I'm enjoying this convergence with data analysis and science.
>The originary event is a sample of humanity because all members of the group became sampling samples there.
I'm not sure I fully follow this claim. I think I understand how we're samples that sample, but why is that the reason for the originary event being a sample of humanity? Are you meaning the story we tell today and retroject?
And isn't the only humanity that which participated in the originary event? What could be the larger population?
That would seem to open up an answer to others and I who had a critique of the way the originary scene was presented. You might remember how I was saying there needed to be an integration of GA into Idealism. This word Idealism may not be apt, but it's essentially about being more self-aware of our invocation of the human origin.
You seem like you've spontaneously on your own arrived at some mechanism for doing this, so I look forward to reading even more.
It’s not yet clear to me why you are locating the origin of metaphysical dualisms in the failed ritual and not in the first animal distinguished from all others by the name of God. That name i can see is a sample of possible other names, gestures that seem to arrive with the originary paradox but doesn’t there still remain the implicit dualism of sampled beast and sign, sacred beast and insignificant kills? And what about the distinction between what becomes known as the esoteric and exoteric? Why assume someone expelled from the community for a failed ritual and not some attempt to better perform it without some kind of human sacrifice among fairly equal rivals without weapons at hand?
Good questions. I'm clearly revising Gans here. If metaphysical dualism has its origin on the originary scene, we'd never be done with it--the whole assumption between, say, attributing metaphysics to the primacy of the declarative sentence is that those dualisms can, in fact, be dispensed with. So, what is "dualism"? I would say that it is the co-existence of mutually exclusive realities, neither of which can account for the other. So, if the "real" reality is "ideas," why is there material reality? And if the "real" reality is what we can sense, why are there "ideas"? You end up with an antinomy. But the distinction between the sacred and profane is not like this, and neither is the relation between exoteric and esoteric, which are in fact complementary and reciprocally defining. The sacred beast is not an insignificant kill--it's sacred all the way through, even in its consumption--it both "speaks" and gives itself to the group, which is also not a dualism--what it "says" is to come and "take me" in this particular way.
Thanks, if you have commented on this understanding of dualism elsewhere, please point me to it. Maybe I have always been confused by the mainstream assumption on the left that the project of the deconstruction of metaphysics takes as its primary target all the sacrificial otherings of some victimary figure. But if the sacred/profane distinction is not the core of dualisms, this entire project is misconstrued and the necessity of sacrificial thinking (even if now we won’t want to “sacrifice” our emissary samples) lost to those caught up in the meta-dualism of the woke who don’t stereotype and the unwoke who do.
No, I don't think i've ever commented on dualism before this. Metaphysics is certainly an attempt to minimize sacrifice, but it does so by trying to restrain "tyranny," which targets the center in a new way. I suppose one could say that deconstruction wants to show that metaphysics doesn't target the tyrant effectively enough, and is in fact the real source of tyranny. It wouldn't be completely wrong insofar as metaphysics obfuscates power, but deconstruction provides no way of clarifying it--it can just find the victims of metaphysics. But I don't understand what you mean in saying that "the necessity of sacrificial thinking [is?] lost to..." Is it necessary, but they don't see it? Or it can no longer be necessary for them?
The former. We can’t escape from sacrificial thinking, even as we wish to minimise violence, because the sacred is originary. But the woke left doesn’t see this and in their Utopian urge to do away with sacrificial violence, or dualisms, seen as simply archaic, they must always trap themselves in the need for violence against their inevitable scapegoats, in a non-minimal way.
I agree with this description of the Left, but the situation with sacrificial thinking is more complex. Once we can identify "sacrificial thinking" we can resist and avoid it--otherwise, the analysis of sacrificial thinking would itself just be another form of sacrificial thinking. Concepts I've developed, like "donating your resentment to the center," and more recently, leaving the "Big Scene" for the "iterative center" and distinguishing the "practice/hypothesis" axis from the "ritual/narrative" one are aimed at replacing sacrificial thinking.
I appreciate your direction. In my experience, the more I think about donating resentment to the centre, i may be resisting ST but i’m not exactly avoiding it. It returns to mind but in a more parodic or maybe hyperbolic form, harder to take seriously, but still present; as long as I ponder the disorder about, it returns as a reminder of the need for more disciplined thinking. Will it ever seriously dissipate with new disciplines? As we move from ritual to practise we still want boundaries with consequences, no? And is it that desire that leads to the parodic ST?
I'm enjoying this convergence with data analysis and science.
