Back to irreducible complexity (PART TWO) (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, February 21, 2010, 20:49 (5185 days ago) @ dhw

dhw,-I apologize for how much time this took, it appears that I had another one of my "episodes" where a line of thought snaked in and I followed it assuming that you could read my brain. How unfortunate that you lost this ability! -Never fear, however as I shall attempt to "fix" you!-First off, you are absolutely correct. Language is (largely) deterministic--it HAS to be deterministic or it wouldn't make much sense. Language is our means of placing symbols on the world so that we can think about them. It gives our world structure. However the danger according to Buddhists/Nietzsche is in mistaking language for reality, hence the N quote warning against the seduction of words. Man tries to "fix" reality in place, however nature isn't something that is readily "fix"-able. -Buddha/Nietzsche has a line of argument that suggests that since language is deterministic, that its very framework shapes out thinking about the world. In Nietzsche's case, he just wants us to be aware that language itself necessarily shapes how we're going to think about the world. As a linguist, I'm sure you're very much aware of this fact. A classic example would be a culture (such as Hawaiian natives) that never developed a word for "Goodbye." What impact would that have on a culture?-Buddhist thought transforms this concept further to claim that language itself fools us into thinking that there is ANY kind of determinism or cause and effect in anything at all—all things we know, if we "learned" them by language, we don't truly know. Knowing only comes from experience. The article "I" is as much an illusion for the self as ascribing the article "you" to another object. Buddhism is especially repellent to the article "I," as selfishness surrounds the "I." This is why I see Buddhism as being opposed to the concept of ID, because at least from my understanding, ID is simply the self-pleasuring and childish part of the psyche, and it is the Super-Ego that is the unconscious drive for perfection. But I'll be the first to admit, my knowledge of Freud is limited to a very, very, small domain, and it is likely that I was burying myself in something I'm far too ignorant on. -To stay on track, I am willing to indulge the Buddhist view that states that all things we view as causes and effects are as such because we built them to appear that way. In many respects this is an extreme form of relativism, but it (obviously) allows us to keep a strong perspective on what we're discussing, and remind us that the objects in a language are never to be considered the same thing as the entity they describe.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"