuflecting clone of such paragon-of-fringe-mentality sites as the Democratic Underground, Indymedia, Zmag and the Yellow News. I quite simply will not cohabit this site with such sick, demented and disgusting detritus.
And thank you most muchly, Jonathan, for taking up the baton that was ripped from my unwilling hand and running with it so well. Your blackness made you ideal for that purpose; it would've been ludicrous beyond measure for the former South African white boy (apologies to the much more rational and reasonable Blunderov) to have attempted to plaster YOU with the racist label he so mightily, pitifully and pathetically strove to staple to me with a superglue gun.
Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in
Re: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« Reply #12 on: 2004-03-28 11:49:30 »
Like I said, Joe. Welcome back. Sincerely.
Since we're all in a warm, fuzzy, touchy-feely mood upon your return, I would CERTAINLY accept an apology from you for labeling me one of those "emotionally-blinded-to-logic-and-evidence dittohead (Hermit) minion" (s) when you left.
That is, unless you want to back it up with something I actually said.
Respectfully, Walter <looking forward to civility and peaceful discourse>
Joe Dees wrote:
> I sincerely hope that the Pied Piper guru of other-than-worshipful-clone totalitarian intolerance, logorrheal browbeating, Stalinist silencing, vicious, vituperative ad hominem, off-list conspiratorial plotting, and cornucopially vomitous and vile mother-slander is not being invited back from his most blessedly long absence to infect and inflict his megalomaniacal self upon this beleaguered site yet again. That long absence is the only reason I agreed to forgive the unjust and unfair railroading I experienced here and return at all, hoping that time had clarified and cleansed the poisoned well which, with his twisted help, this forum had become. I had actually despaired of its ever recovering from such extremist fanatically fervent zealotry as he had nurtured and, by example, inspired in some emotionally-blinded-to-logic-and-evidence dittohead minion sheeple here, and had actually, and sadly, expected him to succeed in his stated ambition of ramrodding this site into compl! > etely abandoning any pretense to balance and objectivity and becoming just another nauseous Said-Rall-Fisk-Pilger+Chomsky-genuflecting clone of such paragon-of-fringe-mentality sites as the Democratic Underground, Indymedia, Zmag and the Yellow News. I quite simply will not cohabit this site with such sick, demented and disgusting detritus. > > And thank you most muchly, Jonathan, for taking up the baton that was ripped from my unwilling hand and running with it so well. Your blackness made you ideal for that purpose; it would've been ludicrous beyond measure for the former South African white boy (apologies to the much more rational and reasonable Blunderov) to have attempted to plaster YOU with the racist label he so mightily, pitifully and pathetically strove to staple to me with a superglue gun. > > ---- > This message was posted by Joe Dees to the Virus 2004 board on Church of Virus BBS. > <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=30091> > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
--
Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
"Pursue the small utopias... nature, music, friendship, love" --Kupferberg--
Fair enough. I will accept your word on this. But I do have a question for the list members: Elven stated to me that the individual in question conspired with him offlist to co-ordinate attacks upon me. He also stated that he was far from the only one so co-ordinated. In fact, he told me that this action was one of the things that soured him on this nefarious individual and persuaded him to speak up/out concerning him, after which it seems that, due to fear of opposing him publicly, Elven's privately communicated off-list support failed to publicly materialize, leaving him feeling abandoned and betrayed. Would the rest of the members involved in that rancid scheme do me the favor of fessing up? I am quite willing to let bygones be bygones as far as those who were persuaded to aid and abet his anti-me putsch-plot-pogram-persecution are concerned; I'm just curious as to how broad and deep it went, and think that it is only fair that I be so enlightened. It is quite alright with me if the individuals involved, due to understandable shame at their involvement in such vile machinations, prefer to enlighten me privatly rather than publicly. I promise not to betray their confidence.
Re: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
« Reply #14 on: 2004-03-28 22:17:47 »
If this is the kind of discussion we can expect now that Joe is back, I am out of here.
David
----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe Dees" <hidden@lucifer.com> To: <virus@lucifer.com> Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 2:56 AM Subject: RE: virus: Parmenides and the problem of abstract and concrete.
> > I sincerely hope that the Pied Piper guru of other-than-worshipful-clone totalitarian intolerance, logorrheal browbeating, Stalinist silencing, vicious, vituperative ad hominem, off-list conspiratorial plotting, and cornucopially vomitous and vile mother-slander is not being invited back from his most blessedly long absence to infect and inflict his megalomaniacal self upon this beleaguered site yet again. That long absence is the only reason I agreed to forgive the unjust and unfair railroading I experienced here and return at all, hoping that time had clarified and cleansed the poisoned well which, with his twisted help, this forum had become. I had actually despaired of its ever recovering from such extremist fanatically fervent zealotry as he had nurtured and, by example, inspired in some emotionally-blinded-to-logic-and-evidence dittohead minion sheeple here, and had actually, and sadly, expected him to succeed in his stated ambition of ramrodding this site into completely abandoning any pretense to balance and objectivity and becoming just another nauseous Said-Rall-Fisk-Pilger+Chomsky-genuflecting clone of such paragon-of-fringe-mentality sites as the Democratic Underground, Indymedia, Zmag and the Yellow News. I quite simply will not cohabit this site with such sick, demented and disgusting detritus. > > And thank you most muchly, Jonathan, for taking up the baton that was ripped from my unwilling hand and running with it so well. Your blackness made you ideal for that purpose; it would've been ludicrous beyond measure for the former South African white boy (apologies to the much more rational and reasonable Blunderov) to have attempted to plaster YOU with the racist label he so mightily , pitifully and pathetically strove to staple to me with a superglue gun. > > ---- > This message was posted by Joe Dees to the Virus 2004 board on Church of Virus BBS. > <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=30091> > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l> >