philosophy

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Lucifer_Carroll
I have a logical side far more honed and trained than both of yours.

I am really anxious to address the points presented, but this statements represents a bit of an obstacle--sort of like starting up a really engaging discussion with someone only to find out that they have no concept of the basic nature of impossibility and necessity.

You have a "logical side" that is "more honed and trained than" mine?

Are you serious?

Look, maybe you're some kind of logic whiz... your previous arguments falling to irrational assumption and supposition don't speak highly for this amazing "logical side"'s existence. Personally, I'm a Logician. That's all. I can respect "hard science"... but if you're going to tell me that because you work with biology, that somehow that makes you superior to a Logician (which, by the by, is my actual training and profession) in the field of logic.. then we really can't continue this discussion.

I'm not saying that I'm better or more trained or more "honed" at Reason than you are, because I don't know that I am... but I, apparently, am the only one of the two of us admitting that (and that's the most logical position).

 

[gauchecritic]

An infant begins life perceiving no split between itself and the rest of the universe. Thumb and chair post are all the same, expected to be the same.
<snip>
Do not mistake this state as one beyond the subject-object duality; there is no such advantage. It is beneath it. It simply can't tell the difference yet. There is nothing particularly spiritual about it; it is locked in its own egocentric orbit. Shallow and cramped consciousness.
<snip>
But around four months, the infant begins to differentiate between physical sensations in the body and those without. Bite the blanket, and it does not hurt, bite the thumb and it does. Margaret Mahler says the "hatching" as she calls it, of the self is complete at five to nine months. Self, as body, and the rest of the universe, are differentiated. The next step is integration of the new knowledge, defining the limits of the self in a workable way.
<snip>
But the emotional self is still undifferentiated from the rest of the emotional surround. Still fused, particularly with the mother. The infant treats the world as an extension of itself, narcissistically. It still is incapable of thinking about itself. It thinks what it is feeling is what the rest of the world is feeling. Another differentiation and another integration brings it to the next place. But if it does each phase right, it never goes back to the place where no distinction can be made.
<snip>
cantdog

I can't go with this at all Cant. Maybe its the wording. All is one. How is there any expectation? (quite apart from how can you prove any of it)

Merely observing without reaction I can understand but everything is self? So how is birth trauma explained? In the womb perhaps everything is self, but then how do you explain reaction to music or voices. Reaction implies separation. If everything was an extension there would be no surprise.

I'll even go along with being unaware that stimuli are external but not indistinguishable surely?

What would be the purpose of crying?

I'll gladly admit that few neural connections are engaged but everything being self implies that enough are engaged to allow of awareness.

I can see how this would give a newborn only instincts to work with (suckling, crying) and start it at the level of animals, to be built upon due to the fact of having a complex brain.

However, this also means that, in the case of animals, (not having the necessary composition) expressions of emotion are simply that, expressions. Pain, happiness, terror, going with a theory I read about somewhere are merely exhibitions which we have labeled and animals do not actually 'feel' anything.

I just can't buy this Cant.

Gauche

 

[cantdog]

Well, it does seem a bit farfetched, but there is a lot of agreement about it. Not just Margaret Mahler, but Melanie Klein, René Spitz, Edith Jacobson.

We are pushed from the womb a little early, in terms of fetal development, compared to other mammals, because we want headroom, the theory goes, brain case room. Even other primates' infancy phase is brief and their newborns become mobile quickly.

For birth trauma, try Stan Grof.

When things go wrong, it is not just those things, but something that has no right to go wrong, oneself causing oneself pain, although there would be no framework for thinking of it in those terms until the first differentiation were complete.

Pain just is, in whatever severity, as comfort is, or hunger, or satiation. Where it is doesn't enter into it. Cries of newborns are not directed at objects.

The amount of stimulation and engagement the infant receives makes the first differentiation happen.

 

[gauchecritic]

Re: Re: It might be hard work but I love this thread too.

All right, since I'm the token evolution boy, I have to disagree on a few small points. While it may be true that our species could have survived without utilizing tools, we would not likely have thrived as viral like as we have. Like a gorilla using a stick to get food from an anthill, geniuses have advanced our tools in order to better exploit resources and overall improve the species. Sanitation and medicine have extended lifespans, collecting into cities has reduced the danger of death by animals, seafaring has allowed expansionism to newfound lands.

