2015.06.30 13:00 - Whitehead Waffles

The Guardian for this meeting was Darren Islar...

Darren Islar: hey Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Darren. Heya, Ava.
Darren Islar: oh nice flag
Qt Core: Hi all
Bruce Mowbray: ty. I made it myself.
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Qt.
Darren Islar: hey QT
Avaline DeCuir: Hey Bruce and QT

Darren Islar: any topic guys you like to discuss?
Bruce Mowbray: I sort of have an idea of a topic...
Darren Islar: ok, so tell us
Bruce Mowbray: but don't want to get in the way of others who might also have topics more fascinating than mine.
Darren Islar looks to QT
Bruce Mowbray: kk, I've been studying Whitehead --- early 20th Century philosopher.
Bruce Mowbray: and his notions of "process."
Bruce Mowbray: That the most we can do is describe experience...
Bruce Mowbray: as a series of events.
Bruce Mowbray: We cannot postulate "objects" -- only processes.
Bruce Mowbray: (but that probably seems boring to others.)
Bruce Mowbray: although to me it is the very essence of both Buddhism and phenomenology.
Bruce Mowbray wait to be hit by flying stones.
Darren Islar: I like anything that has to do with processes
Bruce Mowbray: YES!
 

Objects and Processes

Darren Islar: what do you mean with postulating objects?
Bruce Mowbray: It sort of changes one's view of the world, doesn't it?
Bruce Mowbray: kk, well, excellent question.
Qt Core: checking him on wikipedia
Bruce Mowbray: Stating - as per traditional logical positivism -- that there actually ARE objects, rather than processes.
Bruce Mowbray: also, that there are objects that are discrete -- not connected to everything else.
Bruce Mowbray: Alfred North Whitehead.

Avaline DeCuir: okay so it is kind of explaining dependent origination and emptiness?
Bruce Mowbray: VERY convoluted and hard to understand his writings...
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, in a way it is exactly that, Ava.
Bruce Mowbray: We are, right here, a process... a series of events.
Avaline DeCuir: Oh I had some thoughts about that this week too .. let me see if I can find what I wrote
Darren Islar: how does a discrete object relate to dependant origination?
Bruce Mowbray: We are not separate entities with objective separateness.
Bruce Mowbray listens for more from Ava on that.
Qt Core: it seems he says something like anything can't be really understood without understandyng everything... or am i wrong ?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, exactly so, Qt.
Bruce Mowbray: except one more idea --- that we really don'ty "understand" -- we can only describe.
Bruce Mowbray: &THAT'S WHERE THE PHENOMENOLOGY COMES IN.)
Bruce Mowbray: kicks all caps key.
Qt Core: ok, nice on a theoretical way, impossible on a practical way (untill universe end)
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, I think Qt is logically correct -- unless everything also contains everything else... Then, but describing the processes of anything (the events), we would also (in some sense) be describing the whole thing.... ("If you've seen one grain of sand, you've seen the cosmos" -- to paraphrase Blake.
Qt Core: so there will be no difference between ours and artificial intelligence (as i often heard that AI will know but not really understand things)

Darren Islar: that's a nice cue to have a 90 seconds pause

--BELL--

Avaline DeCuir: alright this isnt exactly the same and it is just personal musings ... but here you go ...
Bruce Mowbray: Well, I'm not sure the we understand thing either.. we simply describe the events that "things" participate in.
Avaline DeCuir: spirit and soul ... one is an individuation that infuses and gives life .. the other is everywhere and in everything .. both are part of the same ... two faces of the one thing maybe ... individuated yet joined, amorphous and omnipresent, dpendent on each other for existence yet still distinct.
Avaline DeCuir: yeh I have heard that Blake idea before
Bruce Mowbray: Excellent, Ava.
Bruce Mowbray: Thanks for that quote.
Darren Islar: very nice Ava
Avaline DeCuir: I always liked Blake

