Philosophy: books and discussion

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by TimMason

Not really. Some moral dilemmas are over 'right thinking' (or thought crimes if you prefer). My coveting my neighbour's ass makes no difference to the neighbour or to his ass, but it's still a sin, according to Christian doctrine.

I'd happily ditch that notion from any system of morality I'd adopt (my neighbour has a lovely ass ).

But here, it is the act of thinking that has consequences.
Is it feasible to develop a moral system without believing actions have consequences?

Originally Posted by TimMason

Moreover, the consequences of a morally bad action may be positive. That doesn't make it all right. Does it?

I was thinking 'Actions have consequences' would be a universal basis for rules, rather than being a rule itself.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TGS

Your argument (suggestion/contention/observation - I'm not sure what the status of the above passage is), is that a lot of people have believed something for a long time, therefore...therefore what? We should immerse ourselves in the same antediluvian fog? It must be true?

Take that as you want. Who knows if they believed it? Should there always be a therefore? It must be true what? That the cult of the Mother is possibly the longer lasting concept in humankind?

Originally Posted by TGS

No one who has not taken mescalin and seen the spirits of the cactus enter a man's body and transform him into a coyote can only imagine it, or read about it and quite easily reduce it to some drug-induced hallucination. So what? They are probably right to do so. To think otherwise is simply to build immunity to scrutiny into your mythology - which many systems of myth do, but that doesn't make them true.

I am inclined to think that reality for you start when it is well written up and documented so that you can discuss it.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by beppe

That the cult of the Mother is possibly the longer lasting concept in humankind?

Was it a cult of motherhood or a cult of fertility?

Fertility was obviously a matter of life and death to our ancient ancestors; so I don't find it surprising they obsessed about it somewhat.
It must have been even more amazing for them to see fruit ripening each year, than it is to us.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TGS

Ah, Robert Graves, a world renowned anthropologist!

I answer your sarcastic comment just out of friendship. Reread my post.

I was asked a question for an entry point and I suggested any anthropology handbook.

Then I added that my original entry point had been Robert Graves book. Still much debated and discussed until recently, by the way. Obviously that subject is rather unnerving.

Now, if I had suggested an entry point such a history book on prehistory, like the first volume of the Fisher collection, you would have commented
a) Robert Graves, a world renowned historian
b) Robert Graves, a world renowned fisherman
c) Robert Graves, a world renowned collector
d) some other intelligent remark

[TGS]

Originally Posted by beppe

Take that as you want. Who knows if they believed it? Should there always be a therefore? It must be true what? That the cult of the Mother is possibly the longer lasting concept in humankind?

Sorry, I misunderstood, I thought your passage that I quoted was a contribution to an ongoing discussion. I asked "therefore what?" to try to encourage you to articulate, so that I could understand, what implications you were drawing from your observation that the cult of the Mother is possibly the longest lasting cult known to humankind, in the context of that discussion. It seemed that you were using the longevity and distribution of the cult as evidence, or at least suggestive, of something. Perhaps I am mistaken, perhaps you are drawing no implications but simply making an observation.

Originally Posted by beppe

I am inclined to think that reality for you start when it is well written up and documented so that you can discuss it.

On the contrary, however, discussion of reality, such as might take place on a discussion thread, can only start once one has found a form of words which approximate a representation, or give some hint or suggestion as to the nature, of that reality.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TimMason

Beppe, Robert Graves made stuff up.

Large female figurines, such as those at Catal Hoyuk, have been taken as proof of the longevity of the Mother Goddess. But the people who are closest to those figurines no longer believe that they represent a deity, or that they were objects of worship. You can't get there from here (unless you want to believe that Robert Crumb is her most recent secret priest).

P.S. I *always* read the manual.

Of course not, they were used as paper holders.
I haven't got yet his latest effort that is concerned about the Old Testament. He has a nice guru figure in his early stories. That guy with the long white beard and a sort of night shirt on.

R.G., like most poets, made most of his things up. He was also an avid reader, and maybe not so scientific in assessing the value of his sources. Then why not throw him in the waste basket? I read most of his stuff and I admire him profoundly.

I am glad that you read the manuals. I don't need to do it because my wife has a Doctorate in Electric Engineering and not only she reads them carefully, but memorize them (she is a sped reader) and keeps them in updated folders. Unluckily she is not so gifted in cooking.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TGS

Sorry, I misunderstood, I thought your passage that I quoted was a contribution to an ongoing discussion. I asked "therefore what?" to try to encourage you to articulate, so that I could understand, what implications you were drawing from your observation that the cult of the Mother is possibly the longest lasting cult known to humankind, in the context of that discussion. It seemed that you were using the longevity and distribution of the cult as evidence, or at least suggestive, of something. Perhaps I am mistaken, perhaps you are drawing no implications but simply making an observation.

Good. It seemed to me, when I made that post, that there was a search for some long lasting universal, and by a confutation technique, the bicycle riding of Plato was invoked. I suggested what I think is our most "permanent" concept (the word was chosen carefully). So if one looks for universals (space-time in my intention, literally universal is associated with just space), one could consider the oldest still around. Obviously, going with the very old we are in a pre-history contest. Concepts of that kind arrive to us through myths that have a strong poetic content.

Originally Posted by TGS

On the contrary, however, discussion of reality, such as might take place on a discussion thread, can only start once one has found a form of words which approximate a representation, or give some hint or suggestion as to the nature, of that reality.

