virus: Re: Open Thinking

D. H. Rosdeitcher (76473.3041@compuserve.com)
01 Apr 97 22:35:26 EST


I wrote:
>>The language that the mind uses to conceive ideas does not consist of
>>spoken words, but pictures.

Corey wrote:
>... it seems to me that the
>language of the mind (or as I call it, mindspeak) isn't a picture, but
>rather a concept.

I think that sometimes concepts are put in abstract pictures instead of concrete
pictures. For instance when I got the idea to write this post, I imagined 6
sections from introduction to conclusion, which seemed to resemble a symmetrical
"bell curve" in a bar graph of 3 bars rising, 3 bars falling.

> It really is amazing that we both had
>the relatively same idea at relatively the same time. What were you thinking
about when you wrote >this post? Let's see
>if we can track this little meme down. It should be interesting.

Over the past 2 weeks I've been studying pancritical rationalism--mainly the
philosophy of Karl Popper. Popper wrote an essay about a flawed form of thinking
called 'essentialism', which is the idea that definitions of words contain the
true "essence" of the word and that to find the truth about reality you must
look to the "true meaning" of the words in question. By coincidence,
essentialism was demonstrated by Robin, who criticized my unorthodox use of a
word. How about you?
-David