Bruce Mowbray: For Whitehead, the difficulty comes when we attempt to "abstract" from experience...
Darren Islar: is pondering about AI in this context
Bruce Mowbray: me too, Darren.
Avaline DeCuir: yes I can understand that ... how can we abstract from experience when our experiences are intensely personal and limited?
Bruce Mowbray: Whitehead seems to have predicted a sort of "quantum mechanics" decades before Planck.... and maybe we'd have to go there to find similarities with AI.
Bruce Mowbray: No exactly, Ava.
Darren Islar: Robots seem to be a purely technical thing as software is as well, but is it?
Avaline DeCuir: even our experiences of this group discussion here are intensely personal and our reactions to them will depend on our education our cultural vbackground, our belief system and our willingness to be flexible in our ideas
Bruce Mowbray: The danger of all philosophy and all science is deduction ----
Darren Islar: ah ... well said :)
Avaline DeCuir: I think the worst danger of philosophy is circular argument that goes round and round till it disappears up its own orifice .. Bertrand Russel was a great one for that
Bruce Mowbray: Deduction from the general to the specific..... and the danger in that is that we will generalize about individual events.... overlooking the process that those events are out-picturing, which would better be described than objectified in "laws" -- either in science or philosophy (or religion).
Bruce Mowbray: Whitehead and Russell worked together on the Principia Mathematica.

Avaline DeCuir: for most of the philosophers I have studied they have flashes of genius burried in pages of boring circular argument that I am sure not even they can follow .. the trick is being patient enough to find those little gems
Qt Core: :-)
Bruce Mowbray: Whitehead is ESPECIALLY repetitive like that, Ava.
Darren Islar: maybe Planck is a reaincarnation of Whitehead :)
Avaline DeCuir: hahaha .. you mean more than Russel?
Bruce Mowbray: a distint possibility... but reincarnation is best thought of as a process, not an objective, abstract thing.
Qt Core: as for wikipedia he taught Russel and they wrote togheter
Bruce Mowbray: Russell is also repetitive.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, they worked together.
Darren Islar: hmmm, or both in one reincarnation, the othe way around seems to happen
Bruce Mowbray: on the Pincipia.
Bruce Mowbray: Principia.
Avaline DeCuir: I have to say I rather enjoyed reading Russell despite his propensity to waffle .. because there were some true gems in there
Bruce Mowbray: It seems that you are objectifying "reincarnation" now, dARREN.
Darren Islar: nods lost ... I was actually jesting
Avaline DeCuir pats Darren's head and smiles
Bruce Mowbray: Didn't Kurt Godel more or less disprove Russell, though?
Darren Islar: smiles at Ava
Bruce Mowbray smiles at everyone.
Avaline DeCuir: How can anyone disprove that waffle?
Bruce Mowbray wonders why he can't type worth a damn today.
Avaline DeCuir: they have to admit they first read it and second understood it
Darren Islar: they are all English and therefor less known tome

Bruce Mowbray: a waffle is a process - series of events -- not an objective abstracted entity.
Avaline DeCuir grins
Bruce Mowbray: One eats processes for breakfast (which is also a process, of course).
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Avaline DeCuir: or a way of filling up a thesis or book with words until you actually manage to say what you wanted to say
Bruce Mowbray: The more philosophies are written, the more footnotes to Plato one needs, apparently.
Darren Islar: one thing can be said in many ways, saying slightly different things about it
Bruce Mowbray: Indeed, Darren.
Avaline DeCuir: hahaha Bruce
Qt Core: with the Monkey write Shakespeare approach ?
Bruce Mowbray: Whitehead is credited with saying, "All of Western philosophy is but footnotes to Plato."
Darren Islar: a Plato-fan
Bruce Mowbray: But Whitehead overturns the Platonic tradition, of course.
Bruce Mowbray: You like "ideal forms," Darren?
Bruce Mowbray: 'This table is but a representation of an ideal table."
Darren Islar: whiteheads theory doesn't seem to be in compliance with the more archetype approach of Plato
Bruce Mowbray: Why not just describe the table....
Bruce Mowbray: He is anti-Plato, and anti-Kant.
Bruce Mowbray: as is most of phenomenology.
Avaline DeCuir: I am more into the French philosophers at the moment .. Faucult and Bordieau
Bruce Mowbray: Who needs "categories of mind"?
Bruce Mowbray: Ahh! Wonderful!
Avaline DeCuir: antu Kant ... damn philistine!