-Demon-monkey

You're quite right to disagree because I failed to mention why exactly it wouldn't make any difference to the species. And it's not tools. Ants don't use tools. (although I'm sure you can probably give me any number of tools that ants do use, if they do they never actually used tools to make tools, a leaf is not a tool and a gorillas stick will not make other sticks)

When I say not tools I mean not physical tools. (no tools are left in this thread overnight)

The tool we do use is the one under discussion. The mind. More specifically prediction. The abilility to see that this tool (lump of rock) needs to be thrown at this trajectory with this much strength to reach that target.

We'll take it as read that any primitive instance of prediction that I give you can be seen in use by some animal somewhere.

However, we (primitive man) can use all those tools and for other purposes but this isn't the point either.

This predicitive ability allows us to ask "What if?" and to extrapolate.

I'm on the edge of a clearing in the jungle (by the sea not on the savannah but that's a whole other theory) I know that on the other side there is a cache of berries and nuts. In the middle of the clearing is a hungry lioness (I [me now] know full well that her hunting partner is in hiding close by but for the purpose of this example she is lost in the jungle miles away). The lioness is quite intent on a chimp in a tree.

I know how to throw rocks, I know that lions can run faster than me. I know the lioness is hungry.

The lioness will wait and see if the chimp falls or if hungry enough take a running leap at the tree.

The chimp will sit where it is until it can safely move.

So lets predict a little here. The chimp falls from the tree, what will the lioness do? If the lioness races that distance will that give me time for my sprint? How can I make these things happen?

This is a tool that can be passed on, in genes and eventually in words. The survival of the primitive will aid the survival of the species.

Hope that clears it up.

Then of course there are Nature's pressures; available food, predators, enemies, weather. These pressures make primitive man think and predict and thereby thrive.

Gauche

 

[gauchecritic]

Pain just is, in whatever severity, as comfort is, or hunger, or satiation. Where it is doesn't enter into it. Cries of newborns are not directed at objects.

The amount of stimulation and engagement the infant receives makes the first differentiation happen.

I can see all that, I just cannot see that born and not born are far enough removed to initiate the differentiation. Only in degree.

Gauche

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I am really anxious to address the points presented, but this statements represents a bit of an obstacle--sort of like starting up a really engaging discussion with someone only to find out that they have no concept of the basic nature of impossibility and necessity.

You have a "logical side" that is "more honed and trained than" mine?

Are you serious?

Look, maybe you're some kind of logic whiz... your previous arguments falling to irrational assumption and supposition don't speak highly for this amazing "logical side"'s existence. Personally, I'm a Logician. That's all. I can respect "hard science"... but if you're going to tell me that because you work with biology, that somehow that makes you superior to a Logician (which, by the by, is my actual training and profession) in the field of logic.. then we really can't continue this discussion.

I'm not saying that I'm better or more trained or more "honed" at Reason than you are, because I don't know that I am... but I, apparently, am the only one of the two of us admitting that (and that's the most logical position).

Okay, okay, sheesh, it was only a semantic statement. Edit it out. I only said it because my mind has a bipolar thing with a logic and chaos side among other things.

I have no right to state whether my logic is superior to any others. Listen I posted most of my shit at three in the morning and utilizing subjective language.

I do maintain, that you equally have no right to dismiss the sound objective logic and science behind my points because the semantics are subjective. If you wish, I can rewrite and go back utilizing purely logical I/O style progression using yes/no questions, but I'd like to believe you're clever enough to surmise what I was trying to say on your own.

Anyway, go back, fuck the subjective semantics (aren't they supposedly worthless here?) and tell me if my objective statements on evolutionary biology or the use of subjective imagination to aid in the creation of objective hypothesis to test in objective science are valid or not. Or tell me why an objective only system will not tend toward dystopia.

Can discussion commence, yes/no?

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Example 1 on topic: Objective thinking on subjective matters.

