From: "fuller" <fuller-AT-bekkers.com.au>
Subject: Re: more on cyborgs and the inhuman
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 23:29:15 +0800


Hey Eric,

Where would I find this essay published? I will have a look in my library.
It seems quite interesting. I love it! So much to read!

Also it seems quite odd he would use the phrase "more correct", or am I not
understanding the quotes properly?
Is he framing the 'correctness' on a scale implicit in his understanding of
epistemology, where there is an inherent transition towards a more
'correct'?
I suppose he does say "philosophically viewed". Perhaps I am too much a
child of pomo, but it seems to contradict what he writes in the first quote,
well maybe not contradict, rather he doesn't apply the same logic of
breaking up "the structuring of this dualism" of the alcoholic, to his own
philosophic dualism.

I just don't like his use of the word correct without some form of direct
qualifier, perhaps I am being too anal, I am normally not anal... it is
worrying. Perhaps all pomo peoples are anal ;).

When you write "implicated in this complexity",  in my previous post I was
looking towards localised realisation of this complexity (within the
everyday) as being a referent for, literally, like minded peoples (or
not-like minded peoples as a gauge of difference, Otherness).

It struck me, from the link Hugh provided, that the fourth level of learning
would have to incorporate an understanding of the complexities of differing
complexities, or as the page from the link put it, the contexts of contexts.
I was partaking in some freestyle philosophizing.

Glen.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Murphy&Salstrand" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 7:19 PM
Subject: Re: more on cyborgs and the inhuman


> hugh/glen/all:
>
> Bateson, Olson and I are not talking fatalism here. What we are saying
> is that one of the reasons the earth doesn't do a good job of taking
> care of its feathers and society is precisely because of the Occidental
> Cartesian view of the Agent as separate and delimited that our culture
> has been implicitly advocating. We are all implicated in this complexity
> and what I have been advocating in terms of the cyborg is the simple
> recognition of this basic insight.  The Bateson quote came from his
> essay "The Cybernetics of Self: A Theory of Alchololism." Here is
> another quote from that essay:
>
> "In sum, I shall argue that the "sobriety" of the alcholic is
> characterized by an unusually disastrous variant of the Cartesian
> dualism, the division between Mind and Matter, or, in this case, between
> conscious will, or "self," and the remainder of the personality.  Bill
> W's stroke of genius was to break up with the first "step" the
> structuring of this dualism."
>
> "Philosophically viewed, this first step is not a surrender; it is
> simply a change in epistemology, a change in how to know about the
> personality-in-the-world.  And notably, the change is from an incorrect
> to a more correct epistemology."
>
> God can't change the past perhaps, but we can, by the way we interpret
> it!
>
> eric
>
>
> >
> > Eric,
> >
> > Bateson could have enumerated all the atomic particles of all the atoms
of
> > all the molecules in all the proteins in all the cells of the axman.
After
> > the fact, such totality and inevitability
> > seems to confirm pure fatalism..  Even God cannot change the past.
Those ax
> > strokes seem to have little effect on the social fate that threatens
> > Occidentals and Orientals alike.  If your boat sank you could remember
> > Bateson, take nap while your body swam ashore.
> >
> > Olsen is right too,  Its a poetic thought.   Of course, the whole earth
> > takes care of the feather, and all the other feathers, and societies,
often
> > badly.
> >
> > Its the old question of who are we and what can we do about it, and why
does
> > it matter?
> >
> > best,
> > Hugh
>