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: Power?
Bruce Mowbray: (agrees with Ava about Kant.)
Darren Islar: when I was a kid, I thought there was something like the best movie ever which could not be made better and I got that idea from the intro's and the titling after
Bruce Mowbray: please say more, Darren.
Avaline DeCuir: I dont know if I first started liking Kant because of his ideas or because he was easy to understand
Darren Islar: the most perfect font, the most perfect way to present it, the most perfect music to go along with it
Darren Islar: until I understood that every movie was 'new'
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm.
Bruce Mowbray: So Ava likes Kant, after all?
Darren Islar: wb QT
Qt Core: ty
Bruce Mowbray: wb Qt.
Avaline DeCuir: yep
Avaline DeCuir: wb QT

Communication

Qt Core: the problem is not when we think about a table, but when we have to communicate about a table, a specific one or just the idea of a surface held by (how many ?) legs (or an antigravity device) ?
Bruce Mowbray: [13:29] Ava: antu Kant ... damn philistine! ---- I didn't understand what you wrote here, Ava. I thought you were calling Kant a philistine.
Avaline DeCuir: I first got into Faucault when I learned about discourse analysis ... about 20 years ago ... and i started getting into Bordieau only this year ... his field thepries mainly
Bruce Mowbray: Exactly, Qt.
Bruce Mowbray: Communication both "solves" problems and creaters them.
Qt Core: and if details are relevant which ones ?
Bruce Mowbray nods, good point.
Avaline DeCuir: hahaha no I was calling Whitehead a philistine for not liking Kant
Bruce Mowbray: So, we tend to pick out those details that are consistent with "ideal table forms" and ignore the rest.
Darren Islar: calling that a table
Bruce Mowbray: nods, calling that a "table."
Darren Islar: thus emphasizing what we think it is
Avaline DeCuir: I think we tend to pick out details that most closely fit with our current world view
Darren Islar: and making it more abstract
Bruce Mowbray: Maybe missing the forest of tables for an individual "table."
Darren Islar: until we think it's separate from us
Bruce Mowbray: Good point, Darren.
Avaline DeCuir: although in the case of some people they spend hours looking for details that disprove everyone else just because they can
Darren Islar: we discriminate by default
Bruce Mowbray: One of Whitehead's major ideas is that everything is connected.
Bruce Mowbray: So, we are connected to tables.
Darren Islar: leaving out the obvious or emphasizing it
Avaline DeCuir: yep I agree with that although I still don't like him now I know he is anti Kant
Bruce Mowbray: But that "leaving out" could also be "missing out."
Darren Islar: yes, could be
Qt Core: is this a table: http://lightstorage.ilcittadinomb.it...83_display.jpg ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: Whitehead goes back to pre-Kantian modes of thinking.
Darren Islar: heh, good question QT
Qt Core: (that is even worse, it is Art)
Bruce Mowbray: BEHOLD!!! Qt has shown us the ideal form of TABLe! (and chair, too!)
Avaline DeCuir: I think it is more useful to think of table as a series of functions in an otherwise abstract arrangement of particles and ether
Darren Islar: in Buddhism that has been mistaken (for a while) as reality
Bruce Mowbray: I agree, Ava, but I would probable say, "A table is a series of processes or events -- rather than a series fo functions.
Bruce Mowbray: of*
Avaline DeCuir: thinking of table as a series of functions?
Qt Core: so a table is a surface at an appropriate height to hold things
Avaline DeCuir: what would you define as a process Bruce?
Bruce Mowbray: a process is a collection of events.
Darren Islar: as what our senses pick up initially
Bruce Mowbray: or, maybe better: a process is a description of a series of events.
Avaline DeCuir: okay what would you define as ann event?
Darren Islar: in that sense that table you showed QT is not a table
Bruce Mowbray: yes, our senses are definitely part of the "process"
Qt Core: ;-) darren