Here we have two emotions. One is called Love, the other Hate. They both cause a similar reaction, that is the flooding the body with hormones and chemical stimulations. Love has a debilitary effect in this flooding. It causes a weakness to overcome the body, distracts the brain from functioning properly, impairs normal consumption processes, and impair critical thinking. It's main benefit in procreation, can be duplicated much more efficiently through the process of Lust or better yet the process of mere emotionless Sexual stimulation. Thus, Love should be fought against from a cost-benefit analysis. Hate on the other hand is an amazing stimulant. It increases the effectiveness of motor senses, often improves awareness, and aids combat efficiency. It's minor setbacks of strife to the clan can be overrun by redirecting the emotion to targets outside of the clan. When this has occured, hate has proven to be a glorious resource and should be encouraged.

The objective favors hate above love. The subjective love over hate.

I'll make no further statement as this is example and I wish to not enter extrapolation here in deference to the sensibilities heretoward presented on this forum.

 

[amicus]

My, oh my...a triumphant trio, Cantdog, Lucifer and Gauche...interesting reading...informed opinions...lucid presentations..what more could one ask for?

One of the continuing problems with sharing the 'sciences' is the apparent necessity to include the works of those individuals who have contributed to the field. Unfortunately most have never and never will, read those volumes.

The second continuing problem is one I have mentioned before, the 'apparent necessity' to use 'field specific' terminology (big words) that alienate most who try to read and comprehend.

Now...that is not intended to be an inflammatory or obfuscating observation.

We 'writers' however you define that term, mostly exist somewhere between the actual practitioners of a given science and the press that reports it to the people. We can be 'more' or 'less' than the journalist or the 'teacher' that passes on the information to an audience.

It is somewhat of a 'Catch 22'..wherein the actual scientists can speak with their learned peers, but find it demeaning to speak to the general public. That 'average public' having a reading ability of about the 7th grade level.

Those who disseminate information brought forth by the scientific community, use the language of the masses, but also interpret and often, 'give' meaning that may or may not be accurate. Thus biased journalism, journalists with an agenda, networks and newspapers with an ideological bent.

So, along comes the writer of poetry and prose, who may also have an agenda, who also may 'give' meaning to a pronouncement that 'may or 'may not' be valid.

So in general, we end up not being able to 'understand' the scientist and we do not 'trust' the journalist. As I said, a 'Catch 22'...

When I started this response...I had something totally different in mind...like a character in a story, it took on a life of its own.

A final thing for this comment...Objective knowledge and 'absolute' knowledge....

There was an announcement of the recent launching of a probe to the planet Mercury.

Along with others that are nerdistically interested in such things, I was aware, to a degree, of the current science concerning Mercury.

I knew the approximate size, location, temperature, all at a purely 'general' level of knowledge about one of the planets in our solar system.

They made a statement that drew my close attention, "The theory is that 'water ice' exists on Mercury.

Well...that contradicted my 'absolute' knowledge about the planet. How could 'ice' exist in 800 plus degrees (F) on a semi molten planet?

Well...it seems the 'polar regions' of Mercury are never and have never been, in sunlight. The theorize that the original building blocks of the Solar system, Hydrogen and Oxygen, were 'frozen' in state, at the poles and remains there to this day.

Thus would you say my 'absolute, objective' knowledge of physics, all the sciences dealing with planetary formation was invalid? Thus justifying your claim that there is 'no such thing' as objective absolute truth.

Well, perhaps...I rather tend toward accepting that my concept of Mercury has been expanded, the truth is larger but the fundamental scientific truths remain intact and uncontradicted.

As I said...this was not at all what I intended to write after reading 'the triumphant trio' of Cant, Luc and Gauche above.

Perhaps I need to let their words cook a while and sample the stew when it has simmered somewhat more...

amicus...

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

amicus, I'm wickedly confused by your post. I think you are trying to insult me, but I'm not sure what for.

Your Mercury example merely shows the scientific process and how scientific evolves and expands with new information. Um, yeah. Science, that's how it works. What else am I supposed to say?

