From jhforest at gmail.com Sat Mar 1 09:42:24 2008 From: jhforest at gmail.com (Jim Forest) Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2008 15:42:24 +0100 Subject: [percy-l] Re War and Peace Message-ID: <53c59b0c0803010642u126ffc6ahaa037effcb198e3f@mail.gmail.com> Continuing the dialogue with Michael Larson: I wrote: >> > However it's astonishing that -- apart from the Balkans -- Europe, the battleground of so many wars, many of which had a religious component, hasn't been a place of war for 63 years. This surely is in part thanks to the efforts made here to gradually create a European Union. It is far from perfect, but we are not killing each other. (As an American living in Europe, I am one of the immediate beneficiaries.)" Michael replied: >> I am truly glad that you're not killing each other, but is a secular Europe united allegedly by pluralism more palatable than the one that was united by Christendom? And are there not worse things even than war--such as, for instance, a pallid and faithless peace? Percy often said as much, I think. While I wouldn't agree that Europe is quite as secular as we are widely regarded as being, personally I prefer to live in the Europe that exist, albeit to a sad extent post-Christian but where we are not wading in blood, than a Europe that is once again a religious battlefield. I have often wondered why religious life in Europe has weakened so much. There are many factors, but wars between Protestants and Catholics are probably not an insignificant one. What often seems like ancient history from the vantage point of the US doesn't seem nearly that long ago to a great many Europeans, many of whom would revise a familiar biblical text to make it read: "See how they kill one another." We have had both Reformation and Counter-Reformation, with many deaths and martyrdoms on both sides, but to what extent there were followers of Christ in Europe in the post-reformation centuries is less obvious. friendly greetings! Jim Forest -- Jim & Nancy Forest Kanisstraat 5 1811 GJ Alkmaar The Netherlands Forest-Flier web site: www.incommunion.org/forest-flier/ Orthodox Peace Fellowship web site: www.incommunion.org photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/ recently published: "Silent as a Stone," a children's book about a community of rescuers in Nazi-occupied Paris: http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/silent-as-a-stone-mother-maria-of-paris-and-the-trash-can-rescue/ another new book: "The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life": http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/the-road-to-emmaus-pilgrimage-as-a-way-of-life/ * * * Nancy and I have been keeping a journal that follows our recent kidney transplant. A blog has been set up for this purpose -- A Tale of Two Kidneys. See: http://ataleof2kidneys.blogspot.com/ * * * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wriddick at usa.net Mon Mar 3 02:00:21 2008 From: wriddick at usa.net (Wade Riddick) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 01:00:21 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Re War and Peace In-Reply-To: <53c59b0c0803010642u126ffc6ahaa037effcb198e3f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 7405 bytes Desc: not available URL: From marcus at loyno.edu Tue Mar 4 05:52:21 2008 From: marcus at loyno.edu (marcus at loyno.edu) Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:52:21 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] NYT on The Moviegoer Message-ID: <47cd29e5.270.19c074.9255@loyno.edu> Back in January, there was a blog (and reader comments) in the New York Times focusing on The Moviegoer. I think this link will get you there: http://readingroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/up-next-the-moviegoer/?scp=1-b&sq=moviegoer&st=nyt Marcus Smith From marcus at loyno.edu Mon Mar 17 13:01:01 2008 From: marcus at loyno.edu (marcus at loyno.edu) Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:01:01 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge Message-ID: <47dea3cd.23a.1c6136.9079@loyno.edu> I?ve been reading a new book that I think might have attracted Walker?s attention, Elizabeth Hess, Nim Chimsky: The Chimp Who Would be Human. Bantam, 2008. As many folks will recall, WP was quite interested in the efforts to communicate with chimps. In 1970 (as I recall) my wife and I were at a conference with Percy in New York organized by Thomas Sebeok. It was called The Clever Hans Phenomenon: Communication with Horses, Whales and People. Later, I helped arrange to bring Herbert Terrace down to Loyola in New Orleans to discuss his experiments with ?Nim Chimsky.? Walker came to the city to attend Terrace?s lecture. Anyway, there?s a wonderful moment early in Hess?s book that would have tickled Percy and I want to share it with the list. In her Introduction, Hess reviews the interesting history of humans trying to communicate with chimps. One of these episodes took place in the 1920s and 1930s: ?Three pioneer experiments investigating the chimp?s capacity for language were particularly important in paving the way for Project Nim. The first one was set in motion in the 1920s, when a husband and wife team, Winthrop N. Kellogg, a psychologist at the University of Indiana, and Luella A. Kellogg, also a psychologist, became intrigued by the discovery of several feral children in Europe and India and the subsequent debate on the effects of nature versus nurture on childhood development. If Winthrop Kellogg could have adopted a feral child or placed a newborn in the wild, he probably would have. Instead, he and his wife decided to reverse the situation and adopt a chimpanzee, the next best thing to a feral child for the purposes of their research. . . ?On August 30, 1930, Luella Kellogg gave birth to their son Donald. On June 26, 1931, a healthy seven-month-old female chimp named Gua came to live with the Kelloggs on long-term loan from Yerkes. For nine months, boy and chimp were brought up virtually as twins. They were dressed alike and fed the same foods (except that Donald refused raw vegetables) in an effort to treat them equally, the better to make scientific comparison of the details of their physical development, their behavior, and, the Kelloggs hoped, their speech. Each day the ?siblings? were drilled for hours on individual words. In addition, Gua?s surrogate parents manipulated her lower jaw, hoping to encourage her to get it moving. Although there was much chimp chat (?oo-oo-oo-oo?) from Gua, neither Gua [n]or Donald uttered word one. Eventually Donald began making the same sounds as his simian sibling. When the Kelloggs started to worry that the experiment might retard their son?s development, Gua, sixteen months old, was returned to a cage in Yerkes?s facility and the experiment was ended.? I can hear Walker?s ironic chuckle and his commiseration for Donald being a ?slow learner? of Chimp. Marcus Smith From Nikkibar at aol.com Sun Mar 23 23:43:24 2008 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 EDT Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge Message-ID: Dear Marcus, You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that i carried on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that animals of the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but with one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably wrong and or 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was a measure of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward since his death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my position grows stronger day by day. Nikki **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com Mon Mar 24 00:21:27 2008 From: rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com (RHONDA MCDONNELL) Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:21:27 -0700 Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Nikki-- Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker absolute in his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic communication exists between the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication that was the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy From: Nikkibar at aol.comDate: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgSubject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge Dear Marcus, You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that i carried on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that animals of the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but with one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably wrong and or 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was a measure of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward since his death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my position grows stronger day by day. Nikki Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. _________________________________________________________________ Test your Star IQ http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey1 at charter.net Mon Mar 24 08:47:52 2008 From: karey1 at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:47:52 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001001c88dad$46209c20$6401a8c0@Karey> Rhonda, Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but in his writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other communication never rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He seemed pretty adamant about that, even though it was not written in stone in the general field, as Nikki says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of sorts), felt otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary symbol, and gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it seems to be a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. Karey _____ From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge Nikki-- Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker absolute in his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic communication exists between the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication that was the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy _____ From: Nikkibar at aol.com Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge Dear Marcus, You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that i carried on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that animals of the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but with one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably wrong and or 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was a measure of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward since his death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my position grows stronger day by day. Nikki _____ Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. _____ Test your Star IQ Play now! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From 13rose at bresnan.net Mon Mar 24 19:20:43 2008 From: 13rose at bresnan.net (Michael and Susan Rapkoch) Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:20:43 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 4 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Isn't the entire question first the meaning of the word "communicate?" I join this discussion late and have not reviewed all the archives but Percy would certainly agree that language, whether dyadic or triadic requires, for proper analysis, clarity and ultimately agreement over the meaning of terms. Not even triadic agents can communicate without an established unity of discourse involving meaning. When a child names he "symbolizes," i.e. gives a verbal expression to the object symbolized. The child will make many mistakes at the level of both genera and species which must be corrected to allow meaning to enter his world and communication to follow. On Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:21:36 -0400 percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org wrote: > Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to > percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Chimp is a challenge (Nikkibar at aol.com) > 2. Re: Chimp is a challenge (RHONDA MCDONNELL) > 3. Re: Chimp is a challenge (Karey Perkins) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 EDT >From: Nikkibar at aol.com > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Dear Marcus, > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that i carried > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that animals of >the > "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but with one > another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably wrong and or 2) > that > in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was a measure of our > hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward since his death, >the > empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my position grows > stronger day by day. > > Nikki > > > > **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL > Home. > (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001) > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080323/9e936802/attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:21:27 -0700 >From: RHONDA MCDONNELL > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Nikki-- > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker absolute >in his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic communication exists between >the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication that was >the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? > --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in >spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the >faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." > Walker Percy > > >From: Nikkibar at aol.comDate: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400To: >percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgSubject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > Dear Marcus, > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that i carried >on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that animals of the >"lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but with one >another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably wrong and or 2) >that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was a measure of >our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward since his >death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my position >grows stronger day by day. > > Nikki > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. > _________________________________________________________________ > Test your Star IQ > http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080323/5c436553/attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:47:52 -0400 >From: "Karey Perkins" > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > Message-ID: <001001c88dad$46209c20$6401a8c0 at Karey> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Rhonda, > > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but in his > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other communication > never rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He seemed pretty adamant about > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general field, as Nikki > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of sorts), felt > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary symbol, and > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it seems to be > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. > > > > Karey > > > > _____ > >From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL > Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > Nikki-- > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker absolute > in his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic communication exists between > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication that was > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? > > > > --Rhonda > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea > of who he is or what he is doing." > > Walker Percy > > > > > _____ > > >From: Nikkibar at aol.com > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that i carried > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that animals of > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but with > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably wrong and or > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was a measure > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward since his > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my position > grows stronger day by day. > > > > Nikki > > > > > > > _____ > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > 0030000000001> the video on AOL Home. > > > > _____ > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080324/b9eaa540/attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Percy-L mailing list > Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > > End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 4 > ************************************** From robert.g.eckert at us.army.mil Tue Mar 25 09:32:50 2008 From: robert.g.eckert at us.army.mil (Eckert, Robert G SPC MIL USA FORSCOM) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 07:32:50 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge In-Reply-To: <001001c88dad$46209c20$6401a8c0@Karey> References: <001001c88dad$46209c20$6401a8c0@Karey> Message-ID: List, I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been made of the degree of quantitative difference. Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one must admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the hundreds of thousands at least. The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly does not prove, a qualitative difference. I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in _New Key_-- "Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and man's least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creation--or in modern phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83. Robert ----- Original Message ----- From: Karey Perkins Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48 Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > Rhonda, > > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but > in his > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He > seemed pretty adamant about > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general > field, as Nikki > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of > sorts), felt > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary > symbol, and > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it > seems to be > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. > > > > Karey > > > > _____ > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > Nikki-- > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic > communication exists between > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication > that was > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? > > > > --Rhonda > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in > spite of > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the > faintest idea > of who he is or what he is doing." > > Walker Percy > > > > > _____ > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that > i carried > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that > animals of > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us > but with > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably > wrong and or > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was > a measure > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward > since his > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my > positiongrows stronger day by day. > > > > Nikki > > > > > > > _____ > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home. > > > > _____ > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > > > From marcus at loyno.edu Tue Mar 25 11:46:17 2008 From: marcus at loyno.edu (marcus at loyno.edu) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:46:17 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 4 Message-ID: <47e91e49.15a.19f0ac.28650@loyno.edu> I just got Nikki’s note in response to my posting about the couple whose child started acquiring “Chimp.” I have generally similar memories (the year pass and my recollections fade), but I have some different impressions of Walker’s views. I don’t recall him holding that animals “were unable to communicate,” but instead that human language was qualitatively distinct. He may have invoked Peircean “Thirdness” as his standard. He certainly rejected (with strong arguments) the notions of some of the Chimp language advocates that Chimps and humans were close to being equivalent. I want to finish Hess’s book before I comment on where the empirical jury is today. I sort of doubt that anyone has done anything that would force Percy to change his fundamental position. I’ve seen some notes that some of the Chimps after they have finished their time in research exhibit symptoms that might indicate existential loneliness. Troubling. More later, Marcus Smith ----- Original Message Follows ----- From: percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 4 Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:21:36 -0400 > Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to > percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' > to > percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more > specific than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Chimp is a challenge (Nikkibar at aol.com) > 2. Re: Chimp is a challenge (RHONDA MCDONNELL) > 3. Re: Chimp is a challenge (Karey Perkins) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > ------------ > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 EDT > From: Nikkibar at aol.com > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Dear Marcus, > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running > argument that i carried on with Walker for a great many > years. He always asserted that animals of the "lower > orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but > with one another, while I held to the view that 1) he > was probably wrong and or 2) that in any event we could > never be certain but 3) that it was a measure of our > hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward > since his death, the > empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my > position grows stronger day by day. > > Nikki > > > > **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > the video on AOL Home. > (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?vid > eo=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part > -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080323/9e936802/attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:21:27 -0700 > From: RHONDA MCDONNELL > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Nikki-- > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was > Walker absolute in his stance, or did he recognize that > dyadic communication exists between the "lower orders"? > I'm wondering if it was triadic communication that was the > sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of > argument? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more > deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific > and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea > of who he is or what he is doing." > Walker Percy > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.comDate: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 > -0400To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgSubject: Re: [percy-l] > Chimp is a challenge > > Dear Marcus, > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running > argument that i carried on with Walker for a great many > years. He always asserted that animals of the "lower > orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but > with one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was > probably wrong and or 2) that in any event we could never > be certain but 3) that it was a measure of our hubris to > deny the possibility. As times have gone forward since his > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I > think my position grows stronger day by day. > > Nikki > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on > AOL Home. > __________________________________________________________ > _______ Test your Star IQ > http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080323/5c436553/attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:47:52 -0400 > From: "Karey Perkins" > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > Message-ID: <001001c88dad$46209c20$6401a8c0 at Karey> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Rhonda, > > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said > personally, but in his writings he always maintained that > chimps and other animals could communicate dyadically - > but their sign language and other communication never rose > above the "sign" level to symbol. He seemed pretty > adamant about that, even though it was not written in > stone in the general field, as Nikki says. Interestingly, > Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of sorts), felt > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of > rudimentary symbol, and gives examples in her "Philosophy > in a New Key." For Walker it seems to be a qualitative > difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. > > > > Karey > > > > _____ > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of > RHONDA MCDONNELL Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > Nikki-- > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was > Walker absolute in his stance, or did he recognize that > dyadic communication exists between the "lower orders"? > I'm wondering if it was triadic communication that was the > sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of > argument? > > > > --Rhonda > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, > because in spite of great scientific and technological > advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or > what he is doing." > > Walker Percy > > > > > _____ > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running > argument that i carried on with Walker for a great many > years. He always asserted that animals of the "lower > orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us but > with one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was > probably wrong and or 2) that in any event we could never > be certain but 3) that it was a measure of our hubris to > deny the possibility. As times have gone forward since his > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I > think my position grows stronger day by day. > > > > Nikki > > > > > > > _____ > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > eo=15?ncid=aolhom0 0030000000001> the video on AOL Home. > > > > _____ > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > t_HMTAGMAR> > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080324/b9eaa540/attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Percy-L mailing list > Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > > End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 4 > ************************************** From armstron at ohiou.edu Tue Mar 25 11:50:08 2008 From: armstron at ohiou.edu (Ken Armstrong) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge In-Reply-To: References: <001001c88dad$46209c20$6401a8c0@Karey> Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.2.20080325114905.03f7d9e0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know? Ken A At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote: >List, > > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > of the degree of quantitative difference. > >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one must >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the >hundreds of thousands at least. > >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly does >not prove, a qualitative difference. > >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in >_New Key_-- >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and man's >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creation--or in modern >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83. > > Robert > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Karey Perkins >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48 >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > > > Rhonda, > > > > > > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but > > in his > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He > > seemed pretty adamant about > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general > > field, as Nikki > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of > > sorts), felt > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary > > symbol, and > > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it > > seems to be > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. > > > > > > > > Karey > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > Nikki-- > > > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic > > communication exists between > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication > > that was > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? > > > > > > > > --Rhonda > > > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in > > spite of > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the > > faintest idea > > of who he is or what he is doing." > > > > Walker Percy > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > > > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that > > i carried > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that > > animals of > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us > > but with > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably > > wrong and or > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was > > a measure > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward > > since his > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my > > positiongrows stronger day by day. > > > > > > > > Nikki > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home. > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > > > > > > >-- >An archive of all list discussion is available at >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy From rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com Tue Mar 25 13:34:02 2008 From: rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com (RHONDA MCDONNELL) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:34:02 -0700 Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge In-Reply-To: <6.2.1.2.2.20080325114905.03f7d9e0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> References: <001001c88dad$46209c20$6401a8c0@Karey> <6.2.1.2.2.20080325114905.03f7d9e0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses) without having the language to articulate it? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> From: armstron at ohiou.edu> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know?> > Ken A> > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote:> >List,> >> > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > > of the degree of quantitative difference.> >> >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one must > >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes > >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > >hundreds of thousands at least.> >> >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly does > >not prove, a qualitative difference.> >> >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in > >_New Key_--> >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and man's > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creation--or in modern > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83.> >> > Robert> >> >> >> >----- Original Message -----> >From: Karey Perkins > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48> >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > >> >> > > Rhonda,> > >> > >> > >> > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but> > > in his> > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could> > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other> > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He> > > seemed pretty adamant about> > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general> > > field, as Nikki> > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of> > > sorts), felt> > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary> > > symbol, and> > > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it> > > seems to be> > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative.> > >> > >> > >> > > Karey> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA> > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM> > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki--> > >> > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker> > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic> > > communication exists between> > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication> > > that was> > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument?> > >> > >> > >> > > --Rhonda> > >> > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in> > > spite of> > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the> > > faintest idea> > > of who he is or what he is doing."> > >> > > Walker Percy> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com> > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400> > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > Dear Marcus,> > >> > >> > >> > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that> > > i carried> > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that> > > animals of> > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us> > > but with> > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably> > > wrong and or> > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was> > > a measure> > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward> > > since his> > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my> > > positiongrows stronger day by day.> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch> > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home.> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > Test your Star IQ Play now!> > > > > >> > >> >--> >An archive of all list discussion is available at > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> >> >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> > --> An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy _________________________________________________________________ Test your Star IQ http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey1 at charter.net Tue Mar 25 14:09:49 2008 From: karey1 at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:09:49 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002d01c88ea3$6acc5a90$6401a8c0@Karey> Good point. Percy said language was necessary for consciousness. That's something I've been trying to decipher. What exactly is he meaning by consciousness? Are my cats not conscious? They definitely feel. Are they only conscious to the point of survival impulses, instinct, and the emotions related to the two? I think if we interpret Percy's claim, it has got to mean that you can't know something beyond survival impulses unless you have language. You can't be aware of the inevitable arrival of death, and so can't experience "the denial of death" and the anxiety of death and the need for a causa sui (cf. Ernest Becker) - or other human emotions, such as guilt and regret and redemption. (I'm quite certain my cats don't feel guilt.) Is that what he means by consciousness? The huge evolutionary gap that Langer speaks of, that Robert points out, might explain why Percy continually insisted on a qualitative difference - it really seems that way if the quantitative difference is so big. Though if it's really quantitative, there's a whole separate set of implications about who man is and how he differs from other creatures - that are belied if it's qualitative. Karey _____ From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:34 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses) without having the language to articulate it? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy _____ > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400 > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > From: armstron at ohiou.edu > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know? > > Ken A > > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote: > >List, > > > > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > > of the degree of quantitative difference. > > > >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one must > >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes > >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > >hundreds of thousands at least. > > > >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly does > >not prove, a qualitative difference. > > > >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in > >_New Key_-- > >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and man's > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creation--or in modern > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83. > > > > Robert > > > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: Karey Perkins > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48 > >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > > > > > > Rhonda, > > > > > > > > > > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but > > > in his > > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could > > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other > > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He > > > seemed pretty adamant about > > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general > > > field, as Nikki > > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of > > > sorts), felt > > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary > > > symbol, and > > > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it > > > seems to be > > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. > > > > > > > > > > > > Karey > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA > > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM > > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > > > Nikki-- > > > > > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker > > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic > > > communication exists between > > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication > > > that was > > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? > > > > > > > > > > > > --Rhonda > > > > > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in > > > spite of > > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the > > > faintest idea > > > of who he is or what he is doing." > > > > > > Walker Percy > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com > > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 > > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > > > > > > > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that > > > i carried > > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that > > > animals of > > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us > > > but with > > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably > > > wrong and or > > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was > > > a measure > > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward > > > since his > > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my > > > positiongrows stronger day by day. > > > > > > > > > > > > Nikki > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home. > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > > > > > > > > > > >-- > >An archive of all list discussion is available at > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy _____ Test your Star IQ Play now! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From armstron at ohiou.edu Tue Mar 25 16:27:27 2008 From: armstron at ohiou.edu (Ken Armstrong) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:27:27 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge In-Reply-To: <002d01c88ea3$6acc5a90$6401a8c0@Karey> References: <002d01c88ea3$6acc5a90$6401a8c0@Karey> Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.2.20080325144844.063a4730@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Rhonda, Karey, Robert, et al, Remember the Far Side cartoon, "what dogs hear": blah blah blah blah blah Fido blah blah blah. And the companion 'toon, "what cats hear": blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.... In _The Phenomenon of Man_, which I haven't read for years and about which I should probably not trust my memory, de Chardin says at some point our ancestors were hit with (or entered into, I don't remember the verb) self-reflexive thought. It's an interesting thought to entertain, because presumably to that first individual (or was there a wave?) self-reflexive thought occurred without the benefit of language (or what Percy would mean and I agree is language). For my part, I am quite in agreement with Percy's adamant stance, and what occurs to me when I hear that we exhibit hubris when we claim exclusivity to language is that when we don't, we, not to put it too strongly, fail at our charge. To me that is much more sobering than considering that we may be slighting an animal whose jaw has to be massaged in the effort to coax "words" out of it. Ken A. At 02:09 PM 3/25/2008, Karey Perkins wrote: >Good point. Percy said language was necessary for consciousness. That?s >something I?ve been trying to decipher. What exactly is he meaning by >consciousness? Are my cats not conscious? They definitely feel. Are they >only conscious to the point of survival impulses, instinct, and the >emotions related to the two? I think if we interpret Percy?s claim, it >has got to mean that you can?t know something beyond survival impulses >unless you have language. You can?t be aware of the inevitable arrival of >death, and so can?t experience ?the denial of death? and the anxiety of >death and the need for a causa sui (cf. Ernest Becker) ? or other human >emotions, such as guilt and regret and redemption. (I?m quite certain my >cats don?t feel guilt.) Is that what he means by consciousness? > From Mlarson at SOUTHEASTMN.EDU Tue Mar 25 16:42:34 2008 From: Mlarson at SOUTHEASTMN.EDU (Michael Larson) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:42:34 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Middle creature In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3920C4B0B41025479F39D775289D7AA003481439@wa-SEex.Southeasttech.edu> This discussion was reminding me of something I couldn't quite place. Then I remembered that passage from THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE in which Percy addresses the implications of language for distinguishing between man and the animals. Then I remembered that I made a post about that very thing last May. So I went back to the archives and found it, and I've pasted it in (unedited) below. For whatever it's worth... Mike Larson ***** This is from "The Mystery of Language," THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE (p. 158): "An awareness of the nature of language must have the greatest possible consequences for our minimal concept of man. For one thing it must reveal the ordinary secular concept of man held in the West as not merely inadequate but quite simply mistaken. I do not refer to the Christian idea of man as a composite of body and soul, a belief which is professed by some and given lip service by many but which can hardly be said to be a working assumption of secular learning. We see man--when I say we, I mean 95 per cent of those who attended American high schools and universities--as the highest of the organisms: He stands erect, he apposes thumb and forefinger, his language is far more complex than that of the most advanced Cebus azarae. But the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. Man is a higher organism, standing in direct continuity with rocks, soil, fungi, protozoa, and mammals. This happens not to be true, however, and in a way it is unfortunate. I say unfortunate because it means the shattering of the old dream of the Enlightenment--that an objective-explanatory-causal science can discover and set forth all the knowledge of which man is capable. The dream is drawing to a close. The existentialists have taught us that what man is cannot be grasped by the sciences of man. The case is rather that man's science is one of the things that man does, a mode of existence. Another mode is speech. Man is not merely a higher organism responding to and controlling his environment. He is, in Heidegger's words, that being in the world whose calling it is to find a name for Being, to give testimony to it, and to provide for it a clearing." So Percy argues here, as he does in many places, that the human capacity for language is what separates us from the animals. The Christian philosophers, to whose work he makes implicit reference here, would say that the animals are of an entirely material (thus, dyadic) order and that God and the angels are of an entirely spiritual (non-material) order. But man is a middle creature, both material and spiritual (the highest of the former and the lowest of the latter), and the triadic nature of language is both a material clue for this reality and the means by which this composite creature (man) has access to that which is higher. Language itself is always material--whether written or spoken--but it allows by way of signification for consciousness and contemplation, which is of the spiritual order. And by a mere sleight of words, Percy gets an existentialist, Heidegger, to describe in grand terms, what Aquinas had fulfilled centuries earlier, in the high Middle Ages, long before "the old dream of the Enlightenment" was even born. Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist intelligentsia would have to acknowledge. ***** -----Original Message----- From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:10 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 6 Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org You can reach the person managing the list at percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Chimp is a challenge (RHONDA MCDONNELL) 2. Re: Chimp is a challenge (Karey Perkins) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:34:02 -0700 From: RHONDA MCDONNELL Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses) without having the language to articulate it? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> From: armstron at ohiou.edu> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know?> > Ken A> > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote:> >List,> >> > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > > of the degree of quantitative difference.> >> >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one must > >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes > >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > >hundreds of thousands at least.> >> >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly does > >not prove, a qualitative difference.> >> >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in > >_New Key_--> >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and man's > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creati on--or in modern > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83.> >> > Robert> >> >> >> >----- Original Message -----> >From: Karey Perkins > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48> >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > >> >> > > Rhonda,> > >> > >> > >> > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but> > > in his> > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could> > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other> > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He> > > seemed pretty adamant about> > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general> > > field, as Nikki> > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of> > > sorts), felt> > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary> > > symbol, and> > > gives examples in her "Philoso phy in a New Key." For Walker it> > > seems to be> > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative.> > >> > >> > >> > > Karey> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA> > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM> > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki--> > >> > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker> > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic> > > communication exists between> > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication> > > that was> > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument?> > >> > >> > >> > > --Rhonda> > >> > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in> > > spite of> > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the> > > faintest idea> > > of who he is or what he is doing."> > >> > > Walker Percy> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com> > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400> > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > Dear Marcus,> > >> > >> > >> > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that> > > i carried> > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that> > > animals of> > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us> > > but with> > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably> > > wrong and or> > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was> > > a measure> > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward> > > since his> > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my> > > positiongrows stronger day by day.> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki> > >> > >> > > > > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch> > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home.> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > Test your Star IQ Play now!> > > > > >> > >> >--> >An archive of all list discussion is available at > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> >> >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> > --> An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy _________________________________________________________________ Test your Star IQ http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080325/5d459870 /attachment-0001.htm ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:09:49 -0400 From: "Karey Perkins" Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" Message-ID: <002d01c88ea3$6acc5a90$6401a8c0 at Karey> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Good point. Percy said language was necessary for consciousness. That's something I've been trying to decipher. What exactly is he meaning by consciousness? Are my cats not conscious? They definitely feel. Are they only conscious to the point of survival impulses, instinct, and the emotions related to the two? I think if we interpret Percy's claim, it has got to mean that you can't know something beyond survival impulses unless you have language. You can't be aware of the inevitable arrival of death, and so can't experience "the denial of death" and the anxiety of death and the need for a causa sui (cf. Ernest Becker) - or other human emotions, such as guilt and regret and redemption. (I'm quite certain my cats don't feel guilt.) Is that what he means by consciousness? The huge evolutionary gap that Langer speaks of, that Robert points out, might explain why Percy continually insisted on a qualitative difference - it really seems that way if the quantitative difference is so big. Though if it's really quantitative, there's a whole separate set of implications about who man is and how he differs from other creatures - that are belied if it's qualitative. Karey _____ From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:34 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses) without having the language to articulate it? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy _____ > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400 > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > From: armstron at ohiou.edu > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know? > > Ken A > > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote: > >List, > > > > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > > of the degree of quantitative difference. > > > >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one must > >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes > >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > >hundreds of thousands at least. > > > >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly does > >not prove, a qualitative difference. > > > >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in > >_New Key_-- > >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and man's > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creation--or in modern > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83. > > > > Robert > > > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: Karey Perkins > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48 > >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > > > > > > Rhonda, > > > > > > > > > > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but > > > in his > > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could > > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other > > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He > > > seemed pretty adamant about > > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general > > > field, as Nikki > > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of > > > sorts), felt > > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary > > > symbol, and > > > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it > > > seems to be > > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. > > > > > > > > > > > > Karey > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA > > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM > > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > > > Nikki-- > > > > > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker > > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic > > > communication exists between > > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication > > > that was > > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? > > > > > > > > > > > > --Rhonda > > > > > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in > > > spite of > > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the > > > faintest idea > > > of who he is or what he is doing." > > > > > > Walker Percy > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com > > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 > > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > > > > > > > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that > > > i carried > > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that > > > animals of > > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us > > > but with > > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably > > > wrong and or > > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was > > > a measure > > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward > > > since his > > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my > > > positiongrows stronger day by day. > > > > > > > > > > > > Nikki > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home. > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > > > > > > > > > > >-- > >An archive of all list discussion is available at > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy _____ Test your Star IQ Play now! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080325/57e8e371 /attachment.htm ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Percy-L mailing list Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 6 ************************************** From karey1 at charter.net Tue Mar 25 18:05:45 2008 From: karey1 at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:05:45 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] FW: Middle creature Message-ID: <001501c88ec4$60119b80$6401a8c0@Karey> Yes. Great quote. For Percy it was qualitative difference, not quantitative. However, the comment....: "Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist intelligentsia would have to acknowledge." .... is problematic. Because it doesn't get rid of Cartesian dualism, which was Percy's goal. There are still two separate and distinct realms here, matter and spirit. He's trying to resolve that dilemma. I think Percy was a bit confused by it himself. And that a material thing shows a spiritual presence doesn't do that job of resolving the split between the two (though it does do Percy's Christian apologist duties of showing the presence of spiritual world). Middle creature is unclear on how we are middle - both matter and spirit existing separate but equal within us (Cartesian dualism - and no word on how they can interact) - or some amalgam of the two completely mixed and losing the original identity of both. Or something else. Percy himself never resolved the split and it plagued him his whole life. We also need to define "spiritual" - I do think animals have perception of a spiritual world - don't laugh (ahem). Dogs, cats, other animals have a perception where they sense the presence of ghosts, etc., before humans. So the "spiritual realm" or "spiritual order" needs to be defined. Is it the characteristics of guilt, regret, redemption, joy, purpose, meaning - human psychological characteristics animals don't have? Humans obviously have that, animals don't. That's what Percy meant. Is it the presence of a world of spirits - angels, demons, ghosts (or whatever it is that exists in the non-material world). Animals have that sense, better than humans. That doesn't seem to be what Percy was referring to. That's why I think we really need to take a step back and define our terms, including "consciousness", "matter", "spirit", "middle" - etc. etc. I also don't' think it'll get resolved here or any time soon by anyone. It's far more complex when examined it's all it's depth. Karey -----Original Message----- From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Michael Larson Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:43 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: [percy-l] Middle creature This discussion was reminding me of something I couldn't quite place. Then I remembered that passage from THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE in which Percy addresses the implications of language for distinguishing between man and the animals. Then I remembered that I made a post about that very thing last May. So I went back to the archives and found it, and I've pasted it in (unedited) below. For whatever it's worth... Mike Larson ***** This is from "The Mystery of Language," THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE (p. 158): "An awareness of the nature of language must have the greatest possible consequences for our minimal concept of man. For one thing it must reveal the ordinary secular concept of man held in the West as not merely inadequate but quite simply mistaken. I do not refer to the Christian idea of man as a composite of body and soul, a belief which is professed by some and given lip service by many but which can hardly be said to be a working assumption of secular learning. We see man--when I say we, I mean 95 per cent of those who attended American high schools and universities--as the highest of the organisms: He stands erect, he apposes thumb and forefinger, his language is far more complex than that of the most advanced Cebus azarae. But the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. Man is a higher organism, standing in direct continuity with rocks, soil, fungi, protozoa, and mammals. This happens not to be true, however, and in a way it is unfortunate. I say unfortunate because it means the shattering of the old dream of the Enlightenment--that an objective-explanatory-causal science can discover and set forth all the knowledge of which man is capable. The dream is drawing to a close. The existentialists have taught us that what man is cannot be grasped by the sciences of man. The case is rather that man's science is one of the things that man does, a mode of existence. Another mode is speech. Man is not merely a higher organism responding to and controlling his environment. He is, in Heidegger's words, that being in the world whose calling it is to find a name for Being, to give testimony to it, and to provide for it a clearing." So Percy argues here, as he does in many places, that the human capacity for language is what separates us from the animals. The Christian philosophers, to whose work he makes implicit reference here, would say that the animals are of an entirely material (thus, dyadic) order and that God and the angels are of an entirely spiritual (non-material) order. But man is a middle creature, both material and spiritual (the highest of the former and the lowest of the latter), and the triadic nature of language is both a material clue for this reality and the means by which this composite creature (man) has access to that which is higher. Language itself is always material--whether written or spoken--but it allows by way of signification for consciousness and contemplation, which is of the spiritual order. And by a mere sleight of words, Percy gets an existentialist, Heidegger, to describe in grand terms, what Aquinas had fulfilled centuries earlier, in the high Middle Ages, long before "the old dream of the Enlightenment" was even born. Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist intelligentsia would have to acknowledge. ***** -----Original Message----- From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:10 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 6 Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org You can reach the person managing the list at percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Chimp is a challenge (RHONDA MCDONNELL) 2. Re: Chimp is a challenge (Karey Perkins) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:34:02 -0700 From: RHONDA MCDONNELL Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses) without having the language to articulate it? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> From: armstron at ohiou.edu> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know?> > Ken A> > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote:> >List,> >> > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > > of the degree of quantitative difference.> >> >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one must > >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes > >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > >hundreds of thousands at least.> >> >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly does > >not prove, a qualitative difference.> >> >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in > >_New Key_--> >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and man's > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creati on--or in modern > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83.> >> > Robert> >> >> >> >----- Original Message -----> >From: Karey Perkins > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48> >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > >> >> > > Rhonda,> > >> > >> > >> > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but> > > in his> > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could> > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other> > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He> > > seemed pretty adamant about> > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general> > > field, as Nikki> > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of> > > sorts), felt> > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary> > > symbol, and> > > gives examples in her "Philoso phy in a New Key." For Walker it> > > seems to be> > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative.> > >> > >> > >> > > Karey> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA> > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM> > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki--> > >> > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker> > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic> > > communication exists between> > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication> > > that was> > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument?> > >> > >> > >> > > --Rhonda> > >> > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in> > > spite of> > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the> > > faintest idea> > > of who he is or what he is doing."> > >> > > Walker Percy> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com> > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400> > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > Dear Marcus,> > >> > >> > >> > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that> > > i carried> > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that> > > animals of> > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us> > > but with> > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably> > > wrong and or> > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was> > > a measure> > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward> > > since his> > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my> > > positiongrows stronger day by day.> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki> > >> > >> > > > > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch> > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home.> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > Test your Star IQ Play now!> > > > > >> > >> >--> >An archive of all list discussion is available at > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> >> >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> > --> An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy _________________________________________________________________ Test your Star IQ http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080325/5d459870 /attachment-0001.htm ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:09:49 -0400 From: "Karey Perkins" Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" Message-ID: <002d01c88ea3$6acc5a90$6401a8c0 at Karey> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Good point. Percy said language was necessary for consciousness. That's something I've been trying to decipher. What exactly is he meaning by consciousness? Are my cats not conscious? They definitely feel. Are they only conscious to the point of survival impulses, instinct, and the emotions related to the two? I think if we interpret Percy's claim, it has got to mean that you can't know something beyond survival impulses unless you have language. You can't be aware of the inevitable arrival of death, and so can't experience "the denial of death" and the anxiety of death and the need for a causa sui (cf. Ernest Becker) - or other human emotions, such as guilt and regret and redemption. (I'm quite certain my cats don't feel guilt.) Is that what he means by consciousness? The huge evolutionary gap that Langer speaks of, that Robert points out, might explain why Percy continually insisted on a qualitative difference - it really seems that way if the quantitative difference is so big. Though if it's really quantitative, there's a whole separate set of implications about who man is and how he differs from other creatures - that are belied if it's qualitative. Karey _____ From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:34 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses) without having the language to articulate it? --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy _____ > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400 > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > From: armstron at ohiou.edu > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know? > > Ken A > > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote: > >List, > > > > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > > of the degree of quantitative difference. > > > >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one must > >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes > >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > >hundreds of thousands at least. > > > >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly does > >not prove, a qualitative difference. > > > >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in > >_New Key_-- > >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and man's > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creation--or in modern > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83. > > > > Robert > > > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: Karey Perkins > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48 > >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > > > > > > Rhonda, > > > > > > > > > > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but > > > in his > > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could > > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other > > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He > > > seemed pretty adamant about > > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general > > > field, as Nikki > > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of > > > sorts), felt > > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary > > > symbol, and > > > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it > > > seems to be > > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. > > > > > > > > > > > > Karey > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA > > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM > > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > > > Nikki-- > > > > > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker > > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic > > > communication exists between > > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication > > > that was > > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of argument? > > > > > > > > > > > > --Rhonda > > > > > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in > > > spite of > > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the > > > faintest idea > > > of who he is or what he is doing." > > > > > > Walker Percy > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com > > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 > > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > > > > > > > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that > > > i carried > > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that > > > animals of > > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us > > > but with > > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably > > > wrong and or > > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was > > > a measure > > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward > > > since his > > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my > > > positiongrows stronger day by day. > > > > > > > > > > > > Nikki > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home. > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > > > > > > > > > > >-- > >An archive of all list discussion is available at > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy _____ Test your Star IQ Play now! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080325/57e8e371 /attachment.htm ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Percy-L mailing list Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 6 ************************************** -- An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy From rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com Tue Mar 25 19:26:31 2008 From: rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com (RHONDA MCDONNELL) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:26:31 -0700 Subject: [percy-l] FW: Middle creature In-Reply-To: <001501c88ec4$60119b80$6401a8c0@Karey> References: <001501c88ec4$60119b80$6401a8c0@Karey> Message-ID: I hate to throw another monkey wrench into this conversation, but I have to take exception to one segment of Karey's otherwise fine argument. Karey wrote: > Is it the characteristics of guilt, regret, redemption, joy, purpose,> meaning - human psychological characteristics animals don't have? Humans> obviously have that, animals don't. That's what Percy meant. I've known dogs that clearly exhibit these emotions--perhaps not regret or redemption, but certainly the others. When my childhood pet became elderly, she also, like lots of elderly folks, had a bit of a problem with incontinence. Her posture, position of her tail, and expression were indicative of the guilt she felt from having violated the rules that housebroken dogs follow. Anyone with a dog understands the joy that dogs can express. Furthermore, if we pay attention to the dogs that make their way into Percy's novels, he, too, attributes such emotions to dogs. Allie's dog in THE SECOND COMING looks away from Will in what Percy describes as embarrassment. So, I don't think that it's emotions that Percy was thinking about. At least, not simpler emotions. If only I were in my office at work, I'd look this quote up. Since I'm not, I'll try my hand at paraphrasing. In MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE, maybe in "The Delta Factor," he asserts that what sets humans apart is the ability to symbolize--he coins a term "homo symbolificus" or something similar. That we explain the world metaphorically and create art and believe in that which can't be seen and use language to communicate it all makes us different from animals. So it is the nature, the content, of our communication that differs. I agree with this, based on my informal observations of the world, putting me in the qualitative camp. Thinking it over, though, there's also a quantitative aspect to this type of communication. We don't shut up. Percy also reference Julian Jaynes "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind," which poses some interesting and highly controversial theories regarding the development of the modern human brain, which Jaynes asserts happened sometime between the writing of THE ILLIAD and the writing of THE ODESSY. I wish I remembered more of Jaynes theory, but it was read in a dissertation haze. Has anyone else read this? Any thoughts in regard to Percy's language theory? I haven't seen evidence that animals feel more complex, higher order, if you will, emotions. For example, sehnsucht, the longing that Percy focuses on, particularly in the Will Barrett novels, or the despair that Kierkegaard notes in THE SICKNESS UNTO DEATH seem to be particularly human emotions. Both of those emotions are religious in their origin. So in the end, perhaps it is our relationship with God that most clearly separates us from the rest of creation. This too, however, may not prove to be the case. Karey's pointed out that animals seem to be more in tune with the spiritual dimension of existence. Perhaps they are also in tune with evidence of God that humans cannot perceive. --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy > From: karey1 at charter.net> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:05:45 -0400> Subject: [percy-l] FW: Middle creature> > Yes. Great quote. For Percy it was qualitative difference, not> quantitative.> > However, the comment....:> > "Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary> breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature> whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit.> Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual> order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he> had something that even the rationalist-naturalist> intelligentsia would have to acknowledge."> > .... is problematic. Because it doesn't get rid of Cartesian dualism, which> was Percy's goal. There are still two separate and distinct realms here,> matter and spirit. He's trying to resolve that dilemma. I think Percy was> a bit confused by it himself. And that a material thing shows a spiritual> presence doesn't do that job of resolving the split between the two (though> it does do Percy's Christian apologist duties of showing the presence of> spiritual world). > > Middle creature is unclear on how we are middle - both matter and spirit> existing separate but equal within us (Cartesian dualism - and no word on> how they can interact) - or some amalgam of the two completely mixed and> losing the original identity of both. Or something else. Percy himself> never resolved the split and it plagued him his whole life.> > We also need to define "spiritual" - I do think animals have perception of a> spiritual world - don't laugh (ahem). Dogs, cats, other animals have a> perception where they sense the presence of ghosts, etc., before humans. So> the "spiritual realm" or "spiritual order" needs to be defined. > > Is it the characteristics of guilt, regret, redemption, joy, purpose,> meaning - human psychological characteristics animals don't have? Humans> obviously have that, animals don't. That's what Percy meant.> > Is it the presence of a world of spirits - angels, demons, ghosts (or> whatever it is that exists in the non-material world). Animals have that> sense, better than humans. That doesn't seem to be what Percy was referring> to.> > That's why I think we really need to take a step back and define our terms,> including "consciousness", "matter", "spirit", "middle" - etc. etc. I also> don't' think it'll get resolved here or any time soon by anyone. It's far> more complex when examined it's all it's depth.> > Karey> > > > > > -----Original Message-----> From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Michael Larson> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:43 PM> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> Subject: [percy-l] Middle creature> > This discussion was reminding me of something I couldn't quite place.> Then I remembered that passage from THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE in which> Percy addresses the implications of language for distinguishing between> man and the animals. Then I remembered that I made a post about that> very thing last May. So I went back to the archives and found it, and> I've pasted it in (unedited) below. For whatever it's worth...> > Mike Larson> > > *****> > This is from "The Mystery of Language," THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE (p.> 158):> > "An awareness of the nature of language must have the greatest possible> consequences for our minimal concept of man. For one thing it must> reveal the ordinary secular concept of man held in the West as not> merely inadequate but quite simply mistaken. I do not refer to the> Christian idea of man as a composite of body and soul, a belief which is> professed by some and given lip service by many but which can hardly be> said to be a working assumption of secular learning. We see man--when I> say we, I mean 95 per cent of those who attended American high schools> and universities--as the highest of the organisms: He stands erect, he> apposes thumb and forefinger, his language is far more complex than that> of the most advanced Cebus azarae. But the difference is quantitative,> not qualitative. Man is a higher organism, standing in direct continuity> with rocks, soil, fungi, protozoa, and mammals.> > This happens not to be true, however, and in a way it is unfortunate. I> say unfortunate because it means the shattering of the old dream of the> Enlightenment--that an objective-explanatory-causal science can discover> and set forth all the knowledge of which man is capable. The dream is> drawing to a close. The existentialists have taught us that what man is> cannot be grasped by the sciences of man. The case is rather that man's> science is one of the things that man does, a mode of existence. Another> mode is speech. Man is not merely a higher organism responding to and> controlling his environment. He is, in Heidegger's words, that being in> the world whose calling it is to find a name for Being, to give> testimony to it, and to provide for it a clearing."> > > So Percy argues here, as he does in many places, that the human capacity> for language is what separates us from the animals. The Christian> philosophers, to whose work he makes implicit reference here, would say> that the animals are of an entirely material (thus, dyadic) order and> that God and the angels are of an entirely spiritual (non-material)> order. But man is a middle creature, both material and spiritual (the> highest of the former and the lowest of the latter), and the triadic> nature of language is both a material clue for this reality and the> means by which this composite creature (man) has access to that which is> higher. Language itself is always material--whether written or> spoken--but it allows by way of signification for consciousness and> contemplation, which is of the spiritual order. And by a mere sleight of> words, Percy gets an existentialist, Heidegger, to describe in grand> terms, what Aquinas had fulfilled centuries earlier, in the high Middle> Ages, long before "the old dream of the Enlightenment" was even born.> > Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary> breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a> creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter> and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for> the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I> think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist> intelligentsia would have to acknowledge.> > *****> > > > -----Original Message-----> From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of> percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:10 PM> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> Subject: Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 6> > Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to> percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to> percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org> > You can reach the person managing the list at> percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific> than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..."> > > Today's Topics:> > 1. Re: Chimp is a challenge (RHONDA MCDONNELL)> 2. Re: Chimp is a challenge (Karey Perkins)> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------> > Message: 1> Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:34:02 -0700> From: RHONDA MCDONNELL > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"> > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"> > Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses)> without having the language to articulate it?> --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because> in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the> faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing."> Walker Percy> > > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org>> From: armstron at ohiou.edu> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> >> Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know?> > Ken A>> > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote:> >List,> >> > I've always wondered> why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > > of the degree of> quantitative difference.> >> >Even without getting to the question of> qualitative difference, one must > >admit that the difference in> quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes > >in the wild may have a> few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > >hundreds of thousands> at least.> >> >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though> certainly does > >not prove, a qualitative difference.> >> >I don't have> Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in > >_New> Key_--> >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger,> and man's > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creati> on--or in modern > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor> Books) p.83.> >> > Robert> >> >> >> >----- Original Message ----->> >From: Karey Perkins > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008> 6:48> >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> >To: "'Percy-L:> Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > >>> >> > > Rhonda,> > >> > >> > >> > > Of course, Nikki knows more about> what Walker said personally, but> > > in his> > > writings he always> maintained that chimps and other animals could> > > communicate> dyadically - but their sign language and other> > > communicationnever> rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He> > > seemed pretty adamant> about> > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general>> > > field, as Nikki> > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor> in symbol (of> > > sorts), felt> > > otherwise - that higher primates> were capable of rudimentary> > > symbol, and> > > gives examples in her> "Philoso> phy in a New Key." For Walker it> > > seems to be> > > a qualitative> difference; for Langer, it was quantitative.> > >> > >> > >> > > Karey>> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > From:> percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> > >> [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA> > >> MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM> > > To: Percy-L:> Literary and Philosophical Discussion> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp> is a challenge> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki--> > >> > > Can you elaborate a> little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker> > > absolutein his> stance, or did he recognize that dyadic> > > communication exists> between> > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic> communication> > > that was> > > the sticking point for him, and> therefore the true point of argument?> > >> > >> > >> > > --Rhonda> > >>> > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in> >> > spite of> > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not> the> > > > faintest idea> > > of who he is or what he is doing."> > >> > > Walker> Percy> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > From:> Nikkibar at aol.com> > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400> > > To:> percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a> challenge> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > Dear Marcus,> > >> > >> > >> > > You> bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that> > > i> carried> > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted> that> > > animals of> > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate> -- not only with us> > > but with> > > one another, while I held to the> view that 1) he was probably> > > wrong and or> > > 2) that in any event> we could never be certain but 3) that it was> > > a measure> > > of our> hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward> > > since> his> > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think> my> > > positiongrows stronger day by day.> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki> >> >> > >> > >> > > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > Create a Home Theater Like> the Pros. Watch> > > >> > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home.> >> >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > Test your Star IQ Play now!> > >> > >> >> > >> >--> >An archive of all list discussion is available at >> >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> >> >Visit the Walker Percy> Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> > --> An archive of all list> discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/>> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> _________________________________________________________________> Test your Star IQ> http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR> -------------- next part --------------> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...> URL:> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080325/5d459870> /attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------> > Message: 2> Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:09:49 -0400> From: "Karey Perkins" > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'"> > Message-ID: <002d01c88ea3$6acc5a90$6401a8c0 at Karey>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"> > Good point. Percy said language was necessary for consciousness.> That's> something I've been trying to decipher. What exactly is he meaning by> consciousness? Are my cats not conscious? They definitely feel. Are> they> only conscious to the point of survival impulses, instinct, and the> emotions> related to the two? I think if we interpret Percy's claim, it has got> to> mean that you can't know something beyond survival impulses unless you> have> language. You can't be aware of the inevitable arrival of death, and so> can't experience "the denial of death" and the anxiety of death and the> need> for a causa sui (cf. Ernest Becker) - or other human emotions, such as> guilt> and regret and redemption. (I'm quite certain my cats don't feel> guilt.)> Is that what he means by consciousness?> > > > The huge evolutionary gap that Langer speaks of, that Robert points out,> might explain why Percy continually insisted on a qualitative difference> -> it really seems that way if the quantitative difference is so big.> Though> if it's really quantitative, there's a whole separate set of> implications> about who man is and how he differs from other creatures - that are> belied> if it's qualitative.> > > > Karey> > > > _____ > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:34 PM> To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > > > Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses)> without> having the language to articulate it?> > --Rhonda > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite> of> great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest> idea> of who he is or what he is doing."> > Walker Percy> > > > _____ > > > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400> > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > From: armstron at ohiou.edu> > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > > > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know?> > > > Ken A> > > > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote:> > >List,> > >> > > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been> made> > > > of the degree of quantitative difference.> > >> > >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one> must > > >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude.> Apes > > >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the> > > >hundreds of thousands at least.> > >> > >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly> does > > >not prove, a qualitative difference.> > >> > >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote> in > > >_New Key_--> > >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and> man's > > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creation--or in modern> > > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83.> > >> > > Robert> > >> > >> > >> > >----- Original Message -----> > >From: Karey Perkins > > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48> > >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > >> > >> > > > Rhonda,> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but> > > > in his> > > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could> > > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other> > > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He> > > > seemed pretty adamant about> > > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general> > > > field, as Nikki> > > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of> > > > sorts), felt> > > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary> > > > symbol, and> > > > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it> > > > seems to be> > > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative.> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > Karey> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > _____> > > >> > > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> > > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA> > > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM> > > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion> > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > Nikki--> > > >> > > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker> > > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic> > > > communication exists between> > > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication> > > > that was> > > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of> argument?> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > --Rhonda> > > >> > > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in> > > > spite of> > > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the> > > > faintest idea> > > > of who he is or what he is doing."> > > >> > > > Walker Percy> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > _____> > > >> > > >> > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com> > > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400> > > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > Dear Marcus,> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that> > > > i carried> > > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that> > > > animals of> > > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us> > > > but with> > > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably> > > > wrong and or> > > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was> > > > a measure> > > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward> > > > since his> > > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my> > > > positiongrows stronger day by day.> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > Nikki> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > _____> > > >> > > >> > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch> > > > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home.> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > _____> > > >> > > > Test your Star IQ Play now!> > > >> > > > >> > > >> > >--> > >An archive of all list discussion is available at > > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> > >> > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> > > > --> > An archive of all list discussion is available at> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> > > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> > _____ > > Test your Star IQ Play now!> > > -------------- next part --------------> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...> URL:> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080325/57e8e371> /attachment.htm > > ------------------------------> > _______________________________________________> Percy-L mailing list> Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l> > > End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 6> **************************************> --> An archive of all list discussion is available at> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> > --> An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy _________________________________________________________________ How well do you know your celebrity gossip? http://originals.msn.com/thebigdebate?ocid=T002MSN03N0707A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Tue Mar 25 20:20:01 2008 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:20:01 EDT Subject: [percy-l] Walker, animals and Julian Jaynes Message-ID: Although we did not read Julian Jaynes' (TOOC&TBOTBM)book in the book group, we did discuss Jaynes' theory of the development of the corpus callosum and the notion that our distant human ancestors may have walked around in the world hearing instructions from some outer or perhaps inner voice, like so many teenagers with cosmic i-Pods. Walker tended to resist any attribution to animals of anything that smacked of an animal soul in the lower primates or mammals. I always held for the opposite view and it was I who introduced Jaynes' theories to the group. On the other hand, Walker was uncommonly fond of his own animals (to the point of sardonic sentimentality) and kept schnauzers, and a Siamese cat that I gave him (Old Broke-tail, photographed on his lap in a TIME magazine story) and at the time of his death he had an affectionate corgi named Sweet Thing. The schnauzers were forever getting smashed flat on the street and were a cause for great grief whenever it would happen. Unfortunately Walker developed a painful allergy to Old Broke who had to be given away. There was nothing sardonic about MY affection for the non street wise schnauzers or Old Broke, as I was (and am) unreservedly sentimental about mine, but then I think of them as younger brothers, a non-canonical view that Walker regarded as just plain silly. But then, whenever one of them got spread-eagle flattened on Jahncke Ave. he was some broken up. Sometimes the emotional centers in the hippocampus over-rule the cerebrum. Towards the end of Jaynes' popularity, the word went round that his book had been an elaborate academic leg-pull, and Walker very much enjoyed feeling that he had gotten the best of the argument, in the notion that even Jaynes had not been serious. Later I had occasion to discuss this urban myth with Jaynes' tennis partner and his view was equivocal. So we'll never know. Nikki **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey1 at charter.net Tue Mar 25 22:34:04 2008 From: karey1 at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:34:04 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] FW: Middle creature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <004701c88ee9$dbe521d0$6401a8c0@Karey> I agree. I meant "joy" as in a religious joy, not normal happiness. My cats experience emotions it seems - they are quite happy and very content (I'm guessing cuz they're purring away!) when they get lots of the attention they're constantly clamoring for! But they don't have the spiritual inclinations of a symbol-mongerer. In the Helen Keller passage, which Percy quotes in Message, in which she learns "water" as the word, the symbol that is (not the sign, which she had already been using), she says she experiences joy. Then she wants the name for everything, and goes into the house, where she finds her doll which she had just broken earlier in a fit of anger. She feels remorse and sorrow for the first time. I think less that the emotions are "more complex" (quantitatively different) and more that they are of a (qualitatively) different sort, that related to self-consciousness, awareness of life and death, religious intuition and capacities - the same thing as symbol-mongering capacity. I did read Jaynes and commented on it in an earlier posting (years ago?) in this list after I read it - mostly that I thought I had read somewhere that Percy found Jaynes' theories interesting but I found that difficult to believe as I thought Jaynes was really bizarre (though interesting). KP _____ From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 7:27 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] FW: Middle creature I hate to throw another monkey wrench into this conversation, but I have to take exception to one segment of Karey's otherwise fine argument. Karey wrote: > Is it the characteristics of guilt, regret, redemption, joy, purpose, > meaning - human psychological characteristics animals don't have? Humans > obviously have that, animals don't. That's what Percy meant. I've known dogs that clearly exhibit these emotions--perhaps not regret or redemption, but certainly the others. When my childhood pet became elderly, she also, like lots of elderly folks, had a bit of a problem with incontinence. Her posture, position of her tail, and expression were indicative of the guilt she felt from having violated the rules that housebroken dogs follow. Anyone with a dog understands the joy that dogs can express. Furthermore, if we pay attention to the dogs that make their way into Percy's novels, he, too, attributes such emotions to dogs. Allie's dog in THE SECOND COMING looks away from Will in what Percy describes as embarrassment. So, I don't think that it's emotions that Percy was thinking about. At least, not simpler emotions. If only I were in my office at work, I'd look this quote up. Since I'm not, I'll try my hand at paraphrasing. In MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE, maybe in "The Delta Factor," he asserts that what sets humans apart is the ability to symbolize--he coins a term "homo symbolificus" or something similar. That we explain the world metaphorically and create art and believe in that which can't be seen and use language to communicate it all makes us different from animals. So it is the nature, the content, of our communication that differs. I agree with this, based on my informal observations of the world, putting me in the qualitative camp. Thinking it over, though, there's also a quantitative aspect to this type of communication. We don't shut up. Percy also reference Julian Jaynes "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind," which poses some interesting and highly controversial theories regarding the development of the modern human brain, which Jaynes asserts happened sometime between the writing of THE ILLIAD and the writing of THE ODESSY. I wish I remembered more of Jaynes theory, but it was read in a dissertation haze. Has anyone else read this? Any thoughts in regard to Percy's language theory? I haven't seen evidence that animals feel more complex, higher order, if you will, emotions. For example, sehnsucht, the longing that Percy focuses on, particularly in the Will Barrett novels, or the despair that Kierkegaard notes in THE SICKNESS UNTO DEATH seem to be particularly human emotions. Both of those emotions are religious in their origin. So in the end, perhaps it is our relationship with God that most clearly separates us from the rest of creation. This too, however, may not prove to be the case. Karey's pointed out that animals seem to be more in tune with the spiritual dimension of existence. Perhaps they are also in tune with evidence of God that humans cannot perceive. --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy _____ > From: karey1 at charter.net > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:05:45 -0400 > Subject: [percy-l] FW: Middle creature > > Yes. Great quote. For Percy it was qualitative difference, not > quantitative. > > However, the comment....: > > "Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary > breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature > whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit. > Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual > order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he > had something that even the rationalist-naturalist > intelligentsia would have to acknowledge." > > .... is problematic. Because it doesn't get rid of Cartesian dualism, which > was Percy's goal. There are still two separate and distinct realms here, > matter and spirit. He's trying to resolve that dilemma. I think Percy was > a bit confused by it himself. And that a material thing shows a spiritual > presence doesn't do that job of resolving the split between the two (though > it does do Percy's Christian apologist duties of showing the presence of > spiritual world). > > Middle creature is unclear on how we are middle - both matter and spirit > existing separate but equal within us (Cartesian dualism - and no word on > how they can interact) - or some amalgam of the two completely mixed and > losing the original identity of both. Or something else. Percy himself > never resolved the split and it plagued him his whole life. > > We also need to define "spiritual" - I do think animals have perception of a > spiritual world - don't laugh (ahem). Dogs, cats, other animals have a > perception where they sense the presence of ghosts, etc., before humans. So > the "spiritual realm" or "spiritual order" needs to be defined. > > Is it the characteristics of guilt, regret, redemption, joy, purpose, > meaning - human psychological characteristics animals don't have? Humans > obviously have that, animals don't. That's what Percy meant. > > Is it the presence of a world of spirits - angels, demons, ghosts (or > whatever it is that exists in the non-material world). Animals have that > sense, better than humans. That doesn't seem to be what Percy was referring > to. > > That's why I think we really need to take a step back and define our terms, > including "consciousness", "matter", "spirit", "middle" - etc. etc. I also > don't' think it'll get resolved here or any time soon by anyone. It's far > more complex when examined it's all it's depth. > > Karey > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Michael Larson > Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:43 PM > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > Subject: [percy-l] Middle creature > > This discussion was reminding me of something I couldn't quite place. > Then I remembered that passage from THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE in which > Percy addresses the implications of language for distinguishing between > man and the animals. Then I remembered that I made a post about that > very thing last May. So I went back to the archives and found it, and > I've pasted it in (unedited) below. For whatever it's worth... > > Mike Larson > > > ***** > > This is from "The Mystery of Language," THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE (p. > 158): > > "An awareness of the nature of language must have the greatest possible > consequences for our minimal concept of man. For one thing it must > reveal the ordinary secular concept of man held in the West as not > merely inadequate but quite simply mistaken. I do not refer to the > Christian idea of man as a composite of body and soul, a belief which is > professed by some and given lip service by many but which can hardly be > said to be a working assumption of secular learning. We see man--when I > say we, I mean 95 per cent of those who attended American high schools > and universities--as the highest of the organisms: He stands erect, he > apposes thumb and forefinger, his language is far more complex than that > of the most advanced Cebus azarae. But the difference is quantitative, > not qualitative. Man is a higher organism, standing in direct continuity > with rocks, soil, fungi, protozoa, and mammals. > > This happens not to be true, however, and in a way it is unfortunate. I > say unfortunate because it means the shattering of the old dream of the > Enlightenment--that an objective-explanatory-causal science can discover > and set forth all the knowledge of which man is capable. The dream is > drawing to a close. The existentialists have taught us that what man is > cannot be grasped by the sciences of man. The case is rather that man's > science is one of the things that man does, a mode of existence. Another > mode is speech. Man is not merely a higher organism responding to and > controlling his environment. He is, in Heidegger's words, that being in > the world whose calling it is to find a name for Being, to give > testimony to it, and to provide for it a clearing." > > > So Percy argues here, as he does in many places, that the human capacity > for language is what separates us from the animals. The Christian > philosophers, to whose work he makes implicit reference here, would say > that the animals are of an entirely material (thus, dyadic) order and > that God and the angels are of an entirely spiritual (non-material) > order. But man is a middle creature, both material and spiritual (the > highest of the former and the lowest of the latter), and the triadic > nature of language is both a material clue for this reality and the > means by which this composite creature (man) has access to that which is > higher. Language itself is always material--whether written or > spoken--but it allows by way of signification for consciousness and > contemplation, which is of the spiritual order. And by a mere sleight of > words, Percy gets an existentialist, Heidegger, to describe in grand > terms, what Aquinas had fulfilled centuries earlier, in the high Middle > Ages, long before "the old dream of the Enlightenment" was even born. > > Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary > breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a > creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter > and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for > the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I > think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist > intelligentsia would have to acknowledge. > > ***** > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of > percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org > Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:10 PM > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > Subject: Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 6 > > Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to > percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > percy-l-request at lists.ibiblio.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Chimp is a challenge (RHONDA MCDONNELL) > 2. Re: Chimp is a challenge (Karey Perkins) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:34:02 -0700 > From: RHONDA MCDONNELL > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" > > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses) > without having the language to articulate it? > --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because > in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the > faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." > Walker Percy > > > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400> To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > From: armstron at ohiou.edu> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> > > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know?> > Ken A> > > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote:> >List,> >> > I've always wondered > why, in this age old debate, more has not been made > > of the degree of > quantitative difference.> >> >Even without getting to the question of > qualitative difference, one must > >admit that the difference in > quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. Apes > >in the wild may have a > few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > >hundreds of thousands > at least.> >> >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though > certainly does > >not prove, a qualitative difference.> >> >I don't have > Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote in > >_New > Key_--> >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, > and man's > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creati > on--or in modern > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor > Books) p.83.> >> > Robert> >> >> >> >----- Original Message -----> > >From: Karey Perkins > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 > 6:48> >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge> >To: "'Percy-L: > Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > >> > >> > > Rhonda,> > >> > >> > >> > > Of course, Nikki knows more about > what Walker said personally, but> > > in his> > > writings he always > maintained that chimps and other animals could> > > communicate > dyadically - but their sign language and other> > > communicationnever > rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He> > > seemed pretty adamant > about> > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general> > > > field, as Nikki> > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor > in symbol (of> > > sorts), felt> > > otherwise - that higher primates > were capable of rudimentary> > > symbol, and> > > gives examples in her > "Philoso > phy in a New Key." For Walker it> > > seems to be> > > a qualitative > difference; for Langer, it was quantitative.> > >> > >> > >> > > Karey> > > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > From: > percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org> > > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA> > > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM> > > To: Percy-L: > Literary and Philosophical Discussion> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp > is a challenge> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki--> > >> > > Can you elaborate a > little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker> > > absolutein his > stance, or did he recognize that dyadic> > > communication exists > between> > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic > communication> > > that was> > > the sticking point for him, and > therefore the true point of argument?> > >> > >> > >> > > --Rhonda> > >> > > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in> > > > spite of> > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not > the> > > > faintest idea> > > of who he is or what he is doing."> > >> > > Walker > Percy> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > From: > Nikkibar at aol.com> > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400> > > To: > percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org> > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a > challenge> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > Dear Marcus,> > >> > >> > >> > > You > bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that> > > i > carried> > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted > that> > > animals of> > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate > -- not only with us> > > but with> > > one another, while I held to the > view that 1) he was probably> > > wrong and or> > > 2) that in any event > we could never be certain but 3) that it was> > > a measure> > > of our > hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward> > > since > his> > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think > my> > > positiongrows stronger day by day.> > >> > >> > >> > > Nikki> > > >> > >> > > > > > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > >> > > Create a Home Theater Like > the Pros. Watch> > > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home.> > > >> > >> > >> > > _____> > >> > > Test your Star IQ Play now!