Bruce Mowbray: WHY is Qt's picture of a huge table NOT a table?
Avaline DeCuir: so in my description I would say a table is a surface you can put things on, you can sit on if you choose, you can use as a piece of art ... youc an hide under in a storm or as a game
Avaline DeCuir: or whatever other function you choose for it
Bruce Mowbray: Ava is being utilitarian now -- defining things according to their functions.
Qt Core: ot can't work as a table for humans at least so it does not have the function of a table
Bruce Mowbray: maybe more pragmatic than utilitarian actually.
Avaline DeCuir: QT's picture of a table is a table i f we agree that it is or could serve at least one of the functions of table
Darren Islar: there seems to be an 'or' if it comes to art, but anything can be art ... when functions need to describe it, it is the group of functions that makes it a table
Bruce Mowbray: So, pragmatism uses "function" as descriptive, whereas phenomenology is not that restricted... happy merely to describe relationships from a subjective point of view.
Avaline DeCuir: or perhaps more precisely to me it is a table if I choose to label it as such regardless if its actual functionality as a table in the common definition
Bruce Mowbray: That's exactly what Whitehead is complaining about, Ava.
Darren Islar: that doesn't make it a table, since it needs to be recognized by others as a table

--BELL--

Avaline DeCuir: but why is he compplaining about it?
Bruce Mowbray: because you have labeled it as a discrete entity -- "table"
Bruce Mowbray: (following your Platonic and Kantian leanings.)
Avaline DeCuir grins
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Qt Core: so when trekking in the desert a roughly plain rock can become a table, at least temporally
Avaline DeCuir: I have labelled it for myself as such ... for this moment in time
Qt Core: both practically and ideally
Bruce Mowbray: of course it can! That's partly my point.
Avaline DeCuir: but by labelling one thing as a table doesn't preclude other things from also having the same function as table .. and it doesn't stop me from labelling them table at a different time or in a different space
Darren Islar: still table is an abstraction to you
Bruce Mowbray: Prior to Copernicus, the earth was a sort of 'table' around which all objects in the cosmos rotated... If meteors fell to earch, then perhaps they were seeking a 'table' to sit on.
Bruce Mowbray: earth*
Bruce Mowbray: You can label anything as anything -- but is that authentic?
Avaline DeCuir: what I am asking is how does any of that invalidate my choice of labelling one thing at one particular time and in one particular space table?
Avaline DeCuir: why does it have to be authentic?
Darren Islar: as QT says, it's not practical, it's useful to call something that looks like a table, a table
Bruce Mowbray: It does not invalidate it.
Qt Core: (then we like to hurt ourselves and use the same table word for the logical things where you put data in rows and columns...)
Darren Islar: :)
Avaline DeCuir: lol QT
Avaline DeCuir: and we use the same word for a form of medication and a computer input device of a particular kind
Bruce Mowbray: Your "functional" definitions of things is fine. . . . but in limiting tables to function, you might be overlooking many other aspects of tables... such as their influence on weverything else in the house.
Bruce Mowbray: everything*
Bruce Mowbray: Are you speaking of matricies, Qt?
Bruce Mowbray: or arrays (same thing)?
Avaline DeCuir: why is it limiting? it is only limitng if I assert that the functions I have assigned to table are the only things it could possibly be .. and I have not
Qt Core: mostly thinking about databases
Darren Islar: cna somebody do the table of 6 please ;)
Bruce Mowbray: ahhh, got ya.
Darren Islar: yeah ... she slowly is moving from Kant to Whitehead ;)
Avaline DeCuir slaps Darren
Darren Islar: ouch
Bruce Mowbray: In expanding your understanding of tables beyond their so-called "ideal forms" and "ideal functions" you are tending more toward Whitehead's view, Ava.
Bruce Mowbray: ahhh! slapping is an event!
Avaline DeCuir: can't I tend towards my own view instead?
Bruce Mowbray: You surely can.
Darren Islar: and it's real since I felt it :)
Bruce Mowbray: and your view is connected to all other views.
Bruce Mowbray: and Darren's pain from the slap is also so connected.
Avaline DeCuir: after all this thing on which I hold my keyboard right now I call table .. but tomorrow it could be firewood .. expecially if the legs break or something
Bruce Mowbray: (Is this not basic Buddhism?)
Darren Islar: can you feel it hurting Bruce ?
Bruce Mowbray: not yet.
Avaline DeCuir: (remember though that I am a baby Buddhist
Bruce Mowbray: but you know what they say about butterflies flapping their wings....
Bruce Mowbray: there's going to be a hurricane somewhere....
Darren Islar: yes, it is at least very close to Buddhism ...
Bruce Mowbray: "The Butterfly Effect"
Avaline DeCuir: oh yes .. I know this one Bruce .. they only have the strength to flap their wings because they have such a struggle to get out of the coccoon
Bruce Mowbray: NOOOOO!
Avaline DeCuir: yes they do
Bruce Mowbray: The set up events that eventyually result in huge results... like hurricanes. on the other side of the planet.
Darren Islar: yes, it's true :)
Bruce Mowbray: ha ha!
Bruce Mowbray: You're becoming a wHITEHEADIAN NOW. bE CAREFUL.
Bruce Mowbray: slaps all caps key again.
Avaline DeCuir: Nooooo ... save me Kant!
Darren Islar: but thatsi not just the flapping of the wings
Bruce Mowbray ponders how categories of mind might possibly "save"
Avaline DeCuir: hahaha they make the world logical!
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm,.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, that they do , indeed... but I still say that descriptions are better.
Avaline DeCuir: all neat and tidy in little boxes just how I like it .. none of this untidy could be anything stuff
Bruce Mowbray: Well, we could make a robot that could also do that, Ava.
Bruce Mowbray: "Neat and tidy"
Darren Islar: oh, she's right in tidying up in boxes :)
Bruce Mowbray: Time to go!
Bruce Mowbray: I'mm bet you don't ask me for a topic next time.
Avaline DeCuir: please do it would save me a lot of work picking up after Darren and putting things away
Bruce Mowbray: ha ha.
Bruce Mowbray dies from laughing....
Qt Core: it is only that those well labelled boxes have teleports in them so you can't be sure what you find when you open them
Darren Islar: oh I will Bruce
Avaline DeCuir: LOL QT
Bruce Mowbray: Good point, Qt.
Darren Islar: see you tomorrow
Bruce Mowbray: Bye for now, good people.
Avaline DeCuir: see you tomorrow Bruce