If you're talking field specific terms, it's not because of a desire to alienate, it's only the way people talk in sciences. If this is about my punctuated equilibrium and evolution mentions and my uses of the main books in the field to describe them, I'm not sure I understand your disdain. Dawkins, Gould, and Darwin are considered the fathers of the whole movement of evolutionary biology and their theories have held up quite well in the scientific arena. We may find later that they need to be tweaked, but well, that's science. They are also hardly interpreters and biased (though Dawkins is an outspoken atheist). They are merely the leaders in the field. The fact that Dawkins is readable by the science-inclined Average Joe, I fail to see as a flaw. He's good at dumbing it down, utilizing metaphor without sacrificing the solid scientific premise.

Um, yeah. I'm having a difficult time seeing how I'm supposed to be insulted or degraded here. Perhaps a wicked clarification or something.

 

[gauchecritic]

Oh bum. I hate being lumped in with groups. Is it this that bothers you? More than one person coming to conclusions other than your own?

No Ami, no need to worry, your solid and incontravertible 'truths' are in tact. They just didn't fit the terms of licence by themselves.

They were pliers with no hammer.

Just a small point about your 'absolute, objective' knowledge of physics.

Hydrogen and helium were the predominant elements which formed the solar system with "pinches" of heavier elements like oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, silicon, and iron. More 'popular science' I'm afraid.

Gauche

 

[amicus]

Gauche...I suspect you would not recognize a 'compliment' if it jumped up and bit you on your posterior...


"They theorize that the original building blocks of the Solar system, Hydrogen and Oxygen, were 'frozen' in state, at the poles and remains there to this day."

Please note, I did not say the Hydrogen and Oxygen were 'Predominant', although I suppose I did leave room for you to find fault.

I shall not 'lump' you with a group again....

What I intend to convey and perhaps will later, is that the male pissing contest may have waned and some 'objective' discourse was actually taking place.

I may remove you from the triumverant until your bladder is empty.

amicus

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Gauche...I suspect you would not recognize a 'compliment' if it jumped up and bit you on your posterior...


"They theorize that the original building blocks of the Solar system, Hydrogen and Oxygen, were 'frozen' in state, at the poles and remains there to this day."

Please note, I did not say the Hydrogen and Oxygen were 'Predominant', although I suppose I did leave room for you to find fault.

I shall not 'lump' you with a group again....

What I intend to convey and perhaps will later, is that the male pissing contest may have waned and some 'objective' discourse was actually taking place.

I may remove you from the triumverant until your bladder is empty.

amicus

Do you mean...

It wasn't meant as an insult? Or tongue-in-cheek?

I do a snoopy dance.

Minor note, please don't put quotation marks around words meant earnestly. It's confusing.

 

[gauchecritic]

Speaking of pissing...

Amicus,

I suspect you wouldn't be able to find subtlety in conversation if it sank its wit in your aphorisms.

I suppose when I tend to write sarcasm I expect it returned and in a thread of this nature, after having been called of a bovine mind and unable to be objective and holding extreme (and apparantely unsupportable) political views then being referred to as part of some sort of collective 'gang' I don't really expect the sentence to end with true sentiment.

By the way I found fault with your 'reasoning' not that you "left room" in your absolute objective knowledge.

Gauche

 

[cantdog]

I loved the pins, Gauche. Metaphor is delicious every time, done well.

I read Dawkins, he's a good read and a good antidote to some of the sloppy thinking about the mechanism that had at one time seemed to plague theoretical bio. Much of the textbook and pop science discussion of the fossil record seemed teleological to me, growing up. Only the Selfish Gene, though. Is punctuated equilibrium becoming accepted any better now, Lucifer? Because it made intuitive sense to me immediately, when I heard it, but the word then was that acceptance of the notion was slow among the established figures in the discipline.

cantdog

Joe, I regret my florid expressions have driven you from answering. I attempt to think clearly, really. Would a discussion of what I perceive to be the limits of the objective, examples of what I believe to be points where it is overreaching itself, help clarify my posts?

It would be a condensed form of the thesis of John Ralston Saul-- Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion, The Unconscious Civilization, and most recently On Equilibrium-- rather than the more specific beef of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or something out of Kesey or The Story of B.

No one has asked for clarification of that side of my argument. But the logic may be a little debased.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I loved the pins, Gauche. Metaphor is delicious every time, done well.

