Re: Me against the meme (2) A ( critical) side kick !!

From: Kenneth Van Oost (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Tue 22 Nov 2005 - 19:55:59 GMT

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    From: Derek Gatherer <d.gatherer@vir.gla.ac.uk> Derek, Ted and all,

    What could be more accessible than a fairy !? A more elusive one !

    Teds and Dereks pitching about who is right and thus in the end who is wrong, is interesting in a memetical way, because both think they tell the truth. But you only can expose one other his ideas/ ideals as being false/ as impossibilities if you yourself claim to hold the truth on a lease. Does Ted have it, claiming Darwinism is limping and lame !? He breaks things down, that is his business, but he trips attemping to resurrect a kind of religious belief. The fact of the matter is that he is spoiling things and spoiling them gaily bringing in Sheldrakes morphogenetics. To counterweight he says. But he never says exactly what we think he wants to say.

    But Derek, by virtue of being a hardcore Darwinian,states the obvious opposite_ that scientific empirical evidence would naturally find its place and that less fitting ideas like those ' Sheldrakemeries ' are never gonna be anything more than a patchwork. But don 't we put one belief against the other, without ever making out which assumption is better and more adequate !? The acknowledgement that critical judgements can no longer be articu- lated in the traditional manner doesn 't have to lead to a cripple form of relativism.

    On the contrary, just the ' unfoundation of things ' scrapes the fundamental questionableness and openness that invites for a further critical debate. Moreover, the uncertainty wether Ted or Derek are right or wrong in their own regard, is in itself the criteria whereby we can deduct if there are better for worse ideas. Findings wherein the uncertainty is build right in from the beginning are far better than findings that try to reject/ overcome or even exorcise that same uncertainty.

    The problem of Ted and Derek derives from their shared tendency to appeal to a higher imperious force ( God, Raison or the Facts), that easily disquali- fies contradictory assumptions. In both cases the responsibility for the own ideas and handlings is abused_ by suggesting that God or the Facts speak for them- selves, where we all know that simply isn 't true- a spokesman, a prophet, a scientist, an intellectual, a meme- dope brings them to life, meant to fly.

    Both Ted and Derek bring out and draw the same line of a kind of mono- theism which holds inside absolute clarity/ unity and truth, but at the same time they demand submission to the unity and order of Raison itself. With this critical analyses I want to show that I still kick against any prick that wants to submit human thinking to a imperious force. Tolerance on the one hand widens because it becomes less easy to call unscientific ideas as simple, ridicule and irrational forms of superstition. On the other hand, no doubt, in respect, I keep repeating, tolerance knows it bounderies too, I will fight any hard certainties either they were Shel- drakian or Darwinian !!

    Regards,

    Kenneth

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