Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 13:31:26 -0500
From: hugh bone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: sideways - incapacity



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2004 11:06 AM
Subject: RE: sideways - incapacity


> Hugh,
> 
> It's good to hear from you. Welcome back!
> 
> Just a couple of points in response....
:
******************************************************************************************
Thanks, Eric, 

My absence was involuntary - health problems and computer problems.


Eric wrote:
 
> 1. I guess I'm suspicious of separate laws for physics as opposed to
> living organisms, if only because the line between living and non-living
> appears to be a rather permeable membrane.

REPLY: For me, :" permeable membrane"  suggests life.  If other universes exist, perhaps a membrane could be alive and dead at the same time and 
would need a name. 

> If we accept the theory of > the big bang, then temporality is deeply embedded in > this particular  manifestation of the universe and evolution might apply to things  > > well as to animals.

REPLY:  The Universe "evolves"  (bangs, suns, black  holes )  which humans perceive as perturbations of  lifeless "things". pending discovery of "life" beyond
our planet.

> 2, Besides sense and memory, don't we need to formulate something like a
> intellect which is capable of acting upon sensations in novel ways to
> transform a immediate situation and ultimately to irrevocably change an
> environment.

REPLY:  For me, intellect "is" sense and memory - the life-history of  the organism-brain capable of  intelligent thought.
> 
> 3. Expanding upon this thought and linking it to the concept of general
> intellect we have been discussing, don't the time-binding properties of
> culture tend to act as a kind of mega-quasi-organism, in ways similar to
> those described by complexity theorists in terms of artificial life.

REPLY:  Artificial life is computer logic manipulating  computer inputs and outputs according to stringent rules.  Real life is flesh and bone individuals 
in socio-political situations.

> Such a culture requires energy in the form of humans who plug themselves
> into the system in order to sustain it.(and in which the latter benefit
> in symbiotic fashion). Yet the system appears to have distinct
> self-organizing properties which may cause it to act in dynamic ways
> ultimately opposed to human interest.  (Consider the looming oil crisis
> and global warming as cases in point.)
> 

REPLY:  I think "self-organizing"  is an apt metaphor for the laws of physics in a 
possibly lifeless universe outside planet Earth, but the crises you mention were  caused by the individuals who used their socio-political powers to benefit the entrepreneurs who profited from dependence on oil,  and those who profited from industries whose emissions are warming the planet.

regards,
Hugh
Hugh


> eric 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> [mailto:owner-lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of hugh bone
> Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 2:28 PM
> To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject: Re: sideways - incapacity
> 
> Eric, Geof, All
> 
> A few comments on this topic:
> 
> 1) Organism and Environment - What any one of millions of organisms can
> "know" is a function of its senses and the particular environment
> stimulates 
> those senses.
> 
> 2) The regularities that humans observe in the world of physics,
> gravity,
> heat, speed of light, fields and forces do not seem to change.
> 
> 3) "Knowing" in humans, and perhaps other mammals, is a function of
> senses, 
> consciousness, memory.  It occurs only in living tissue, is
> "represented" 
> with words, images, actions, is "actual" only for one time and only for
> one 
> place.  Scientists detect brain activity, but only the individual knows
> its 
> thoughts and feelings.
> 
> 4) In contrast to the "laws" of physics, the "laws" of living entities
> evolve with individuals.  An individual is an ephemeral product of its
> life 
> history; a product of all the events experienced during its life, which
> was, 
> in turn, initiated by the DNA of its ancestors.
> 
> 5) The essence of  "matter" is human knowledge of species evolution and
> the 
> constancy of physics.
> 
> 6) Perhaps other universes and any life in those universes would have
> different physical laws and different forms of evolution.
> 
> Hugh Bone
> 
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Eric" <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
> To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 10:42 PM
> Subject: RE: sideways - incapacity
> 
> 
>> Geof,
>>
>> I know there are some Stoic elements to Deleuze, but that is hardly a
>> recommendation. In my opinion, Nietzsche was wrong about Christianity.
>> It wasn't Platonism for the masses. It was Stoicism. That is why
>> conservatives like Tom Wolfe (A Man in Full) have always embraced it,
>> even when they couldn't stomach the washed in the blood of the lamb
>> mythology.
>>
>> Stoicism is just sucking it in, hiding the repressive loss of pleasure
>> under the splendid mask of virtue.  It is always the Stoic superego
> that
>> tells us nature has a plan and is providential, when we know in our
>> hearts that nature simply makes it up as she goes along.
>>
>> eric
>>
>>
>> 
>


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