I read Dawkins, he's a good read and a good antidote to some of the sloppy thinking about the mechanism that had at one time seemed to plague theoretical bio. Much of the textbook and pop science discussion of the fossil record seemed teleological to me, growing up. Only the Selfish Gene, though. Is punctuated equilibrium becoming accepted any better now, Lucifer? Because it made intuitive sense to me immediately, when I heard it, but the word then was that acceptance of the notion was slow among the established figures in the discipline.

cantdog

Joe, I regret my florid expressions have driven you from answering. I attempt to think clearly, really. Would a discussion of what I perceive to be the limits of the objective, examples of what I believe to be points where it is overreaching itself, help clarify my posts?

It would be a condensed form of the thesis of John Ralston Saul-- Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion, The Unconscious Civilization, and most recently On Equilibrium-- rather than the more specific beef of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or something out of Kesey or The Story of B.

No one has asked for clarification of that side of my argument. But the logic may be a little debased.

Yeah, punctuated equilibrium has gotten a big boost lately. Dawkins finally called up Gould and said it was the most correct theory and so like Hawkings conceding recently in black holes, the theory got a huge upswing in followers. I thought punctuated equilibrium made the most sense too when I first read it too. It's too bad Gould's passed on now.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by Lucifer_Carroll
Okay, okay, sheesh, it was only a semantic statement.

If you wish, I can rewrite and go back utilizing purely logical I/O style progression using yes/no questions, but I'd like to believe you're clever enough to surmise what I was trying to say on your own.

First, I know what "semantic" means. How is your statement that you have a more "honed logical side" a semantic one? Unless you're using a different definition of "semantic" than I am (speaking from a philosophy background, I am quite familiar with the term and people's over-casual use of it), I believe you are incorrect in passing off the statement as "semantic".

Secondly, I would moreso appreciate logical assertion/premise/conclusion, but if you must use I/O (is that computer?) sort of layout... by all means do so. It would make things easier. My needing that to makes sense of some of the things you've said has nothing to do with a lack of cleverness (take the "semantic" thing for example).

 

[shereads]

I see that I need to communicate more clearly what I mean by "integrate."

An infant begins life perceiving no split between itself and the rest of the universe. Thumb and chair post are all the same, expected to be the same.

The infant is a sensorimotor organism, possessing no language, no logic, no narrative capacity. It cannot grasp historical time. "The self," as Piaget put it, "is here material, so to speak."

Of course it is not actually material, but it is oriented only to the physical. The self and the perceived sensory world are fused, not yet differentiated.

Do not mistake this state as one beyond the subject-object duality; there is no such advantage. It is beneath it. It simply can't tell the difference yet. There is nothing particularly spiritual about it; it is locked in its own egocentric orbit. Shallow and cramped consciousness. There is no other; hence no capacity to have genuine compassion, love, tolerance, benevolence, altruism.

But around four months, the infant begins to differentiate between physical sensations in the body and those without. Bite the blanket, and it does not hurt, bite the thumb and it does. Margaret Mahler says the "hatching" as she calls it, of the self is complete at five to nine months. Self, as body, and the rest of the universe, are differentiated. The next step is integration of the new knowledge, defining the limits of the self in a workable way.

But the emotional self is still undifferentiated from the rest of the emotional surround. Still fused, particularly with the mother. The infant treats the world as an extension of itself, narcissistically. It still is incapable of thinking about itself. It thinks what it is feeling is what the rest of the world is feeling. Another differentiation and another integration brings it to the next place. But if it does each phase right, it never goes back to the place where no distinction can be made.

So with the integration I suggest. Make the subjective disciplines and the objective ones work, both of the. Define the limits of the objective in a workable way. But we are not, by integrating, returning to a place where no distinction can be made.

I got a PM about Piaget, whose work has been criticized for having too small a sample. The development model he came up with has been discredited. Here is my reply, which I think is germane to the point you make here, that the different approaches need to tolerate each other's work on the common problems:

Re: Piaget

Yeah, that's the fellow.

I could put something like what you see below in the thread if you mention it, but I am not championing Freud or Piaget as they stand. I use them as examples of the necessary method that subjective inquiry requires.

Like this:

His sampling methods are less than relevant. Freud didn't have anything but anecdotal evidence. Same with anyone else who conducts sensitive and in-depth interviews with particular people.

