Dear Ken
Yesterday, wrangling indeterminately, I spotted a crow (more correctly, in
Australia, a raven) banging its beak against its own mirror image. It gave
up and strutted and cawed as if in victory - or so it seemed.
AND
I recall, from my boyhood, that one can not predict how the calf will
react to being jumped on - I must wrangle it to the ground where I can tie
it up, cut off its balls, brand its bum, tag its ear and inject it with
whatever stuff it needs. (Cowboy Keith)
I don't like Merriman-Webster's accounts of either word.
DETERMINE, on a simple analysis = to give terms to - so, calling things
unpredictable (can't pre-give - speak -words to) is the TERM for not
having TERMS. So, we DO have TERMS for such things and so they are NOT
indeterminate. The crow/raven had terms (wrong as they might be) - it
ended by ascribing terms - it determined victory - if it did not do so, it
would be still there at the mirror, frozen. As Blake says: "If the sun and
moon should doubt,/ They'd immediately go out".
That is, to cognise is to apply a term = to determine. Consciousness of
nothing is thus consciousness of the something that is nothing.The brain,
in terms of reflective consciousness, is typified by the passing over into
a positive moment - an investment is made (in Freud's terms) a cathexisis
takes place (in Freudian terms). This positive state of attention is
necessarily determinate.
Are my disputations here an example of wrangling as in "dispute angrily or
peevishly" or is this like Jacob wrestling with the angel until the angel
gives up more than just a term (ouch- that hurts). The angel, for Jacob
(and the tribe) gives up a metaphor and hope of knowledge being possible:
a ladder (we, in academia, award degrees for people acquiring knowledge by
degrees - one rung at a time). Rung by rung I may climb even if behind
each rung disappears (Wittgenstein). Which gets us in to the whole
wrestling thing = the agnostics (protagonsist and antagonsist) that haunts
the middle eastern cultures and hence our own.
And, to follow up my suggestion of wrestling we can find, the following
etymology at http://etymonline.com/?term=wrangle
WRANGLE: late 14c., from Low German wrangeln "to dispute, to wrestle,"
related to Middle Low German wringen, from Proto-Germanic *wrang-, from
PIE *wrengh-, nasalized variant of *wergh- "to turn" (see wring
<http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=wring&allowed_in_frame=0>). Related:
Wrangled; wrangling. The noun is recorded from 1540s.
Cheers
keith
On 30/08/13 9:57 AM, "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Merriam-Websterıs at Britannica Online gives the first meaning of the
>word ³indeterminate² as ³a: not definitely or precisely determined or
>fixed : VAGUE<http://www.britannica.com/bps/dictionary?query=vague> b:
>not known in advance c: not leading to a definite end or result.² The
>second meaning is ³having an infinite number of solutions.²
>
>Jerry wrote that people ³respond unpredictably in the ways that they
>interpret and make use of (afford) human artifacts.²
>
>Jerry did not commit the ³infinity error.² The assumption of infinite
>options is your idea, not Jerryıs. Jerryıs concept involves the lack of
>predictability that can arise from multiple perspectives, shifting
>horizons, and changing context. Jerry explained the issues in his latest
>post and I agree with him.
>
>My concerns involve your wrangling. Merriam-Websterıs defines the verb
>wrangle as, ³to dispute angrily or peevishly:
>BICKER<http://www.britannica.com/bps/dictionary?query=bicker> 2: to
>engage in argument or controversy.² To argue about the ³infinity error²
>after Jerry stated that he meant unpredictably is wrangling.
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