Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Release the Undines!

Continuing with yesterday's theme of the possible, impossible, and necessary, a being of reason 

is an object, which neither does nor can exist except in the mind in the capacity of object. You have in this definition all you need in order never to do what has been done by so many people: to confuse a being of reason with a psychological reality.

Really? I would qualify this to say "all you need" logically. The will, of course, doesn't care about this constraint on existence; the first and last question of the left is always, What does impossibility have to do with it? 

Or, to paraphrase Bobby Kennedy, Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that can never be, and say, why not? As long as it's not in my backyard, and besides, it's not my money.

Progressivism either runs roughshod over logic or confines itself to logic (AKA rationalization), depending on the needs of the moment. 

Many examples come to mind -- say, if a woman aborts a viable fetus, it's a victory for Choice, whereas if she is murdered along with the baby, it's a double homicide. Logic, of course, demands a single definition, but if the left obeyed this principle, it would be suicidal to their cause. And suicide is wrong!

I'm thinking too of how Brandon pretends to reduce inflation by printing more money. Or fight street crime by not prosecuting it. Or conjure an insurrection by prosecuting one. Or eliminate racism by engaging in it, or  address "climate change" by making it more difficult to survive the climate. The list goes on.

Logic is surrounded by neighbors that have absolutely no scruples.... These neighbors of logic are always ready to swallow it up (Simon).

Like a bad neighbor, state harm is there. 

Has your logic ever been devoured by a being of reason? Of course it has. None of us is exempt from Genesis 3. I remember back in the '80s, being passionately "anti-nuclear." What was that all about, really? 

Whatever the case may be, it "succeeded" here in California, which once again demonstrates how unreality has very real effects. 

Say what you want about the Impossible, its impact on reality is undeniable, especially when taken up by a collective. Delusions in individuals are relatively harmless, but a state motivated by one is a Monster. I don't believe in Orcs. I only try to avoid them. They won't let you ignore them.

Back to those beings of reason per se. Again, they represent an ambiguous category, since they are obviously real -- they exist -- only not in the external world; they aren't contradictory as such, although it would be contradictory to suppose them capable of existence in the world.

Ignoramuses may take it to designate psychological realities, but a psychological reality is a real being of a particular kind that is just as real as anything else.

I suppose one of the problems is that you can't really destroy a being of reason. For example, you can't burn down pi, or an inch, or a syllogism; but nor can you burn down Marxism, feminism, or queer theory. You can't even touch them, since they aren't things, only objects of thought.

Yesterday we brought Hayek into the discussion, and the following passage might have been written by him:

Between physical and social causality the difference is such that the concept of social engineer simply does not admit of being transferred from the physical to the social order. The undine, the zombie, and the social engineer are so many beings of reason with no foundation in the real world (Simon).

Note that the same sort of person who puts his faith in top-down social control is likely to dismiss the reality of free will, which is grounded in our transcendent capacity to choose between good and evil, truth and falsehood -- or what Eliot described as people who dream of systems so perfect that no one needs to be good.

Just waiting for global warmists to tell us Gaia is very angry with Governor DeathSantis, and has released the undines. 

  

  

 

  

13 comments:

julie said...

The following pertinent narrative is from my kids' earth science reading for today. Written in 1869, it is one of those observations which seems particularly timely today:

"In a word, Analysis was to teach men Science; and Synthesis to teach them Art.

But because Analysis was the elder, Madam How commanded Synthesis never to put the pieces together till Analysis had taken them completely apart. And if Synthesis had obeyed that rule of his good old grandmother's, the world would have been far happier, wealthier, wiser, and better than it is now. But Synthesis would not. He grew up a very noble boy. He could carve, he could paint, he could build, he could make music, and write poems: but he was full of conceit and haste. Whenever his elder brother tried to do a little patient work in taking things to pieces, Synthesis snatched the work out of his hands before it was a quarter done, and began putting it together again to suit his own fancy; and, of course, he put it together wrong.

Then he went on to bully his elder brother, and locked him up in prison, and starved him, till for many hundred years poor Analysis never grew at all, but remained shrunken, and stupid, and all but blind for want of light; while Synthesis, and all the hasty conceited people who followed him, grew stout and strong and tyrannous, and overspread the whole world, and ruled it at their will.

But the fault of all the work of Synthesis was just this: that it would not work. His watches would not keep time, his soldiers would not fight, his ships would not sail, his houses would not keep the rain out."

Gagdad Bob said...

Anabolism and catabolism, the complementarity of cognitive metabolism.

John Venlet said...

Julie, it's too bad that that quote you posted came too late for Hegel to possibly gain some wisdom from it.

John Venlet said...

I remember back in the '80s, being passionately "anti-nuclear."

I don't know what that's all about, Gagdad, but during early 1980s I was serving on a nuclear powered submarine, and some of my shipmates and I had t-shirts made up that said "Mutants for nuclear power," with a cartoonish mutant pictured below. If I still had one, I'd send it to you.

Gagdad Bob said...

I actually voted for the Citizens Party anti-nuclear candidate in 1980, Barry Commoner. One of 233,000.

John Venlet said...

One of 233,000.

That's a rather exclusive group, then, or elitist, but still outside the ruling elite whom probably were laughing at the attempt to influence national policy.

Gagdad Bob said...

I remember seeing Barry Commoner speak at UCLA -- must have been the spring of 1980.

I guess I was more or less lost in ideology that whole decade and more. Aside from grace, I wonder what was the thread that kept me tethered to reality, and allowed me to pull my way out?

The only things I can think of are an open mind and a disinterested love of truth. Also, I couldn't help noticing that I wasn't like them. But I couldn't be one of those evil conservatives. So it took awhile...

julie said...

Good grief, it seems like the undines really have been released. I hope all the Florida folks are ok.

Gagdad Bob said...

My 88 year old mother-in-law living on a key outside Sarasota decided to stick it out. She may have dodged a bullet, since the worst surging seems to be south of that.

julie said...

Thank goodness; I hope it doesn't get too bad for her there. That photo making the rounds of the small planes on top of each other is from the town nextdoor to where we used to live. A little scary, because on Monday people I know didn't seem to expect to get hit particularly hard, since they're on the east coast and to the south of the projected path.

There were things I loved about living in Florida, but I've never been sorry about trading hurricanes for earthquakes and fires.

julie said...

Interesting map of the winds in motion here. In a weird way, I always found this one reassuring because usually the wind speeds it shows are a lot lower than what everyone was losing their minds over, although of course it doesn't account for localized gusts. Note the default speeds are in km/h instead of mph. Highest speeds are over the water where it's red.

That said, at present the vortex just looks terrifying.

John Venlet said...

One of my sons and his wife are in Bradenton. They are holding tight. Still has power, and though they've got a bunch of rain, no flooding by them. Staying in contact every few hours. They're attitude is positive, and they know prayers for their safety are being offered, and, more importantly, heard.

Green Boots said...

Seems like yesterday that deniers were proclaiming that fewer and less intense hurricanes were disproving climate change. The whole time I've been proclaiming that humans aren't causing any change, God is. And that it's not the gays he's unhappy with, but all the CINOs.

Speaking of which, it seems that MTG is divorcing. Let that be a lesson for anybody who considers being married to a Karen, sexy. Meanwhile, others say she’s actually a CINO. She hides an insatiable drive for wealth and power behind “Christianity”. Discuss.

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