If the desire for knowledge is more important to you than personal
happiness, does that not mean that, rather, the desire for knowledge is
instead an important component IN your personal happiness?
Do not confuse detachment with apathy. "Nothing is true" is very different
from "nothing matters." I discuss this and the Level stuff in the last
chapter of my book Virus of the Mind.
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/
Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
Free newsletter! Visit Meme Central at
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf Of
Joe E. Dees
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 1998 9:17 AM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: RE: virus: No God
From: "Richard Brodie" <richard@brodietech.com>
To: <virus@lucifer.com>
Subject: RE: virus: No God
Date sent: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 00:11:33 -0700
Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
> I've never heard of him, and neither has 99.9999% of the world (being
> generous). He's a figure in a cult you've been raised in, a cult that has
> programmed you with countless memes that interfere with your full
enjoyment
> of and contribution to life.
>
> Joe, I don't mean to insult you---I like you! But the reason I've started
> posting to this group again is that I see the possibility of disinfecting
> several if not dozens of people from some very destructive memes.
>
> Some gentle questions if you care to consider them: when did you first
> become programmed to think that supporting your assertions was a Good
Thing
> To Do? What credentials, in your mind, make a person worthy of quoting to
> support your assertions? What was Mr. Greimas's life like? Did he enjoy
> life? Was he happy? What is important to you? Truth? Your own happiness?
The
> survival of humanity? Humanity's happiness?
>
> Thanks for your contributions, Joe.
>
> Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/
> Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
> http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
> Free newsletter! Visit Meme Central at
> http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
>
Have you heard of the Greimassian Square of linguistic logical
meaning? It might be useful for you to look it up in The Analytical
Dictionary of Semiotics, co-authored by one A. J. Greimas. If there
is no such thing as support for anyone's assertions, or it is
dogmatically forbidden, no one gets anywhere (as far as
understanding goes), for debate cannot evolve more complete,
concise, precise and elegant expressions of states of affairs. If you
want to know of Greimas' credentials, read his books or contact the
Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (in Paris), where he
was professor of general semantics until his death in 1992. As to
answer your question concerning what I care about, I have a
hierarchy of cares, as most of us do, and although personal
happiness is high on the list, it is superceded by the desire to
understand (and understanding is of truth, in most cases).
Otherwise, I might as well wire my pleasure center to a wall socket
and veg out. Neither care matters in the "cosmic" order of things,
but in my own personal existence, I care about my cares, and
choose to care about them. After all, each individual has the
freedom (if not always the knowledge of it) to choose what, if
anything, matters to him/herself. I do have a slight problem
conceiving of the state where nothing matters being a cognitive
advance, or whether people in such a state would ever
feel the need to communicate at all. Joe
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com] On Behalf
Of
> Joe E. Dees
> Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 1998 11:41 PM
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: RE: virus: No God
>
> A. J. Greimas, along with Jean Piaget and Claude Levi-Strauss, is
> one of the foremost structuralists od the second half of the twentieth
> century, and he labored all his life on the structure of meaning (cf.
> Structural Semantics, the standard in the field). Hardly a random
> academic! I'm surprised that you, of all people, seem oblivious to
> his existence. There is actually a school of semiotic thought
> (Greimassian semiotics) named after the guy. I was alsounder the
> (apparently mistaken) impression that supporting your assertions
> was supposed to be a Good Thing To Do. How unenlightened of
> me! Joe