> > > > > > > >> > >> >--> >An archive of all list discussion is available at > > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> >> >Visit the Walker Percy > Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy> > --> An archive of all list > discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/> > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > _________________________________________________________________ > Test your Star IQ > http://club.live.com/red_carpet_reveal.aspx?icid=redcarpet_HMTAGMAR > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080325/5d459870 > /attachment-0001.htm > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:09:49 -0400 > From: "Karey Perkins" > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > Message-ID: <002d01c88ea3$6acc5a90$6401a8c0 at Karey> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Good point. Percy said language was necessary for consciousness. > That's > something I've been trying to decipher. What exactly is he meaning by > consciousness? Are my cats not conscious? They definitely feel. Are > they > only conscious to the point of survival impulses, instinct, and the > emotions > related to the two? I think if we interpret Percy's claim, it has got > to > mean that you can't know something beyond survival impulses unless you > have > language. You can't be aware of the inevitable arrival of death, and so > can't experience "the denial of death" and the anxiety of death and the > need > for a causa sui (cf. Ernest Becker) - or other human emotions, such as > guilt > and regret and redemption. (I'm quite certain my cats don't feel > guilt.) > Is that what he means by consciousness? > > > > The huge evolutionary gap that Langer speaks of, that Robert points out, > might explain why Percy continually insisted on a qualitative difference > - > it really seems that way if the quantitative difference is so big. > Though > if it's really quantitative, there's a whole separate set of > implications > about who man is and how he differs from other creatures - that are > belied > if it's qualitative. > > > > Karey > > > > _____ > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA MCDONNELL > Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 1:34 PM > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > Another question: Can you know something (beyond survival impulses) > without > having the language to articulate it? > > --Rhonda > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite > of > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest > idea > of who he is or what he is doing." > > Walker Percy > > > > _____ > > > Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:50:08 -0400 > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > From: armstron at ohiou.edu > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > Question: Do you know something without knowing that you know? > > > > Ken A > > > > At 09:32 AM 3/25/2008, you wrote: > > >List, > > > > > > I've always wondered why, in this age old debate, more has not been > made > > > > of the degree of quantitative difference. > > > > > >Even without getting to the question of qualitative difference, one > must > > >admit that the difference in quantity is huge--orders of magnitude. > Apes > > >in the wild may have a few dozen symbols. Human symbols number in the > > > >hundreds of thousands at least. > > > > > >The extent of the difference in quantity suggests, though certainly > does > > >not prove, a qualitative difference. > > > > > >I don't have Langer in front of me, but I recall one thing she wrote > in > > >_New Key_-- > > >"Between the clearest animal call of love or warning or anger, and > man's > > >least, trivial word, there lies a whole day of Creation--or in modern > > > >phrase, a whole chapter of evolution." (NY: Mentor Books) p.83. > > > > > > Robert > > > > > > > > > > > >----- Original Message ----- > > >From: Karey Perkins > > >Date: Monday, March 24, 2008 6:48 > > >Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > >To: "'Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion'" > > > > > > > > > > Rhonda, > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Of course, Nikki knows more about what Walker said personally, but > > > > in his > > > > writings he always maintained that chimps and other animals could > > > > communicate dyadically - but their sign language and other > > > > communicationnever rose above the "sign" level to symbol. He > > > > seemed pretty adamant about > > > > that, even though it was not written in stone in the general > > > > field, as Nikki > > > > says. Interestingly, Susanne Langer, his mentor in symbol (of > > > > sorts), felt > > > > otherwise - that higher primates were capable of rudimentary > > > > symbol, and > > > > gives examples in her "Philosophy in a New Key." For Walker it > > > > seems to be > > > > a qualitative difference; for Langer, it was quantitative. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Karey > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org > > > > [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of RHONDA > > > > MCDONNELLSent: Monday, March 24, 2008 12:21 AM > > > > To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion > > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Nikki-- > > > > > > > > Can you elaborate a little on the debate you refer to? Was Walker > > > > absolutein his stance, or did he recognize that dyadic > > > > communication exists between > > > > the "lower orders"? I'm wondering if it was triadic communication > > > > that was > > > > the sticking point for him, and therefore the true point of > argument? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > --Rhonda > > > > > > > > "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in > > > > spite of > > > > great scientific and technological advances, man has not the > > > > faintest idea > > > > of who he is or what he is doing." > > > > > > > > Walker Percy > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > > > > > From: Nikkibar at aol.com > > > > Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:43:24 -0400 > > > > To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org > > > > Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimp is a challenge > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Dear Marcus, > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > You bring up with painful nostalgia, a long running argument that > > > > i carried > > > > on with Walker for a great many years. He always asserted that > > > > animals of > > > > the "lower orders" were unable to communicate -- not only with us > > > > but with > > > > one another, while I held to the view that 1) he was probably > > > > wrong and or > > > > 2) that in any event we could never be certain but 3) that it was > > > > a measure > > > > of our hubris to deny the possibility. As times have gone forward > > > > since his > > > > death, the empirical jury is still out in my view, but I think my > > > > positiongrows stronger day by day. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Nikki > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > > > > > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch > > > > > > > stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001> the video on AOL Home. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _____ > > > > > > > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >-- > > >An archive of all list discussion is available at > > >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > > > > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > > > -- > > An archive of all list discussion is available at > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > _____ > > Test your Star IQ Play now! > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20080325/57e8e371 > /attachment.htm > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Percy-L mailing list > Percy-L at lists.ibiblio.org > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l > > > End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 6 > ************************************** > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy _____ How well do you know your celebrity gossip? Talk celebrity smackdowns here. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kterrell at sheastokes.com Tue Mar 25 23:13:04 2008 From: kterrell at sheastokes.com (Karl M. Terrell) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 20:13:04 -0700 Subject: [percy-l] Walker, animals and Julian Jaynes Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Mlarson at SOUTHEASTMN.EDU Wed Mar 26 00:14:34 2008 From: Mlarson at SOUTHEASTMN.EDU (Michael Larson) Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:14:34 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] Cartesian Chasm References: Message-ID: <3920C4B0B41025479F39D775289D7AA03F7012@wa-SEex.Southeasttech.edu> Karey, thanks for the comments. I can't speak for Percy or his particular struggle with Cartesian dualism, but it is true that Descartes adopted a Platonic model of ultra-dualism (wherein the soul and the body are paired but have no apparent causal or interactive connection), whereas the Church--via Scholasticism--came to develop and refine the Aristotelian-based model of an intimate union of form and matter, whereby the soul animates the body, and the body without the soul has no substantial existence. Part of the Cartesian problem is perhaps in this idea of "matter and spirit existing separate but equal within us." This assumed egalitarian relationship between the realms encourages the conception of an interactive impasse. But if the relationship is hierarchical, if spirit is above matter, then it is natural to conceive of the soul as animator of the body and interaction as both unidirectional and causal. As for the animals, they have, according to Aquinas, animating souls as well, although they are sensitive souls--as opposed to intellective--and they are not immortal. In other words, the animal soul possesses perceptive abilities (unlike plant souls, which are also animating but merely nutritive). This would explain their apparent awareness of spirit as well as perhaps the absence in them of human emotional states that are derived from a reasoning process. But you're right. Spirit/matter dualism is clearly complex (makes my head hurt, actually) and evidently worrisome, as you suggest, to Percy. But that doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't already been resolved, maybe even before Descartes posed the problem... Mike Larson >>Yes. Great quote. For Percy it was qualitative difference, not quantitative. However, the comment....: "Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist intelligentsia would have to acknowledge." .... is problematic. Because it doesn't get rid of Cartesian dualism, which was Percy's goal. There are still two separate and distinct realms here, matter and spirit. He's trying to resolve that dilemma. I think Percy was a bit confused by it himself. And that a material thing shows a spiritual presence doesn't do that job of resolving the split between the two (though it does do Percy's Christian apologist duties of showing the presence of spiritual world). Middle creature is unclear on how we are middle - both matter and spirit existing separate but equal within us (Cartesian dualism - and no word on how they can interact) - or some amalgam of the two completely mixed and losing the original identity of both. Or something else. Percy himself never resolved the split and it plagued him his whole life. We also need to define "spiritual" - I do think animals have perception of a spiritual world - don't laugh (ahem). Dogs, cats, other animals have a perception where they sense the presence of ghosts, etc., before humans. So the "spiritual realm" or "spiritual order" needs to be defined. Is it the characteristics of guilt, regret, redemption, joy, purpose, meaning - human psychological characteristics animals don't have? Humans obviously have that, animals don't. That's what Percy meant. Is it the presence of a world of spirits - angels, demons, ghosts (or whatever it is that exists in the non-material world). Animals have that sense, better than humans. That doesn't seem to be what Percy was referring to. That's why I think we really need to take a step back and define our terms, including "consciousness", "matter", "spirit", "middle" - etc. etc. I also don't' think it'll get resolved here or any time soon by anyone. It's far more complex when examined it's all it's depth. Karey<< -----Original Message----- From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Michael Larson Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:43 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: [percy-l] Middle creature This discussion was reminding me of something I couldn't quite place. Then I remembered that passage from THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE in which Percy addresses the implications of language for distinguishing between man and the animals. Then I remembered that I made a post about that very thing last May. So I went back to the archives and found it, and I've pasted it in (unedited) below. For whatever it's worth... Mike Larson ***** This is from "The Mystery of Language," THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE (p. 158): "An awareness of the nature of language must have the greatest possible consequences for our minimal concept of man. For one thing it must reveal the ordinary secular concept of man held in the West as not merely inadequate but quite simply mistaken. I do not refer to the Christian idea of man as a composite of body and soul, a belief which is professed by some and given lip service by many but which can hardly be said to be a working assumption of secular learning. We see man--when I say we, I mean 95 per cent of those who attended American high schools and universities--as the highest of the organisms: He stands erect, he apposes thumb and forefinger, his language is far more complex than that of the most advanced Cebus azarae. But the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. Man is a higher organism, standing in direct continuity with rocks, soil, fungi, protozoa, and mammals. This happens not to be true, however, and in a way it is unfortunate. I say unfortunate because it means the shattering of the old dream of the Enlightenment--that an objective-explanatory-causal science can discover and set forth all the knowledge of which man is capable. The dream is drawing to a close. The existentialists have taught us that what man is cannot be grasped by the sciences of man. The case is rather that man's science is one of the things that man does, a mode of existence. Another mode is speech. Man is not merely a higher organism responding to and controlling his environment. He is, in Heidegger's words, that being in the world whose calling it is to find a name for Being, to give testimony to it, and to provide for it a clearing." So Percy argues here, as he does in many places, that the human capacity for language is what separates us from the animals. The Christian philosophers, to whose work he makes implicit reference here, would say that the animals are of an entirely material (thus, dyadic) order and that God and the angels are of an entirely spiritual (non-material) order. But man is a middle creature, both material and spiritual (the highest of the former and the lowest of the latter), and the triadic nature of language is both a material clue for this reality and the means by which this composite creature (man) has access to that which is higher. Language itself is always material--whether written or spoken--but it allows by way of signification for consciousness and contemplation, which is of the spiritual order. And by a mere sleight of words, Percy gets an existentialist, Heidegger, to describe in grand terms, what Aquinas had fulfilled centuries earlier, in the high Middle Ages, long before "the old dream of the Enlightenment" was even born. Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist intelligentsia would have to acknowledge. ***** -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 6916 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karey1 at charter.net Wed Mar 26 09:22:16 2008 From: karey1 at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:22:16 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Cartesian Chasm In-Reply-To: <3920C4B0B41025479F39D775289D7AA03F7012@wa-SEex.Southeasttech.edu> Message-ID: <003601c88f44$69876c50$6401a8c0@Karey> Thanks - the mind-body problem is alive and kicking in all philosophical circles today, and most of those in academia reject any kind of dualism - usually grafting onto a version of physicalism or some such. I took a whole philosophy class on it and remember lots of discussion about the various versions of physicalism and nothing on Catholic/Scholastic/Aristotlean dualism. Descartes was mentioned dismissively in passing. It wasn't the most useful course in terms of getting at the problem, I thought. Re: Aquinas: (1) Why did Percy not, as a good Catholic scholar, know about Aristotlean/Scholastic dualism? (2) If he did, why did he not latch onto the Aristotle/Aquinas/Scholastic solution to Cartesian dualism? At times, he speaks that the Scholastics and Duns Scotus had the answer - and then just continues on his journey to solve it. What did he find inadequate or missing about it? If he found Aristotlean dualism inadequate or not worthy of mention, did he just feel it wasn't the proper battle to fight in a modern era of Cartesianism, and he wanted to focus on solving that? (Though if the Catholics did solve it to Percy's liking, his work is done, and he has nothing to fret about any more). Or did he feel the Catholics still didn't adequately explain how a body and spirit interacted (how did spirit "animate" the body? Or was Percy's scientific mindset dissatisfied with a pure philosophic explanation and more aimed at getting at a scientific solution to the problem? This was his life's work. Karey -----Original Message----- From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Michael Larson Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 12:15 AM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: [percy-l] Cartesian Chasm Karey, thanks for the comments. I can't speak for Percy or his particular struggle with Cartesian dualism, but it is true that Descartes adopted a Platonic model of ultra-dualism (wherein the soul and the body are paired but have no apparent causal or interactive connection), whereas the Church--via Scholasticism--came to develop and refine the Aristotelian-based model of an intimate union of form and matter, whereby the soul animates the body, and the body without the soul has no substantial existence. Part of the Cartesian problem is perhaps in this idea of "matter and spirit existing separate but equal within us." This assumed egalitarian relationship between the realms encourages the conception of an interactive impasse. But if the relationship is hierarchical, if spirit is above matter, then it is natural to conceive of the soul as animator of the body and interaction as both unidirectional and causal. As for the animals, they have, according to Aquinas, animating souls as well, although they are sensitive souls--as opposed to intellective--and they are not immortal. In other words, the animal soul possesses perceptive abilities (unlike plant souls, which are also animating but merely nutritive). This would explain their apparent awareness of spirit as well as perhaps the absence in them of human emotional states that are derived from a reasoning process. But you're right. Spirit/matter dualism is clearly complex (makes my head hurt, actually) and evidently worrisome, as you suggest, to Percy. But that doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't already been resolved, maybe even before Descartes posed the problem... Mike Larson >>Yes. Great quote. For Percy it was qualitative difference, not quantitative. However, the comment....: "Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist intelligentsia would have to acknowledge." .... is problematic. Because it doesn't get rid of Cartesian dualism, which was Percy's goal. There are still two separate and distinct realms here, matter and spirit. He's trying to resolve that dilemma. I think Percy was a bit confused by it himself. And that a material thing shows a spiritual presence doesn't do that job of resolving the split between the two (though it does do Percy's Christian apologist duties of showing the presence of spiritual world). Middle creature is unclear on how we are middle - both matter and spirit existing separate but equal within us (Cartesian dualism - and no word on how they can interact) - or some amalgam of the two completely mixed and losing the original identity of both. Or something else. Percy himself never resolved the split and it plagued him his whole life. We also need to define "spiritual" - I do think animals have perception of a spiritual world - don't laugh (ahem). Dogs, cats, other animals have a perception where they sense the presence of ghosts, etc., before humans. So the "spiritual realm" or "spiritual order" needs to be defined. Is it the characteristics of guilt, regret, redemption, joy, purpose, meaning - human psychological characteristics animals don't have? Humans obviously have that, animals don't. That's what Percy meant. Is it the presence of a world of spirits - angels, demons, ghosts (or whatever it is that exists in the non-material world). Animals have that sense, better than humans. That doesn't seem to be what Percy was referring to. That's why I think we really need to take a step back and define our terms, including "consciousness", "matter", "spirit", "middle" - etc. etc. I also don't' think it'll get resolved here or any time soon by anyone. It's far more complex when examined it's all it's depth. Karey<< -----Original Message----- From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Michael Larson Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:43 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: [percy-l] Middle creature This discussion was reminding me of something I couldn't quite place. Then I remembered that passage from THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE in which Percy addresses the implications of language for distinguishing between man and the animals. Then I remembered that I made a post about that very thing last May. So I went back to the archives and found it, and I've pasted it in (unedited) below. For whatever it's worth... Mike Larson ***** This is from "The Mystery of Language," THE MESSAGE IN THE BOTTLE (p. 158): "An awareness of the nature of language must have the greatest possible consequences for our minimal concept of man. For one thing it must reveal the ordinary secular concept of man held in the West as not merely inadequate but quite simply mistaken. I do not refer to the Christian idea of man as a composite of body and soul, a belief which is professed by some and given lip service by many but which can hardly be said to be a working assumption of secular learning. We see man--when I say we, I mean 95 per cent of those who attended American high schools and universities--as the highest of the organisms: He stands erect, he apposes thumb and forefinger, his language is far more complex than that of the most advanced Cebus azarae. But the difference is quantitative, not qualitative. Man is a higher organism, standing in direct continuity with rocks, soil, fungi, protozoa, and mammals. This happens not to be true, however, and in a way it is unfortunate. I say unfortunate because it means the shattering of the old dream of the Enlightenment--that an objective-explanatory-causal science can discover and set forth all the knowledge of which man is capable. The dream is drawing to a close. The existentialists have taught us that what man is cannot be grasped by the sciences of man. The case is rather that man's science is one of the things that man does, a mode of existence. Another mode is speech. Man is not merely a higher organism responding to and controlling his environment. He is, in Heidegger's words, that being in the world whose calling it is to find a name for Being, to give testimony to