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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Robert -</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>I took a chance with my perceived credibility by writing an
opening paragraph parodying the style of Derrida. It contained virtually
zero direct content, but many allusions to profundity. I received offlist
comments that were *very* appreciative of the humor, but I'm afraid others may
have taken a quick look and thought something like "there's Jef being
inscrutable again."</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>As I said to Natasha, I spent some considerable time
looking into postmodernism, for the purpose of understanding, relating, and
better communicating with those who view the world from that mindset. Over the
years I have taken a similar approach to understanding beliefs about
Christianity, other religions, Buddhism, other philosophies, paganism,
parapsychology, occult practices, drug use and abuse and other less than
rational areas. Hell, a few days ago, I spent a half hour in conversation
with a clearly deranged homeless person camping in a public park. Our
conversation was almost entirely bereft of substance, but I came away with a
deeper understanding of his world.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>But back to postmodernism. My bottom-line and
crude assessment is that postmodernism represents essentially a
bottomless pit of navel-gazing, mental masturbation and academic
in-fighting. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>I think Derrida did have a valuable point about the
contextual relativity of meaning and how the contextual sphere extends to
the reader and even beyond, and quite probably he made some other good points,
but the [IMHO] self-inflicted vagueness and obfuscation makes it
an anti-extropic use of time. And l</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>et's not forget
the Sokal hoax as another important indicator on this topic. It
reminds me of certain forms of "abstract" art which some people (by virtue of
their "sophistication") will find to be very profound, while others may observe
that this says more about the person and society than it does about the actual
work of art We should also recognize that there is a certain response in
the brain that can trigger a very real sense of awe and profundity regardless of
the stimulus providing any real substantial content. Examples include
feelings of profound significance induced by drugs, directed intercranial
magnetic fields, epileptic fits, hormonal fluctuations or even the hypnotic
influence of being part of a large crowd.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>That said, I value very highly the freedom of individuals
to follow these paths, I appreciate the diversity generated by such
"unproductive" efforts, and I trust that overall, that which is more effective
will tend to persist and grow to our benefit.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=918370417-02112006><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>-
Jef</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Robert
Bradbury<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, November 02, 2006 2:10 AM<BR><B>To:</B> ExI
chat list<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [extropy-chat] PHIL: Derrida and
Deconstruction<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV><BR>
<DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 10/31/06, <B class=gmail_sendername>Jef
Allbright</B> <<A
href="mailto:jef@jefallbright.net">jef@jefallbright.net</A>> wrote:</SPAN>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"> If
I were asked this in a personal sense, although not, of course, in the person
of Derrida, but rather, as one who might have a sense of some aspect of being
that is Derrida, I might answer that it is in large part unknowable, but in
some small part I could say that the crossover, however small, gathers meaning
from the context of the question, and the questioner. [snip] <BR></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><BR>Being unfamiliar with Derrida (and much "philosopy" for that matter [I
know a little about Chomsky]) I briefly scanned his Wikipedia entry. One
thing I wondered (given how long his entry is) is *why* do people care so much
about this stuff? <BR><BR>As a total aside, when one gets into these
"transhumanist" vs. "postmodernist", vs. xyzzy-ist "type" discussions, I am
struck by some of the similarities between fields like philosophy and computer
science. For example programmers can have long and passionate debates over the
relative merits of C++ vs. Perl vs. Python vs. Java (and don't even mention Lisp
or Smalltalk). One difference between computer science and philosophy is
that in the former the discussions can rely on some generally agreed upon
definitions that mean the same thing to everyone. In the later I'm less
sure that that is the case. <BR><BR>With computers a 1 is a 1, a 0 is a 0, an
"and" and an "or" are certain things you can do with them. With
philopsophy, at least at some levels, those things are still being defined and
debated. It seems that much of the discussion originated before any modern
hunderstanding of what the brain is and how it works (neuroscience) which in
turn is developing in parallel with the understanding of the hardware itself
(molecular and genomic biology). With philosophers, not only do you have
this *huge* body of knowledge, represented by relatively nondeterministic and
highly unique neural patterns but its running on top of hardware (genetic
polymorphisms) which may have sufficient differences that it may be relatively
impossible for the individuals to "think" the same way. In computer
science one would look at it and say its simple -- machine X executes the X
instruction set and machine Y executes the Y instruction set and there is no way
that either of them is ever going to execute each other's instructions
[1]. The best you can do is create sort of an abstraction (which is what
higher level languages are) that let machine X and machine Y accomplish specific
tasks in their own way. One has to wonder if the entire area of philosophy
is nothing more than a complex variation of this. <BR><BR>It will be interesting
to see how philosophy deals with differences in genetic polymorphisms and neural
structures that explain precisely why Chomsky could never have understood
Derrida, why a postmodernist can never understand a humanist, etc.
<BR><BR>Robert<BR><BR>1. One could consider spoken languages, written languages
and perhaps cultures to be parallels to computer languages and computer
instruction sets -- but they are *so* much less precise that one would wonder
whether people not educated in computer science (presumably most philosophers)
can even begin to comprehend the degree to which they are communicating with
play-doh? <BR></DIV><BR></DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>