To categorize is to determine reality

[coberst]

Let’s examine intellectual sophistication in contrast to tennis playing sophistication.

 

Why is it that everyone, when joining a tennis club, recognizes that there is a hierarchy of tennis playing sophistication in the club and this realization leads them to try to do better, but such does not apply to matters of intellectual sophistication? People become offended when such a hierarchy of intellecual sophistication is assumed.

 

I suspect that this syndrome results from a culture which is heavily anti-intellectual.

[jedaisoul]

Let’s examine intellectual sophistication in contrast to tennis playing sophistication.

 

Why is it that everyone, when joining a tennis club, recognizes that there is a hierarchy of tennis playing sophistication in the club and this realization leads them to try to do better, but such does not apply to matters of intellectual sophistication? People become offended when such a hierarchy of intellecual sophistication is assumed.

 

I suspect that this syndrome results from a culture which is heavily anti-intellectual.

Now if I'm reading this correctly, you are saying that I think I'm clever because actually I'm anti-elitist, and so don't know how much cleaverer really clever people are than I am. So I'm too thick to know I'm thick.

 

By inference, you also are not as clever as really clever people, but are clever enough to know it. So you are cleverer than I am.

 

Is that a fair exposition of what you meant?

[coberst]

Now if I'm reading this correctly, you are saying that I think I'm clever because actually I'm anti-elitist, and so don't know how much cleaverer really clever people are than I am. So I'm too thick to know I'm thick.

 

By inference, you also are not as clever as really clever people, but are clever enough to know it. So you are cleverer than I am.

 

Is that a fair exposition of what you meant?

 

No, that is an exposition that indicates that you may have some difficulty in discussing ideas without taking everything as a personal assault.

 

David Bohm informs us that in early culture we humans exercised “participatory thought”; this form of thinking is still common today—people felt that they were participation in the big picture—plains Indians felt that there were many buffalo that were displays of the spirit of buffalo and that in hunting and eating this buffalo the Indians participated in this world spirit—likewise the Eskimo felt similarly being a participant of the spirit of seals—these people felt that in their thoughts they participated in these worldly spirits.

 

Modern man has converted somewhat from such thoughts “We want to have a thought about something where we don’t participate, where we think about it and know just what it is.”—the form of thought which we modern man prefers are what is called “literal thought”.

 

Literal thought is intended to reflect just reality as it really exists—it is thought that focus on “just the facts mam”—technology aims for literal thought--the scientific method enthrones literal thought

 

Some compare this attitude about literal thought as being a form of idol worship—when we construct an idol it is a representative of some force, after awhile the idol becomes in our thoughts that force—example is when the flag becomes a literal thought of a nation—thus we overvalue the symbol—literal thought and participatory thought stand side by side but generally those things that we value most involve participatory thought—“the tribe and the totem—we are identical”—when my country is attacked, I am attacked; when my conclusions are attacked I am attacked.

 

Explicitly we give supreme value to literal thought—tacitly we give supreme value to paticiparory thought—literal thought makes technology possible and participatory thought went underground, the crazy aunt in the attic.

 

Participatory thought creates a sense of belonging; it does not create a separation of subject and object. “That way of thinking would not lead anybody to plunder the planet.”

 

Participatory thought however has some dangers. When Indian tribes thought of them selves as human beings and ‘human being’ became a word for tribal members then when engaging other tribes in battle that tribe were not ‘human beings’. Likewise in Hitler’s Germany a similar situation prevailed.

 

As society began to develop larger groups literal thought became more prevalent; these societies need much better organization. They organized society by saying “You belong here, you do this, and you do that…They began, therefore, to treat everything as a separate object, including other people. They used people as a means to an end.”

[REASON]

I find your discussion of Participitory Thought vs. Literal Thought to be very insightful, coberst. I understand the distinction.

 

It would seem to me beneficial for us to find a balance in the two modes of thinking. But it also seems important for us to be able to distinguish the two as we are participating in each thought process.

 

I liken it to other discussions I've had where we are trying to distiguish what is Scientific vs. Philosophical, or what is Actual Reality vs. Percieved Reality, or even what is real vs. what is imaginary.

 

Do you have any ideas as to how we can learn to categorize thoughts and information effectively so that we can learn the value in each thought process to the human experience?

[coberst]

Reason

 

I do not have much to add at this time. I have just recently discovered this idea from Bohm. This idea is detailed in the last chapter of his book which I began reading a year ago but did not examine the last chapter until just recently. I have ordered another of his books from Amazon hoping that it might enlighten me further. I shall keep looking.

[jedaisoul]

No, that is an exposition that indicates that you may have some difficulty in discussing ideas without taking everything as a personal assault.

That may well be true. So what was your meaning?

[coberst]

That may well be true. So what was your meaning?

 

I guess it means that I want to discuss ideas in a manner that does not become personal. I do not want to set one tennis player against another I prefer to set one back-hand against another.

[jedaisoul]

I guess it means that I want to discuss ideas in a manner that does not become personal. I do not want to set one tennis player against another I prefer to set one back-hand against another.

That's fine by me. Thanks for clarifying.

[Pyrotex]

Me, too. ;)

[Overdog]

Reason

 

I have just recently discovered this idea from Bohm. This idea is detailed in the last chapter of his book which I began reading a year ago but did not examine the last chapter until just recently.

 

Coberst thank you for posting this. Despite the rapid descent into confusion over what is real and what isn't in this thread, it strikes me that the Prototying Theory may offer a better model for explaining exactly this type of confusion. As well, I can see where this new model of categorization may be an improvement on the classical model, and could have application in the field of artificial intelligence and database technology in the future.

 

Very interesting.