Message-Id: <v03102801b098b88400b3@[194.109.13.153]>
In-Reply-To: <3471FBD3.E18F585@fcol.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 17:52:22 +0200
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Ton Maas <tonmaas@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Re: Where is thought? (Courtesy Cannon, Inc.)
Bob Grimes thought:
>Where is Thought?
>
>If a thought is on paper, does that thought become more real?
>Does it then have a life of its own? Why is it that a thought feels good
>to hold,
>like a document in your hand, or under your arm or even under a pen? Does
>thought
>improve if it's altered by another human's perspective? Is a thought
>better if it is
>shared with many people?
>Where is thought if it never leaves the thinker?
>
>(imageANYWARE(sm) from Canon, The new paradigm for the digital workplace.
What a nice and poetic piece by the old fart ;-)
>Come on now, which of you folks is secretly working for Canon and just
>using our
>conversations for ad fodder?
>Next they will be talking about thoughts on substrates, or...or... MEMES or
>something! Seems like we just had a discussion that the meme never leaves the
>person, just the seed of it in some type of symbology.... They think one
>can "print
>thoughts," Ton! Next they will want to "store them."
Did you just think out loud or was it my imagination? (And where would
*that* be?).
PS. Last night I had an amazing phone call from one of my intellectual
masters - Anthony Wilden from Simon Frazer in BC, a former student of
Bateson's and formerly known as "Wild Tony Wilden" - author of extremely
challenging works such as "System & Structure - Essays in Communication and
Exchange", "Man & Woman, War & Peace" and "The Rules Are No Game" (one of
my al-time favourite titles!). Many years ago I had written him a letter,
inviting him on the editorial board of an international interdisciplinary
magazine to be ("ID Preview") - which unfortunately never materialized.
Anyway, last night my letter surfaced in a stack somewhere in Wilden's
study and he decided to give me a call to say "yes". We ended up having an
extremely animated half-hour conversation, in which he recommended a few
books and expressed his anger at Simon Fascist U. and the Canadian
intellectual climate at large. (He once wrote an *extremely* unpopular book
called "The Imaginary Canadian" (published - quite appropriately - by Pulp
Press), in which he analyzed Canadians as the product of a horribly
authoritarian top-down hierarchy which extended all the way down from
British Royalty to Canadian subordinates. His main claim to fame is a very
elegant system he calls "context theory" - which elborates the central
notion of "both-and" (as opposite to "either/or"). Tired of fighting wars
with educational management, he's reorganizing his life and actively
looking for fellow-travellers. He's in the business of setting up his first
home computer system and will probably appear on-line in the very near
future. I for one, are *really* looking forward to his input to our
conversation, of which I naturally made him aware!
Kind regards,
Ton
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