it, and to provide for it a clearing." So Percy argues here, as he does in many places, that the human capacity for language is what separates us from the animals. The Christian philosophers, to whose work he makes implicit reference here, would say that the animals are of an entirely material (thus, dyadic) order and that God and the angels are of an entirely spiritual (non-material) order. But man is a middle creature, both material and spiritual (the highest of the former and the lowest of the latter), and the triadic nature of language is both a material clue for this reality and the means by which this composite creature (man) has access to that which is higher. Language itself is always material--whether written or spoken--but it allows by way of signification for consciousness and contemplation, which is of the spiritual order. And by a mere sleight of words, Percy gets an existentialist, Heidegger, to describe in grand terms, what Aquinas had fulfilled centuries earlier, in the high Middle Ages, long before "the old dream of the Enlightenment" was even born. Which is all to say that language is not likely to be some evolutionary breakthrough but rather a design feature in a unique creature, a creature whose nature must accommodate two realms: those of both matter and spirit. Language, for Percy, was a clue and ultimately a proof for the spiritual order; and because it is rooted in the material world, I think he thought he had something that even the rationalist-naturalist intelligentsia would have to acknowledge. ***** From karey1 at charter.net Wed Mar 26 09:44:56 2008 From: karey1 at charter.net (Karey Perkins) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:44:56 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <003a01c88f47$93d10c20$6401a8c0@Karey> Nikki, I love all these little vignettes you relate about your interactions with Percy and Percy in his life. They aren't in Tolson or Samway, and they really add much to the picture of the man. When I went to the UNC archives and read the Percy papers, there were such interesting things in the notes that showed sides of him you don't get elsewhere - a couple of times in the immense pack of papers there were some exclamations of religious joy written down in one or two word exclamations that were completely opposite the picture you get from the biographies and his writings - that of a cool, analytical, stoic man who took his faith seriously but very intellectually. Why don't you write all of these little stories down on paper, then bind the pages together in that thing we call a book? I bet a lot of people would buy it - at least one (me) would. You could call it: Percy and me. Or: My Dinner[s] with Walker Percy. Or: What Shelby Didn't Know. (Since apparently Shelby and Walker didn't talk about that stuff.) Or: My Walk with Walker. OK, maybe you'd better be the one to name it. Karey _____ From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.com Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 8:20 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [percy-l] Walker, animals and Julian Jaynes Although we did not read Julian Jaynes' (TOOC&TBOTBM)book in the book group, we did discuss Jaynes' theory of the development of the corpus callosum and the notion that our distant human ancestors may have walked around in the world hearing instructions from some outer or perhaps inner voice, like so many teenagers with cosmic i-Pods. Walker tended to resist any attribution to animals of anything that smacked of an animal soul in the lower primates or mammals. I always held for the opposite view and it was I who introduced Jaynes' theories to the group. On the other hand, Walker was uncommonly fond of his own animals (to the point of sardonic sentimentality) and kept schnauzers, and a Siamese cat that I gave him (Old Broke-tail, photographed on his lap in a TIME magazine story) and at the time of his death he had an affectionate corgi named Sweet Thing. The schnauzers were forever getting smashed flat on the street and were a cause for great grief whenever it would happen. Unfortunately Walker developed a painful allergy to Old Broke who had to be given away. There was nothing sardonic about MY affection for the non street wise schnauzers or Old Broke, as I was (and am) unreservedly sentimental about mine, but then I think of them as younger brothers, a non-canonical view that Walker regarded as just plain silly. But then, whenever one of them got spread-eagle flattened on Jahncke Ave. he was some broken up. Sometimes the emotional centers in the hippocampus over-rule the cerebrum. Towards the end of Jaynes' popularity, the word went round that his book had been an elaborate academic leg-pull, and Walker very much enjoyed feeling that he had gotten the best of the argument, in the notion that even Jaynes had not been serious. Later I had occasion to discuss this urban myth with Jaynes' tennis partner and his view was equivocal. So we'll never know. Nikki _____ Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhforest at gmail.com Wed Mar 26 11:49:55 2008 From: jhforest at gmail.com (Jim Forest) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:49:55 +0100 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book In-Reply-To: <003a01c88f47$93d10c20$6401a8c0@Karey> References: <003a01c88f47$93d10c20$6401a8c0@Karey> Message-ID: <53c59b0c0803260849l7ee573dft7e4ba7c2fdd15630@mail.gmail.com> Yes, Nikki, do write the suggested book! from another guaranteed customer... Jim Forest On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Karey Perkins wrote: > Nikki, > > I love all these little vignettes you relate about your interactions with > Percy and Percy in his life. They aren't in Tolson or Samway, and they > really add much to the picture of the man. When I went to the UNC archives > and read the Percy papers, there were such interesting things in the notes > that showed sides of him you don't get elsewhere - a couple of times in the > immense pack of papers there were some exclamations of religious joy written > down in one or two word exclamations that were completely opposite the > picture you get from the biographies and his writings ? that of a cool, > analytical, stoic man who took his faith seriously but very intellectually. > > Why don't you write all of these little stories down on paper, then bind > the pages together in that thing we call a book? I bet a lot of people > would buy it ? at least one (me) would. > > You could call it: Percy and me. Or: My Dinner[s] with Walker Percy > Or: What Shelby Didn't Know. (Since apparently Shelby and Walker didn't > talk about that stuff.) Or: My Walk with Walker. > > OK, maybe you'd better be the one to name it. > > Karey > > > -- Jim & Nancy Forest Kanisstraat 5 1811 GJ Alkmaar The Netherlands Forest-Flier web site: www.incommunion.org/forest-flier/ Orthodox Peace Fellowship web site: www.incommunion.org photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/ recently published: "Silent as a Stone," a children's book about a community of rescuers in Nazi-occupied Paris: http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/silent-as-a-stone-mother-maria-of-paris-and-the-trash-can-rescue/ another new book: "The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life": http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/the-road-to-emmaus-pilgrimage-as-a-way-of-life/ * * * Nancy and I have been keeping a journal that follows our recent kidney transplant. A blog has been set up for this purpose -- A Tale of Two Kidneys. See: http://ataleof2kidneys.blogspot.com/ * * * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hpmills3 at austin.rr.com Wed Mar 26 12:26:27 2008 From: hpmills3 at austin.rr.com (Henry Mills) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:26:27 -0500 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book In-Reply-To: <53c59b0c0803260849l7ee573dft7e4ba7c2fdd15630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Nikki, Let me offer the Percy Project website as an option, or remembrances could be compiled in a PDF document and circulated and made available for permanent download. Guaranteed never to go out of print. And we can include a picture of Sweet Thing and Old Broke-tail both. Best, Henry From: Jim Forest Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:49:55 +0100 To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Subject: Re: [percy-l] a new Percy book Yes, Nikki, do write the suggested book! from another guaranteed customer... Jim Forest On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Karey Perkins wrote: > Nikki, > > I love all these little vignettes you relate about your interactions with > Percy and Percy in his life. They aren't in Tolson or Samway, and they really > add much to the picture of the man. When I went to the UNC archives and read > the Percy papers, there were such interesting things in the notes that showed > sides of him you don't get elsewhere - a couple of times in the immense pack > of papers there were some exclamations of religious joy written down in one or > two word exclamations that were completely opposite the picture you get from > the biographies and his writings ? that of a cool, analytical, stoic man who > took his faith seriously but very intellectually. > > Why don't you write all of these little stories down on paper, then bind the > pages together in that thing we call a book? I bet a lot of people would buy > it ? at least one (me) would. > > You could call it: Percy and me. Or: My Dinner[s] with Walker Percy Or: > What Shelby Didn't Know. (Since apparently Shelby and Walker didn't talk > about that stuff.) Or: My Walk with Walker. > > OK, maybe you'd better be the one to name it. > > Karey > > -- Jim & Nancy Forest Kanisstraat 5 1811 GJ Alkmaar The Netherlands Forest-Flier web site: www.incommunion.org/forest-flier/ Orthodox Peace Fellowship web site: www.incommunion.org photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/ recently published: "Silent as a Stone," a children's book about a community of rescuers in Nazi-occupied Paris: http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/silent-as-a-stone-mother-maria-of- paris-and-the-trash-can-rescue/ another new book: "The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life": http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/the-road-to-emmaus-pilgrimage-as-a -way-of-life/ * * * Nancy and I have been keeping a journal that follows our recent kidney transplant. A blog has been set up for this purpose -- A Tale of Two Kidneys. See: http://ataleof2kidneys.blogspot.com/ * * * -- An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sldye at bluegrass.org Wed Mar 26 12:48:29 2008 From: sldye at bluegrass.org (Dye, Steve) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:48:29 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book References: Message-ID: I am not an academic (just a lowly lay person who has been reading Percy and about Percy) for 20 years but for what its worth I second that.... ________________________________ From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of Henry Mills Sent: Wed 3/26/2008 12:26 PM To: percy-l Subject: Re: [percy-l] a new Percy book Nikki, Let me offer the Percy Project website as an option, or remembrances could be compiled in a PDF document and circulated and made available for permanent download. Guaranteed never to go out of print. And we can include a picture of Sweet Thing and Old Broke-tail both. Best, Henry ________________________________ From: Jim Forest Reply-To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:49:55 +0100 To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" Subject: Re: [percy-l] a new Percy book Yes, Nikki, do write the suggested book! from another guaranteed customer... Jim Forest On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Karey Perkins wrote: Nikki, I love all these little vignettes you relate about your interactions with Percy and Percy in his life. They aren't in Tolson or Samway, and they really add much to the picture of the man. When I went to the UNC archives and read the Percy papers, there were such interesting things in the notes that showed sides of him you don't get elsewhere - a couple of times in the immense pack of papers there were some exclamations of religious joy written down in one or two word exclamations that were completely opposite the picture you get from the biographies and his writings - that of a cool, analytical, stoic man who took his faith seriously but very intellectually. Why don't you write all of these little stories down on paper, then bind the pages together in that thing we call a book? I bet a lot of people would buy it - at least one (me) would. You could call it: Percy and me. Or: My Dinner[s] with Walker Percy Or: What Shelby Didn't Know. (Since apparently Shelby and Walker didn't talk about that stuff.) Or: My Walk with Walker. OK, maybe you'd better be the one to name it. Karey -- Jim & Nancy Forest Kanisstraat 5 1811 GJ Alkmaar The Netherlands Forest-Flier web site: www.incommunion.org/forest-flier/ Orthodox Peace Fellowship web site: www.incommunion.org photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/ recently published: "Silent as a Stone," a children's book about a community of rescuers in Nazi-occupied Paris: http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/silent-as-a-stone-mother-maria-of-paris-and-the-trash-can-rescue/ another new book: "The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life": http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/the-road-to-emmaus-pilgrimage-as-a-way-of-life/ * * * Nancy and I have been keeping a journal that follows our recent kidney transplant. A blog has been set up for this purpose -- A Tale of Two Kidneys. See: http://ataleof2kidneys.blogspot.com/ * * * ________________________________ -- An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kterrell at sheastokes.com Wed Mar 26 12:52:49 2008 From: kterrell at sheastokes.com (Karl M. Terrell) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:52:49 -0700 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Wed Mar 26 16:13:42 2008 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:13:42 EDT Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book Message-ID: Have you folks taken a look at Walker Percy Remembered? There is a lengthy interview with James Boulware and one with me. You will find the book much more colloquial than eithr of the two bios. as for writing a new book, I have been busy writing but not on WP. I have always eschewed the idea of using my friendship with Walker to get my own work published, and that may be one reason why it hasn't been. Shucks. Nikki **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kfw1 at ntelos.net Wed Mar 26 16:28:38 2008 From: kfw1 at ntelos.net (Ken Wilson) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:28:38 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book References: Message-ID: <008101c88f7f$f9c64bc0$834a91d1@user3c94fac3a2> The whole book is a delight. Thanks for participating. Ken ----- Original Message ----- From: Nikkibar at aol.com To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 4:13 PM Subject: Re: [percy-l] a new Percy book Have you folks taken a look at Walker Percy Remembered? There is a lengthy interview with James Boulware and one with me. You will find the book much more colloquial than eithr of the two bios. as for writing a new book, I have been busy writing but not on WP. I have always eschewed the idea of using my friendship with Walker to get my own work published, and that may be one reason why it hasn't been. Shucks. Nikki ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Wed Mar 26 17:10:22 2008 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:10:22 EDT Subject: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Message-ID: Dear Rhonda, At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues -- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep autism generally... Nikki **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhforest at gmail.com Thu Mar 27 06:58:41 2008 From: jhforest at gmail.com (Jim Forest) Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:58:41 +0100 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53c59b0c0803270358p434790e1q3d17c93a6e339fb2@mail.gmail.com> Dear Nikki, I hope you will not think of a book about your friendship with Walker Percy and the many stories and insights you have to share would be seen by anyone as your using WP to get your name on a book cover. Please give the matter further thought. Jim On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 10:13 PM, wrote: > *Have you folks taken a look at Walker Percy Remembered? There is a > lengthy interview with James Boulware and one with me. You will find the > book much more colloquial than eithr of the two bios. as for writing a new > book, I have been busy writing but not on WP. I have always eschewed the > idea of using my friendship with Walker to get my own work published, and > that may be one reason why it hasn't been. Shucks.* > ** > *Nikki* > > > > ------------------------------ > Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home > . > > -- > An archive of all list discussion is available at > http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > > Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy > > -- Jim & Nancy Forest Kanisstraat 5 1811 GJ Alkmaar The Netherlands Forest-Flier web site: www.incommunion.org/forest-flier/ Orthodox Peace Fellowship web site: www.incommunion.org photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/ *recently published: "Silent as a Stone," a children's book about a community of rescuers in Nazi-occupied Paris:* http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/silent-as-a-stone-mother-maria-of-paris-and-the-trash-can-rescue/ *another new book: "The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life":* http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/books/the-road-to-emmaus-pilgrimage-as-a-way-of-life/ * * * *Nancy and I have been keeping a journal that follows our recent kidney transplant. A blog has been set up for this purpose -- A Tale of Two Kidneys. See: http://ataleof2kidneys.blogspot.com/* * * * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com Thu Mar 27 17:06:04 2008 From: rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com (RHONDA MCDONNELL) Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:06:04 -0700 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book In-Reply-To: <003a01c88f47$93d10c20$6401a8c0@Karey> References: <003a01c88f47$93d10c20$6401a8c0@Karey> Message-ID: Brilliant idea, Karey! What do you think, Nikki?? --Rhonda From: karey1 at charter.netTo: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgDate: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:44:56 -0400Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book Nikki, I love all these little vignettes you relate about your interactions with Percy and Percy in his life. They aren?t in Tolson or Samway, and they really add much to the picture of the man. When I went to the UNC archives and read the Percy papers, there were such interesting things in the notes that showed sides of him you don?t get elsewhere - a couple of times in the immense pack of papers there were some exclamations of religious joy written down in one or two word exclamations that were completely opposite the picture you get from the biographies and his writings ? that of a cool, analytical, stoic man who took his faith seriously but very intellectually. Why don?t you write all of these little stories down on paper, then bind the pages together in that thing we call a book? I bet a lot of people would buy it ? at least one (me) would. You could call it: Percy and me. Or: My Dinner[s] with Walker Percy. Or: What Shelby Didn?t Know. (Since apparently Shelby and Walker didn?t talk about that stuff.) Or: My Walk with Walker. OK, maybe you?d better be the one to name it. Karey From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.comSent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 8:20 PMTo: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgSubject: Re: [percy-l] Walker, animals and Julian Jaynes Although we did not read Julian Jaynes' (TOOC&TBOTBM)book in the book group, we did discuss Jaynes' theory of the development of the corpus callosum and the notion that our distant human ancestors may have walked around in the world hearing instructions from some outer or perhaps inner voice, like so many teenagers with cosmic i-Pods. Walker tended to resist any attribution to animals of anything that smacked of an animal soul in the lower primates or mammals. I always held for the opposite view and it was I who introduced Jaynes' theories to the group. On the other hand, Walker was uncommonly fond of his own animals (to the point of sardonic sentimentality) and kept schnauzers, and a Siamese cat that I gave him (Old Broke-tail, photographed on his lap in a TIME magazine story) and at the time of his death he had an affectionate corgi named Sweet Thing. The schnauzers were forever getting smashed flat on the street and were a cause for great grief whenever it would happen. Unfortunately Walker developed a painful allergy to Old Broke who had to be given away. There was nothing sardonic about MY affection for the non street wise schnauzers or Old Broke, as I was (and am) unreservedly sentimental about mine, but then I think of them as younger brothers, a non-canonical view that Walker regarded as just plain silly. But then, whenever one of them got spread-eagle flattened on Jahncke Ave. he was some broken up. Sometimes the emotional centers in the hippocampus over-rule the cerebrum. Towards the end of Jaynes' popularity, the word went round that his book had been an elaborate academic leg-pull, and Walker very much enjoyed feeling that he had gotten the best of the argument, in the notion that even Jaynes had not been serious. Later I had occasion to discuss this urban myth with Jaynes' tennis partner and his view was equivocal. So we'll never know. Nikki Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. _________________________________________________________________ How well do you know your celebrity gossip? http://originals.msn.com/thebigdebate?ocid=T002MSN03N0707A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com Thu Mar 27 17:13:21 2008 From: rhonda_mcdonnell at msn.com (RHONDA MCDONNELL) Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:13:21 -0700 Subject: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I seem to remember Peirce using communication with his dog as evidence of triadic communication. I remember being startled by it and wondering what WP thought about it. I was looking at his copy of Peirce's collected works, but no marginalia gave his reaction (if any) away. Of course, he had no trouble viewing other philosopher's--even those he admired--as being wrong about certain points. He said more than once that Kierkegaard got the religious stage and the movement into the religious wrong. --Rhonda "You live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing." Walker Percy From: Nikkibar at aol.comDate: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:10:22 -0400To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgSubject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Dear Rhonda, At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues -- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep autism generally... Nikki Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. _________________________________________________________________ Watch ?Cause Effect,? a show about real people making a real difference. Learn more. