>Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 16:54:34 -0500
>From: "joe dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net>
>Subject: Re:virus: Being a slave to <reason> leads inevitably to delusion
>This does not make sense to Jake for two reasons:
>1) He views reason not as an enslaver but as a liberator.
>2) Jake thinks that what reason liberates people from is delusion.
Agreed.
>I see nothing inherently flawed in either of these views; in fact,
>you yourself are attempting to reason with Jake in order to free
>him from what you view as delusions he might hold. Your words
>and the fact that you're using them for the purpose you intend
>mutually contradict.
Close. I understand Jake's perspective and I understand the alternative that I'm presenting. He only understands the first, which you have described. I am trying to help him see both sides. But, don't you think it's somewhat rude to talk about people in the third person when they are right in front of us? Why don't we talk about it this way: Do you see both sides?
>>Every gramatical statement makes sense.
>
>This is simply wrong.
>The famous philosophical example is the sentence
>"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
>It is grammatically impeccable, yet meaningless.
Really? Your philosophy lacks imagination.
Nothing is simple, but nothing else is.
>Well, you were confidently definitively wrong when
>you asserted that all grammatically correct sentences
> made some sort of sense. You could be wrong about
>other things as well.
But, as I have demonstrated, I was right in a sense. I am also right, in many senses, about a great many other things. Do you understand?
Reed
Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------