Re: a small trick, and some God-talk

Omega (omega@pacific.net)
Sat, 01 Feb 1997 02:31:29 -0800


Eric,

> Yes. Unfortunately, this leaves traditional logic, with its valuable
> refusal to tolerate contradiction, out in the cold. The amazing
> thing is that there is one *incredibly* powerful perspective
> (developed mostly by a few ancient Greeks and postmedieval Europeans,
> mostly men) built around noncontradiction and the scientific method,
> which one hardly ever needs to shift out of at all when dealing
> with non-persons.

Maybe not so amazing when we realize that this European logic, is so
powerful because for the first time the human race finally captured
the essential logic of the particular Fourier space that our bodies
are localized in. The Cartesian coordinate system IS, after all, the
coordinate system that captures localization within this Fourier space.

> But this huge incredibly powerful perspective of
> physical science gives no value guidance whatsoever: it leads to
> something like Spock syndrome or Hinayana Buddhism (the
> stepping-off-the-wheel variety of Buddhism... *not* my trip).

That's the problem, what we are familiar with in our formal logic
is simply too narrow to capture the fullness of reality. But
hopefully a recognition of its limits might lead us to broaden
our horizons.

> Once
> you start tossing in a bunch of different value-centered Fourier
> spaces (necessary for dealing with persons productively) things
> get messy fast. They get especially messy-looking to the people
> who have grown up within and never learned how to leave the
> value-neutral physical science model.

A messyness that is compounded by people promoting alternative
logics and cultural relativism without any regard whatsoever
for the truth. This is what it all boils down to, do we have
a committment to speak the best truth we can when bouncing
around from viewpoint to viewpoint.

-- 
In the Ecstatic Service of Life -- Omega