--BELL--

Qt Core: Bye Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: yes, see your processes tomorrow.
Darren Islar: hehe
Avaline DeCuir: I still like Kant!
Qt Core: do telling is a process make you see the world like in Matrix with the green code flowing ?
Darren Islar: sighs ... still work to do for this baby-Buddhist
Qt Core: _everything
Darren Islar: yes, but not limited to the green code
Avaline DeCuir sighs ... just because I like one philosophy doesn't mean there isn't room in my world for others
Avaline DeCuir: especially since all philosophies exists in the same space and time as each other regardless of when they were written .. or will be written
Darren Islar: that doesn't make the philosophy right
Avaline DeCuir: or perhaps that is lack of space and time and just exist without existing
Avaline DeCuir: does it have to be right before I can like it?
Darren Islar: it's still not right :P
Qt Core: no, just seem to be
Avaline DeCuir: does it matter?
Darren Islar: depends on what you want
Avaline DeCuir: in some dimensions it doesn't exist and in others it is the only one
Darren Islar: it doesn't matter in the whole of things, no
Bleu Oleander: 's current display-name is "Bleu".
Darren Islar: hey Bleu
Avaline DeCuir: that is actually an interesting topic I would like to discuss next week
Bleu Oleander: hiya
Avaline DeCuir: Hey bleu
Qt Core: Hi Bleu
Darren Islar: what Ava?
Avaline DeCuir: whether we can hold many different beliefs and philosophies and still be true to each of them
Bleu Oleander: great topic Ava :)
Darren Islar: ok, next week it will be
Avaline DeCuir: :)
Bleu Oleander: i'll try to come :)
Darren Islar: Bruce will love it ... grins
Bleu Oleander: :)
Avaline DeCuir: hahaha I bet
Darren Islar: nice Bleu
Avaline DeCuir: and I bet he will say that Whitehead would agree with me!
Darren Islar: hahaha
Qt Core: :)
Bleu Oleander: I was just trying out a new build I did
Bleu Oleander: a cafe ... did you see?
Darren Islar: not yet
Qt Core: i need to go, i'll see it later
Darren Islar: see you next week QT, follows Bleu
Avaline DeCuir: bye QT and thanks for the discussion
Qt Core: Ok, bye all (ty Ava)!