> Well geoff, just because I have a different view about archaeology than
> you, is that the same that I should or could not indulge in such an
> entartaining business as archaeology? Are only people with the "right"
> attitiude aloud to participate in the archaeological debate?
>
no, i'm not saying that at all; i just wonder why, if you view archaeology as
	an metaphysical illusion of a past that never existed
	> >> in the first place!
why you would continue studying/doing/thinking about it; why don't you find 
something less metaphysically illusory to do? can you find fulfillment or 
satisfaction or whatever pursuing something you know to be an illusion? do you 
not feel dishonest? i am only asking about your motivations in this respect

> > And behind that illusion resides nothing but emptiness.
>
> geoff:
> >pessimist (or just plain buddhist?): behind that illusion resides the dreamer
> >who created/thought of it - or haven't you read don quixote, or heard the old
> >joni mitchell line about "all those pretty lies" or...
>
> "Pessimist", "buddhist"? Why are so so keen to conceptualise attitudes in
> static categories? For your information, I belive reality to be dynamic,
> always in flux, and that's not pessimism or optimism, just plain realism.
> And I'm happy that you mention Don Quixote, because that book shows exactly
> why, and how, archaeologist create and belive in illusions.
>
i mentioned don quixote because the illusion can itself be beautiful in and of 
itself (i.e. not "emptiness") - isn't don quixote's dream of chivalry something 
to aim for rather than ridicule? cervantes satirized a literary genre, but 
there was still something noble about what quixote was fighting for, or else he 
wouldn't have taken such a strong root in our culture (know any other 16/17th 
century satires which would be as recognizable? in dq you have the medieval 
imagination vs "modern" reality, you have the solitary hero against the mass, 
striving for something higher) - my point being that something other than 
nothingness resides behind what you call "the illusion"
	as for how "that book shows exactly why, and how, archaeologist create 
and belive in illusions" i think you'd have to convince me: not all 
archaeologists have fried their brains reading medieval romances, nor are they 
all idle gentlemen bordering on fifty years (cervantes' stated causes for dq's 
dementia), so i don't see the "exactly why, and how" - and although this point 
is irrelevent to the original comment re illusions and emptiness, there is the 
big difference that we can reexamine every precept and principle and premise and 
conclusion made during the history of archaeology and its related subjects and 
basically reconfirm or deny them; dq's premise was that there were knights 
errant in the world (a statement which could easily be falsified) and that he 
was one of the noblest (debatable)
	the buddhist/pessimist (should maybe have added nihilist) queries were 
just trying to establish how you came to this emptiness conclusion; the buddhist 
illusion should be clear, the pessimist seems to go better with the denial of 
any illusion's value
	a statement like "behind that illusion resides nothing but emptiness" 
also sounds fairly static, not "dynamic, always in flux", so either you 
contradict yourself or i'm really way off the mark here

> >> For example, if you take apart a wagon, what exist? The essence or soul of
> >> the wagon? Not likely.
>
> geoff:
> >parts of a wagon: whoever said a wagon (other than maybe a 57 caddy) had
>  soul?
>
> It was a metaphor geoff.
>
i know it was; some others following on my comments don't seem to have realised 
this, tho, and i was just carrying on the metaphor to what i thought was its 
logical conclusion: you take apart a wagon and you get its parts; you put it 
back together and you get a whole raft of connotations like transport, people 
transported to the guillotines during the french revolution, springsteen and the 
great american dream of fast cars etc; i don't see how concepts like essence or 
soul enter into the equation, and evidently don't really understand what you 
mean in this context

> geoff:
> >a wagon is a wagon is a wagon: it rolls, it carries stuff, it needed
>  something
> >to pull it, it could carry a given load, took a given amount of time
> >and/or labour, material and skills to produce, and may already have been used
> >and abused and exposed to various elements...
>
> Yes, I agree, but the point was that nothing in itself has essence. Because
> if you take apart a phenomena, nothing exists. And that goes for concepts
> as "archaeology", "prehistory", or "wagons" too.
>
what is essence? do you mean that nothing exists in the sense that most of an 
atom (and most of what lies between atoms) is just empty space, or in the sense 
that conscious perception is necessary before something can be said to exist, 
or... or is this just something along the lines of the concept "wagon" has no 
referent because it is a mental construct (signifier), existing only as a label 
applied to a set of things which meet a set of criteria defined in dictionaries 
(relationship to signified is not 1:1) or...?

> As I said:
> > And the same goes with prehistory. If you take apart
> >> your own meanings about it, nothing is left but emptiness. And the
> >> artefacts are nothing else but "materiality", in it self, and of itself.
> >> All meaning around this materiality are meanings that are articulated
> >> through the mode of narrativity, get the picture?
> >>
> >no, apparently not
>
> Good. Neither do I.
>
then what are you trying to say? if i have a wagon, it has no meaning because 
any meaning i give it i'm either writing or saying or... if (and this is 
probably a big if) i understand you correctly, you seem to be working backwards 
from the theory/interpretive end/scale of things (meaning) and almost saying 
that the wagon itself does not exist (nothing is left but emptiness) whereas i 
would argue that i have a wagon (i'm not going to question whether or not i 
exist and will look at the wagon as being a wagon and not something else 
altogether) and then build up to the meaning/narrative through purely functional 
criteria (how was it built, how much could it carry, what could have pulled it, 
any traces of cargo, etc.), ethnographic comparisons, symbollic and other 
analysis, etc. - argue the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and 
conclusion - basically building my case from the ground up -
	i say there is not just illusion and emptiness because i have the wagon, 
you say this material, and discount any narrative meaning applied to it... could 
i also turn around and say that your argument has no meaning because it is also 
"articulated through the mode of narrativity", or...?


geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
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