>The originary event is a sample of humanity because all members of the group became sampling samples there.
I'm not sure I fully follow this claim. I think I understand how we're samples that sample, but why is that the reason for the originary event being a sample of humanity? Are you meaning the story we tell today and retroject?
And isn't the only humanity that which participated in the originary event? What could be the larger population?
Yes, in our retrospective reconstruction.
That would seem to open up an answer to others and I who had a critique of the way the originary scene was presented. You might remember how I was saying there needed to be an integration of GA into Idealism. This word Idealism may not be apt, but it's essentially about being more self-aware of our invocation of the human origin.
You seem like you've spontaneously on your own arrived at some mechanism for doing this, so I look forward to reading even more.
Maybe, but I just excavated a couple of phrases that Gans introduced and left hanging.
It’s not yet clear to me why you are locating the origin of metaphysical dualisms in the failed ritual and not in the first animal distinguished from all others by the name of God. That name i can see is a sample of possible other names, gestures that seem to arrive with the originary paradox but doesn’t there still remain the implicit dualism of sampled beast and sign, sacred beast and insignificant kills? And what about the distinction between what becomes known as the esoteric and exoteric? Why assume someone expelled from the community for a failed ritual and not some attempt to better perform it without some kind of human sacrifice among fairly equal rivals without weapons at hand?
Good questions. I'm clearly revising Gans here. If metaphysical dualism has its origin on the originary scene, we'd never be done with it--the whole assumption between, say, attributing metaphysics to the primacy of the declarative sentence is that those dualisms can, in fact, be dispensed with. So, what is "dualism"? I would say that it is the co-existence of mutually exclusive realities, neither of which can account for the other. So, if the "real" reality is "ideas," why is there material reality? And if the "real" reality is what we can sense, why are there "ideas"? You end up with an antinomy. But the distinction between the sacred and profane is not like this, and neither is the relation between exoteric and esoteric, which are in fact complementary and reciprocally defining. The sacred beast is not an insignificant kill--it's sacred all the way through, even in its consumption--it both "speaks" and gives itself to the group, which is also not a dualism--what it "says" is to come and "take me" in this particular way.
Thanks, if you have commented on this understanding of dualism elsewhere, please point me to it. Maybe I have always been confused by the mainstream assumption on the left that the project of the deconstruction of metaphysics takes as its primary target all the sacrificial otherings of some victimary figure. But if the sacred/profane distinction is not the core of dualisms, this entire project is misconstrued and the necessity of sacrificial thinking (even if now we won’t want to “sacrifice” our emissary samples) lost to those caught up in the meta-dualism of the woke who don’t stereotype and the unwoke who do.
No, I don't think i've ever commented on dualism before this. Metaphysics is certainly an attempt to minimize sacrifice, but it does so by trying to restrain "tyranny," which targets the center in a new way. I suppose one could say that deconstruction wants to show that metaphysics doesn't target the tyrant effectively enough, and is in fact the real source of tyranny. It wouldn't be completely wrong insofar as metaphysics obfuscates power, but deconstruction provides no way of clarifying it--it can just find the victims of metaphysics. But I don't understand what you mean in saying that "the necessity of sacrificial thinking [is?] lost to..." Is it necessary, but they don't see it? Or it can no longer be necessary for them?
The former. We can’t escape from sacrificial thinking, even as we wish to minimise violence, because the sacred is originary. But the woke left doesn’t see this and in their Utopian urge to do away with sacrificial violence, or dualisms, seen as simply archaic, they must always trap themselves in the need for violence against their inevitable scapegoats, in a non-minimal way.
I agree with this description of the Left, but the situation with sacrificial thinking is more complex. Once we can identify "sacrificial thinking" we can resist and avoid it--otherwise, the analysis of sacrificial thinking would itself just be another form of sacrificial thinking. Concepts I've developed, like "donating your resentment to the center," and more recently, leaving the "Big Scene" for the "iterative center" and distinguishing the "practice/hypothesis" axis from the "ritual/narrative" one are aimed at replacing sacrificial thinking.
I appreciate your direction. In my experience, the more I think about donating resentment to the centre, i may be resisting ST but i’m not exactly avoiding it. It returns to mind but in a more parodic or maybe hyperbolic form, harder to take seriously, but still present; as long as I ponder the disorder about, it returns as a reminder of the need for more disciplined thinking. Will it ever seriously dissipate with new disciplines? As we move from ritual to practise we still want boundaries with consequences, no? And is it that desire that leads to the parodic ST?