By all means. That's how we communicate. Although there is a wise man traditions in certain cultures of making use of synthetic metaphors and even pictures. But you are right. In this tread we have to stay with words, and philosophic approaches. It was really the Plato bicycle that triggered my rebel nature. If some one was offended I apologize

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Was it a cult of motherhood or a cult of fertility?

Fertility was obviously a matter of life and death to our ancient ancestors; so I don't find it surprising they obsessed about it somewhat.
It must have been even more amazing for them to see fruit ripening each year, than it is to us.

Hi Sparrow. Good questions. I am not an expert, although I have read some. What we know is mostly by the traces that were left in the documented cults, that is, already in historical times. That is a common problem in philosophy when an important source has evidence not per se but in its claimed influence on documented stuff. Like in the case of Socrates, for instance. Stanford Encyclopedia has a nice section on this point. You find it at the bottom of the page.

I have the impression that motherhood as such was a minor issue, except in the life giving, therefore fertility.

I do not think that they were amazed by the fruit ripening. For one thing that went on and on season after season for quite a while

[beppe]

I got to go guys. Thank you for the patience.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by beppe

I do not think that they were amazed by the fruit ripening. For one thing that went on and on season after season for quite a while

True ; but the arrival of spring must have been a huge relief; winter was probably a life threatening time for many of them.

I've always thought the medieval lyrics to the Spring section of Carmina Burana captured the relief and joy at the final departure of winter, and the warm embrace of spring and renewed growth.
"Behold, the pleasant and longed-for spring brings back joyfulness, violet flowers fill the meadows, the sun brightens everything, sadness is now at an end!"
Some years it must have seemed liked a deliverance from imminent death.

[TimMason]

A quick aside on kinds of knowledge. Psychologists distinguish between two kinds of knowledge: declarative and performative. This first is made known through language, the second through performance. One of the questions that they wonder about is the relationship between the two. Some thing that, in the end, all human knowledge is declarative, others say that, no, you can learn without spelling out the rules, through guided performance.

What Beppe was arguing for is that Plato or his slave could be taught how to ride a bike through guided performance. However, observations of parents teaching their children how to ride bikes suggest that this may be a simplified vision: in fact, parents do guide the child through modeling and physical interventions - hanging on the back of the saddle, for example. But they also give a lot of verbal advice, telling them how to hold the handle-bars, and how to turn them at the right moment, when to push and with which foot, and so on. They also, of course, give lots of advice about how to ride on roads where there may be other traffic (the Highway Code is declarative).

This kind of consideration has led some of them to conclude that *all* knowledge is, in fact, declarative, only the learner may have forgotten the specific declarations. If this is the case, then the learner should, with perhaps a lot of trouble, be able to restore his or her knowledge to its declarative form - thus enabling the construction of an expert system.

If this is so, Beppe will not be able to simply show Plato or his slave how to ride a bike, but will have to give instructions. Perhaps he had better bring his wife with him to the meeting on the Champs Elysée.

[TimMason]

Hi Sparrow.

If humans emerged first in Africa, they would only have had two seasons. Today, Australian nomads in the so-called remote central areas have basically two modes - a dry-season mode and a wet-season mode. So far as I know, they have nothing remotely like a mother-goddess, but they do have rituals which seem to have the purpose of making animals and plants reproduce in abundance.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by TimMason

This kind of consideration has led some of them to conclude that *all* knowledge is, in fact, declarative, only the learner may have forgotten the specific declarations.

Would that imply language use in a case like this? :
"There’s a very famous group of macaque monkeys in Japan on Koshima Island who, when provisioned by the scientists with sweet potatoes and also rice, one particular individual began to take the rice and the sweet potatoes and wash them in the water. We think that this accomplished two things. One is that it separated the sand very nicely from either the sweet potatoes or the rice. Perhaps it also made it more efficient to eat the rice because the rice would float on the surface of the water. But the second thing, perhaps, is that it provided some salt. The salt water maybe perhaps improved the flavor of the provisioned food.
We really don’t know why this particular animal did it, but what we know is, once she started, this behavior then was learned by her offspring, and now when you go to Koshima Island, every individual in the population does it."
http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript802.html

[TGS]

It may be that the notion of "image schemas" is useful here. Image schemas are the basic elements structuring of the world - the basic way in which we carve the world up. For example, force-dynamic schemas structure our experience of the relationship between events. The explanatory advantage of a image schemas is that they are taken to be universal and pre-linguistic and, as such, there is no reason why non-linguistic animals such as macaques might not deploy them, and thus might well be able to represent some kind of declarative knowledge, (without of course being able to declare it).

It's quite a difficult idea to get hold of (for me at least), but there's a reasonably accessible summary here

[TimMason]

Would that imply language use in a case like this? :

Attempts to argue that some animals possess something like human culture - patterns of behaviour that are not built-in, that are passed on from one generation to the next, and that differ from one group to another within the same species - are interesting. Similar observations have been made for several kinds of monkey and several of the great apes, one of the most common being the observation that termite fishing with a twig seems to be passed on from mother to infant.

However, in all these cases the mode of transmission appears to be unintentional: the adult does not set out to teach the infant, who simply picks up the behaviour by imitation. Human children also use imitation, but it accounts for a very reduced set of rather rudimentary routines. For humans, such routines may lie at the base of much of our practical culture, but it doesn't account for it at anything beyond the simplest level.