Dear Johann
Thanks for directing me to ‘Return to reason’. I saw Stephen Toulmin’s page
on Wikipedia. His first proposal is to return to orality. Isn’t it
interesting? This was also the plea of Harold Innis . My take on the
issue is precisely around what literacy did to the being-ness of modern
man. It is interesting to note that the term literate and illiterate or
literacy and orality (Walter Ong) are all based on language and
communication and not based on cognition- that is not on how one makes
sense of the world.
My proposal is to rename this as ‘text cognites’ and ‘sense cognites’
indicating how one connects to the world or cognizes. In reality only
‘sense’ can connect and text disconnects. Also text cognites needs
communication whereas among sense cognites communion happens.
See for instance the use of the phrase ‘learning from experience’. This
indicates two things. One is that learning and experience are separated in
time and may be in space also. When you learn from experience there has to
be a time gap. In fact this is the separation of mind and body. Body
experiences and mind learns! I would like to call this the cognitive
dissonance. There is more to this when mind gets separated- the experience
itself is dictated by the mind. Mind chooses what and how to experience!
This happens in literate ‘cultures’ as we live in the linguistic realm-
language, concepts and categories dictate the way one experience the world.
Among sense cognite cultures what is happening is, one learns THE
experience. Again ‘learning’ is not a word that is used by sense cognites.
In fact ‘learning from experience’ is what brings in the awareness of time.
So the ‘literates’ permanently lives in the past. Mind plans and body
executes. Experience always happens in the NOW and naturally cognition can
happen only in the NOW. (There are some languages which has same name for
tomorrow and yesterday)
Jinan
On 17 April 2013 10:55, Johann van der Merwe <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> Jinan
> You wrote:
> "We are living in peculiar times where ‘knowing’ is more important than
> ‘being’."
> I believe that "knowing" (true cognition) IS "being" ... that is the
> difference between Dasein's 'knowing' and the 'knowing' that entails
> striving towards Being
>
> >
> > "Communication’ gaining more importance than ‘cognition’ is then natural
> > and that too the language aspect of it. That is the reason why someone
> > with *insight* had to re assert ‘medium is the message’."
> >
> When there is no real cognition in communication, then the latter is mere
> instruction ... if communication can be called that, then something has to
> change, and that something has to do with our "being". On that score, the
> 'medium is the message' is true, if we can believe that the medium is
> our/self ... the "medium" being the way we communicate plus what is being
> communicated & how we communicate (i.e., the way we "listen"). We become
> both the medium and the message.
>
>
> > "What we hear is the language but what one cognizes or experiences or
> lives
> > is the totality where there is no distinction between medium and the
> > message."
> >
> Exactly ... !
>
> >
> > "The peculiarity of modernity is that the chance to ‘misunderstand’ is
> more
> > than to ‘understand’. When one tries to understand someone else it is
> quite
> > natural to misunderstand. Understanding takes place at the level of
> > ‘being’. It seems that ‘ objectivity’ is taking us for a ride."
> >
> Well, true objectivity does not exist, and neither does 100% subjectivity
> ... our "understanding" (sometimes "creative misunderstanding") is always a
> mixture somewhere between the two, somewhere between you and me.
> Understanding takes place when something new is uncovered, when our "being"
> is added to or changed in some way.
>
> >
> > "This box is the box of reason and language and reason has to have
> ‘known’
> > to operate and the true out of
> > the box situation can only happens in the realm of ‘unknown’."
> >
> I would recommend anyone to read Stephen Toulmin's "Return to Reason", and
> my own take on this is that "reason" can only emerge in a "reasoned
> argument" between parties, when common ground is found that is acceptable
> to all (a new solution). To use "reason" that is written down and does not
> change is downright wrong ... so, "reason" does in fact operate in the
> realm of the unknown.
>
> >
> > "Please allow me to quote Friedrich Nietzsche *“But how could we possibly
> > explain anything? We operate only with things that do not exist: lines,
> > planes, bodies, atoms, divisible time spans, divisible spaces. How should
> > explanations be at all possible when we first turn everything into an
> > image, our image!”*"
> >
> This is quite true ... and a seemingly impossible situation. However, [1]
> you cannot "explain" anything to anyone, because that is mere instruction &
> not understanding, but you can help them (e.g., students) to "explain"
> things to themselves (or, better put, to find/uncover things for themselves
> ... I dearly love Socrates);
> [2] most of what we have to work with is "invisible"/does not exist - there
> is no such thing as objective knowledge, since we made that up in the first
> place, and what can be made can be unmade, even the "truth". But, we are so
> used to this made-up stuff that it works perfectly well, most of the time,
> as long as we are all "reasonable".
> [3] explanations (of what confronts us in any enquiry or observation) are
> possible if we realise that explantion-to-self is also translation of what
> confronts us, whether that something is the known or the unknown ... we
> simply have to turn what we are hoping to understand into an image of
> ourselves, since there is nothing else we can do. To understand anything we
> first have to create a "model" of that something (an image or pattern),
> which then becomes part of our own model/image/pattern of understanding ...
> being is changed in the process of understanding.
>
> Johann
>
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Johann van der Merwe
> Independent Design Researcher
>
>
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