People, even children, are going, at that depth of discussion, to reveal themselves as individuals, each with subjective landscapes different from the others. Generalizations may make use of statistical math if the sample is large enough, but in general, a person like Freud or Perls would require a lifetime of psychoanalytic interviews to get a sample a statistician would like the shape and size of.

So he believed he had some insights, made some decisions and conclusions, and published what he believed the dialogues and experiments had demonstrated was likely. He should, for statistical purposes, have waited until he'd done the same thing until he was eighty. But the larger samples would be collected by others if he published, the work would no longer be in a vacuum.

Sure enough, the model he developed turned out to have been flawed. So did Freud's. But both had hold of a master idea. The details we can agree on, now, are not the same as the details the men themselves decided were significant at the time.

Stats are less important in these contexts than more talk with more people, sharing more insights and more ideas. That is the method by which wisdom moves forward in all ages. The results seem to vary as the culture in which the talks are embedded varies.

But to someone who has had, themselves, personally, a mystical experience, and looks into the writings of William James, Thomas Merton, Al-Arabi, Rumi, and any other source he can find for what a mystical experience is supposed to resemble, can recognize the common thread running through nearly all of them.

The cultural differences are the biggest ones.

Such things happen to people. It is up to the people, then, to decide what they mean and to fit them in with what otherwise is, and to ask what happens next.

Each culture has a different bed for the experience to lie in, but if you have had a genuine experience, you will be able to see the face of yours in the descriptions, unless the theory is so strongly stated as to swamp the thing.

Wisdom traditions can't mess around waiting for a good sample. You don't start having mystical experiences until you've come quite a ways along the path of your development.

So yes, Piaget is flawed, but he was honest enough. His model, much improved now, is still around, but the colleges don't use him directly as much. Maslow's hierarchy is now modified, too, but a model of need-priorities is a good thing to work on. Criticism from a statistical point of view can be useful, but the work is more important.

That's what I mean by honoring the subjective methods for their own sake. Many objectivists consider the entire subject matter of Piaget and of Freud, hell, of Gautama, to be essentially unknowable in the first place, and they apply the tools of objective rigor to show that Gautama was not being objective, nor Freud, nor Piaget, nor Perls.

My answer is, no shit, Sherlock.

They aren't being objective, because they are investigating subjective matters. They will fail certain objectivity tests, always. So does Jesus, St. Paul, Lao Tzu. What would you? Objective science can't even begin to work on these things.

cantdog

who doesn't have all the answers here

Cantdog, you have more answers than most people have questions.

 

[shereads]

I understand the fears that people Ad Hominem drug users, unfairly. That wasn't my intention. However, similar to you though opposite, it bugs me to see people who experimented with drugs lauded by anti-establishment tools as having found widsom and brilliance inside a bottle.

Does it bug you that they found it there? Or that we laud them for it?

I've never heard anyone suggest that wisdom, brilliance, creativity come into existence because someone turns to drugs. But clearly, for some people it's been the means by which they found the will be express their creativity and the clarity to explore it.

It never worked that way for me, and probably not for most people. I'd experience an epiphany and rush to write it down before the moment was lost. In the cold light of day, it would turn out to be an idea for a play about penguins auditioning for roles in "A Chorus Line."

Maybe if opium dens had been in vogue, and my drug of choice had required less contact with people named Dude...



Edited to add: Dude's given name was Dude. He earned his living selling speed to third-shift mill workers, lived out of a duffle bag and on favors from his customers, and used to cry in his beer and say that no one showed him any respect. He was a social conservative and a staunch Republican. An establishment tool, you might say.

 

[Guest]

John Kerry

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Originally posted by shereads
Does it bug you that they found it there? Or that we laud them for it?

More or less, its the idea that just because someone was on drugs, or writes fantasy novels, or joins protests, or travelled a lot doesn't make their opinion gold.

 

[shereads]

More or less, its the idea that just because someone was on drugs, or writes fantasy novels, or joins protests, or travelled a lot doesn't make their opinion gold.

I don't put much stock in fantasy novels, and there isn't anyone whose opinion I accept without question. But joining a protest is at the very least, a demonstration of conscience; against powerful opposition, it's a sign of courage. Travel, for those who are lucky enough to afford it, can't help but broaden someone's perspective.

Asked to choose the more credible of two people of whom I know nothing except that both had the same opportunity, but only one chose to travel the world and has ever participated in a protest, I'd believe in that person whether or not he had ever taken drugs.

 

[gauchecritic]

Gotta go with Joe here. I'm more or less anti drugs (or anti indiscriminate use and glorification of) For my own reasons which are neither here nor there. But I can see where Joe is coming from (man).

The whole world and his mother knows about Kubla Khan and the old man from Porlock and the worst ever case of poetus interuptus.

(Except for the first stanza I'm not mightily impressed anyway, but then I'm not trained)

Two things have always struck me about this. Was it really the drugs? and Would he have been able to finish it anyway?

Happily, we shall never know.

Whenever I hear mention of Coleridge, (is there any other example of brilliance emanating from drug use? and please don't say Hendrix. Was Einstein high when he thought of E equalling Mc squared or was Loewenhook doped up to fuck when he identified his cork cells?) I am always reminded of a very similar story I read (I get the feeling that it's one of Mab's stories but I'm not sure.)

A group of people (perhaps scientists) had ingested a psychotropic drug (for research I think) and during the ensuing episode one of the group suddenly proclaimed that they had discovered the "secret of the universe" or some such and they wrote it down and sealed it in an envelope to be studied later.

When they eventually opened the envelope, what was written on the paper was "If I stand on my tiptoes I can touch the ceiling"

Gauche

 

[cantdog]

I believe it was de Quincey who did the same thing and read "the Stench of Creosote pervades All."

 

[rgraham666]

This thread has finally come down to a level I can participate at.

Too much stuff to write a complete post on, so random thoughts instead.

"If human beings were the mindless automatons that behavioural psychologists believe, behavioural psychologists could never have invented the science called behavioural psychology" Robert A. Heinlein

In that book I mentioned, The Undiscovered Mind, the author says we will probably never be able to understand the human mind scientifically. He thinks it's literature that provides more understanding. I agree with him.

The author has written another book, The End of Science. I gather that is pretty much what it is about, how science is reaching the end of it's run as the primary tool of Western Civilization. I've been looking for a copy for ages in second hand bookstores. It has sadly gone out of print.

Cantdog? I don't think Joe would like Saul very much. And Saul would reduce amicus to foaming apoplexy. Hmmm. Maybe we should send him some Saul for Xmas?

 

[Guest]

just a little background

Everyone takes Coleridge out of context. Opium fit the needs of the romantics, some better than others. For fucksake, look what happened to Tim Leary (including the fact that he was Wynona Rider's 'godfather'!). Just to be clear, I'm with Gauche and Joe. - Perdita

The Early Romantics - Opium, Opium Everywhere

Poems were to a great extent no longer public by the 1790s. Poets began to look inward for inspiration and the Romantic movement was born. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote of inner torment in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "This Lime Tree Bower My Prison", as well as mystical (or rather narcotic) visionary poetry in his justly revered "Kubla Khan". The world of inner sorrows was reflected in this poetry’s vision of the outside, in pathetic fallacy. Like Wordsworth, Coleridge was inconsistent. When he borrows the setting and concerns of the Gothic vogue in "Christabel" he writes some absolutely dire and embarrassingly self-consciously titillating verse (predictably the poem does have its admirers). It is with the torment of the mariner in "The Rime…" and the lonely voyage of guilt on the ghostly sea, where even the creatures of the water and the sun’s light seem to mimic his emotions, that he achieves true sublimity. This was the poetry of escape through the written word, of joyful appreciation of nature and loneliness. In this vein, "Dejection: an Ode" (1802) explores the destructive effects of opium addiction, but soon after his move to the continent in 1804 his poetry took a turn for the worse and his opinions to the conservative. He became, of course, a critic.

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Edited to add: I wrote this for another thread.

S.T. Coleridge was a veritable plagiarist, though he rationalized it in his inimitable fashion and even wrote about it, his ratonale. It has been unarguably shown that the bulk of his Shakepearean criticism was lifted from Shlegel, also much of his famed Bio. Lit.