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_watchcause -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Thu Mar 27 20:16:35 2008 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:16:35 EDT Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book Message-ID: The only thing not so delightful about it is that they misspelled my name. One might view my pique over this Barringer for Barranger mistake as simple (and trivial) ego exercise save that in this era of the search engine it could mean considerable. I would urge anyone who feels the same to write to the University of North Carolina Press and complain about it so they can at the very least correct the galleys for future editions. I did without the courtesy of a reply. I find it particularly irksome since I had offered to check the author's transcript of the interview for minor glitches before going to press. In the words of the late Prince Hamlet: "Wormwood, wormwood..." Nikki **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15&ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Thu Mar 27 20:24:49 2008 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:24:49 EDT Subject: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 53, Issue 4 Message-ID: My recollection is that Walker in all of our discussions was not speaking in a CSP context, probably because our discussions antedated his deep interest in CSP. Rather at the time he was irked by various statements of Noam Chomsky at least at the time of our discussions. This is not contrary to what Marcus has written, except reflections of different points of focus at different times. Nikki **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15&ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tfa at brickengraver.com Thu Mar 27 20:41:50 2008 From: tfa at brickengraver.com (Tommy Armstrong) Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:41:50 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008801c8906c$83861790$8a9246b0$@com> I am not by any stretch of the imagination a "deep old file" as Patrick O'Brian -my equally favourite novelist with WP-described Stephen Maturin in his Aubrey Maturin Series. POB was also a Roman Catholic and Stephen was one also . I am not sure why my two favourite authors are RC when I am a pretty confirmed Protestant. Anyway a comparison between the two would make for a good dissertation or two for an academic type. What I would like to discuss is the theory of a very learned professor I had when I went back to school to finally get my degree, a one David Greene. I am wondering if in this learned group anyone else has seen this theory published or thought about it. I took a strange course called Beethoven and Revolution in which we studied among other things, Renaissance painting and sculpture and the subsequent Enlightenment, Beethoven symphonies and quartets and Napoleons' influences on their structure, Chinese philosophy and Chinese scroll painting, Matisse, and Sartre, and a smattering of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, if I remember correctly. The theme that brought them all together was perspective. Specifically the discovery or invention of single point perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi in the year 1415. It was with this discovery of linear perspective that science and essentially "Western" thought as we know it began. For when on sees in perspective, one can visualize "complex" systems that can be measured, it made possible Newton's calculus and Decartes coordinate system and his vision of the world. It changed imagery as we knew it forever. And within 200 years was so engrained into the Western mind that it was considered to be the "normal and natural way" of seeing the world. Egyptian, Chinese and African art was now considered to be "primitive". Plotting the orbits of the planets was now possible with this new way of seeing. The novel itself was born, being a linear invention as was the symphony, with a beginning, middle and end. We in the Western world became "linear". Cause and effect is a linear or what I think of as a dyadic concept. The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner. It is artificial for us-an invention. We do not see as the camera sees, but rather from ever changing points of view and we do this unconsciously. Think about the simple act of walking into a room-and see how many times one changes not only the angle of view but the focus. Think about the difference of scanning a picture of a room and actually scanning the room. It is pretty evident that we do not see as the camera does. But not only is our seeing but our thinking is not linear-except when with exertion we try and force it to be. When man begins, according to this theory, to treat himself from this linear point of view which we think endemic in our thought processes-but is really not, one loses what Dr. Green referred to as "My Ownness"-The so called Cartesian Dualism is only made possible and can only be explained through linear thinking. Much like what I think of Percy railing against the giving away of ones self to the "experts". When one essentially delegates his life to the so called experts, one loses "My Ownness". A particular state brought on by using an artificial perspective and particular perhaps to a Post Renaissance Western culture. That is of course until Post Reanissance Western Culture became the de facto world culture. Matisse for example understood this and came up with a "new" but really an old way of looking at the world-a world where ones view was not constrained from a single point but from a multiplicity of view points all at once and in no linear progression. Matisse saw the constraining nature that art had taken on and wanted to create a new are more in tune with human perceptions and therefore one that did not delete the My Ownness of the viewer. Stream of consciousness writing was a reaction to this constraining system. Picasso tried to depict the world from multiple points of view on a single two dimensional canvas. Sartre and existentialism is a reaction to the Cartesian world view. When we got to China and Chinese Scroll painting we found an art that was multipoint perspective-for the viewpoint of the viewer was constantly moving as the scroll was unrolled. One did not lose his "myowness" in the viewing because he was not being directed by the mathematical Cartesian constraining laws. In many ways a much more humanly way of depicting the world. But a viewpoint that did not give rise to calculus, high technology, etc. But did give us Lao Tzu. Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that perhaps our perspective is clouding reality. We are so engrained with this perspective of things that we believe it to be correct. But it has only existed in human consciousness and culture for a fraction of our existence on the earth. It brings a certain kind of reality into focus, but only a single type-and to try to interpret human beings with this perspective is patently flawed-even in trying to interpret pre-perspective art and writing one must be cognizant of this viewpoint. Kind of like the Uncertainty principle-where the presence of the viewer makes it impossible to actually view the subject being studied. Film-an invention of the past century-in many ways is multipoint and perhaps is the reason for it being the popular art form of today-Why was Binx such a moviegoer? This is of course a bit of a disjointed and perhaps flawed view, but I throw it out for discussion. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.com Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:10 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Dear Rhonda, At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues -- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep autism generally... Nikki _____ Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From armstron at ohiou.edu Fri Mar 28 07:01:32 2008 From: armstron at ohiou.edu (Ken Armstrong) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:01:32 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] a new Percy book In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.2.20080328065822.03a97710@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Nikki, On all that we're agreed. Maybe Percy listers could help out by searching on Google for Barranger. If enough do that, I think, Google will offer "Did you mean Barranger?" to those who search for Barringer. Ken A At 08:16 PM 3/27/2008, Nikkibar at aol.com wrote: >The only thing not so delightful about it is that they misspelled my name. >One might view my pique over this Barringer for Barranger mistake as >simple (and trivial) ego exercise save that in this era of the search >engine it could mean considerable. I would urge anyone who feels the same >to write to the University of North Carolina Press and complain about it >so they can at the very least correct the galleys for future editions. I >did without the courtesy of a reply. I find it particularly irksome since >I had offered to check the author's transcript of the interview for minor >glitches before going to press. In the words of the late Prince Hamlet: >"Wormwood, wormwood..." > >Nikki > > > > >---------- >Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. >Watch >the video on AOL Home. >-- >An archive of all list discussion is available at >http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ > >Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dmtphilosophy at hotmail.com Fri Mar 28 07:33:38 2008 From: dmtphilosophy at hotmail.com (DMT Philosophy) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 07:33:38 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. In-Reply-To: <008801c8906c$83861790$8a9246b0$@com> References: <008801c8906c$83861790$8a9246b0$@com> Message-ID: Tommy, I am a long time lurker on this list who rarely contributes, but I would like to respond to your interesting theory. Prof. Greene certainly seems to be on to something... I have a few points and questions. The notion of linear time - that things have a beginning, middle, and end - is not an invention of Renaissance Man but what Thomas Cahill calls "The Gift of the Jews." The Jews are the real source of the notion of history. What makes history? No one has history as long as he views one event as no more significant than another. Since every human act is no more significant than any other, as long as the world is constituted by merely human acts it has no absolute beginning, middle or end, since to posit such would be to elevate one human act above all others. A merely human world is necessarily a cyclical world. But if Almighty God intervenes in the world, then a singular event has taken place, and an absolute reference for history is established; we have "linear history." The history of the Jews is the history of God's singular acts in history that constitute absolute points of reference and give it a beginning, a middle, and (presumably) an end. The Old Testament can even be read as a novel, as some writers have attempted to do. The New Testament, of course, takes linear history to a new level, with the Incarnation as the Absolute Reference Point of history; thus the dating of our calendar with the birth of Christ. When you write that "The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner" that seems a bit strong. Reason is part of man's endowment, and through reason he uses technology to extend or enhance his natural abilities. It is in a sense not natural for man to transport himself in cars and planes rather than with his legs, but it is natural for man to use his mind to find technical solutions to the problem of transportation. Greene is absolutely right that the genius of the modern world was to create a technical invention that provided a unique perspective on the world, a perspective that allowed the development of modern science. The problem is that we have concluded that this perspective is the only legitimate perspective on the world, in other words, scientism. It is as if, after the invention of the automobile, we decreed that legs were no longer legitimate means of transportation. I would qualify your statement by saying "The problem is that human beings do not only see in this manner." Which brings me to the question of Prof. Greene's theory itself. It seems that the theory is itself an example of the "linear thinking" he criticizes. Prof. Greene does not use multiple perspectives or an existential approach in the theory. He propounds it like any other Western, linear theory. Nothing wrong with this, but it seems to indicate that the Western theoretical approach is not merely one perspective among many, because it is the perspective through which the distinction between singular and multiple perspectives itself becomes known. Ancient Egyptians may have thought in multiple perspectives, but they didn't know they were thinking this way in distinction to a singular perspective. Cheers, David Tye From: tfa at brickengraver.comTo: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgDate: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:41:50 -0400Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a ?deep old file? as Patrick O?Brian ?my equally favourite novelist with WP-described Stephen Maturin in his Aubrey Maturin Series. POB was also a Roman Catholic and Stephen was one also . I am not sure why my two favourite authors are RC when I am a pretty confirmed Protestant. Anyway a comparison between the two would make for a good dissertation or two for an academic type. What I would like to discuss is the theory of a very learned professor I had when I went back to school to finally get my degree, a one David Greene. I am wondering if in this learned group anyone else has seen this theory published or thought about it. I took a strange course called Beethoven and Revolution in which we studied among other things, Renaissance painting and sculpture and the subsequent Enlightenment, Beethoven symphonies and quartets and Napoleons? influences on their structure, Chinese philosophy and Chinese scroll painting, Matisse, and Sartre, and a smattering of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, if I remember correctly. The theme that brought them all together was perspective. Specifically the discovery or invention of single point perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi in the year 1415. It was with this discovery of linear perspective that science and essentially ?Western? thought as we know it began. For when on sees in perspective, one can visualize ?complex? systems that can be measured, it made possible Newton?s calculus and Decartes coordinate system and his vision of the world. It changed imagery as we knew it forever. And within 200 years was so engrained into the Western mind that it was considered to be the ?normal and natural way? of seeing the world. Egyptian, Chinese and African art was now considered to be ?primitive?. Plotting the orbits of the planets was now possible with this new way of seeing. The novel itself was born, being a linear invention as was the symphony, with a beginning, middle and end. We in the Western world became ?linear?. Cause and effect is a linear or what I think of as a dyadic concept. The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner. It is artificial for us-an invention. We do not see as the camera sees, but rather from ever changing points of view and we do this unconsciously. Think about the simple act of walking into a room?and see how many times one changes not only the angle of view but the focus. Think about the difference of scanning a picture of a room and actually scanning the room. It is pretty evident that we do not see as the camera does. But not only is our seeing but our thinking is not linear?except when with exertion we try and force it to be. When man begins, according to this theory, to treat himself from this linear point of view which we think endemic in our thought processes-but is really not, one loses what Dr. Green referred to as ?My Ownness??The so called Cartesian Dualism is only made possible and can only be explained through linear thinking. Much like what I think of Percy railing against the giving away of ones self to the ?experts?. When one essentially delegates his life to the so called experts, one loses ?My Ownness?. A particular state brought on by using an artificial perspective and particular perhaps to a Post Renaissance Western culture. That is of course until Post Reanissance Western Culture became the de facto world culture. Matisse for example understood this and came up with a ?new? but really an old way of looking at the world?a world where ones view was not constrained from a single point but from a multiplicity of view points all at once and in no linear progression. Matisse saw the constraining nature that art had taken on and wanted to create a new are more in tune with human perceptions and therefore one that did not delete the My Ownness of the viewer. Stream of consciousness writing was a reaction to this constraining system. Picasso tried to depict the world from multiple points of view on a single two dimensional canvas. Sartre and existentialism is a reaction to the Cartesian world view. When we got to China and Chinese Scroll painting we found an art that was multipoint perspective?for the viewpoint of the viewer was constantly moving as the scroll was unrolled. One did not lose his ?myowness? in the viewing because he was not being directed by the mathematical Cartesian constraining laws. In many ways a much more humanly way of depicting the world. But a viewpoint that did not give rise to calculus, high technology, etc. But did give us Lao Tzu. Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that perhaps our perspective is clouding reality. We are so engrained with this perspective of things that we believe it to be correct. But it has only existed in human consciousness and culture for a fraction of our existence on the earth. It brings a certain kind of reality into focus, but only a single type-and to try to interpret human beings with this perspective is patently flawed?even in trying to interpret pre-perspective art and writing one must be cognizant of this viewpoint. Kind of like the Uncertainty principle?where the presence of the viewer makes it impossible to actually view the subject being studied. Film-an invention of the past century-in many ways is multipoint and perhaps is the reason for it being the popular art form of today?Why was Binx such a moviegoer? This is of course a bit of a disjointed and perhaps flawed view, but I throw it out for discussion. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 www.brickengraver.com ?If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you? Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.comSent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:10 PMTo: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgSubject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Dear Rhonda, At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues -- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep autism generally... Nikki Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/ZuneADay/?locale=en-US&ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Mobile_Zune_V3 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tfa at brickengraver.com Fri Mar 28 12:01:37 2008 From: tfa at brickengraver.com (Tommy Armstrong) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:01:37 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. In-Reply-To: References: <008801c8906c$83861790$8a9246b0$@com> Message-ID: <000001c890ed$014ad730$03e08590$@com> Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 (910) 893-5508 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of DMT Philosophy Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 7:34 AM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Tommy, I am a long time lurker on this list who rarely contributes, but I would like to respond to your interesting theory. Prof. Greene certainly seems to be on to something... I have a few points and questions. The notion of linear time - that things have a beginning, middle, and end - is not an invention of Renaissance Man but what Thomas Cahill calls "The Gift of the Jews." The Jews are the real source of the notion of history. What makes history? No one has history as long as he views one event as no more significant than another. Since every human act is no more significant than any other, as long as the world is constituted by merely human acts it has no absolute beginning, middle or end, since to posit such would be to elevate one human act above all others. A merely human world is necessarily a cyclical world. But if Almighty God intervenes in the world, then a singular event has taken place, and an absolute reference for history is established; we have "linear history." The history of the Jews is the history of God's singular acts in history that constitute absolute points of reference and give it a beginning, a middle, and (presumably) an end. The Old Testament can even be read as a novel, as some writers have attempted to do. The New Testament, of course, takes linear history to a new level, with the Incarnation as the Absolute Reference Point of history; thus the dating of our calendar with the birth of Christ. [Tommy Armstrong] I did not mean to imply that the notion of linear time had its origins with the discovery of perspective-only that by use of it that time, using that tool could now be broken into segments that could actually be measured. Calculus was not one of my strong parts, but the way I understand it is that the speed of a projectile at any certain point on it trajectory could, using calculus, be calculated by segmenting the curve into an infinite number of points and thus, since one was observing those points as discrete and all from a single point, that its distance and speed could be calculated. A very necessary concept for the dissection of the world and a way of explaining it. I of course may have some things not quite right-but think the gist of the matter is correct. But does man conceive of time in a linear way, naturally. Another discussion for "another time". I know I certainly do not as in my everyday life impressions and memories do not well up in a linear fashion-I wish sometimes they did. Do we segment it into discrete measurable slices-no-not me anyway. I can get immersed in anything and time "floats away" and yet when waiting for the coffee maker to finish-time never moves. When you write that "The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner" that seems a bit strong. [Tommy Armstrong] I am using the word "see" to refer to the actual act of seeing with the eye. How we humans see the world through our eyes. Not the seeing or visualizing of a concept or relationship in the mind. Not "Now I see what he is talking about". And I will stand firm on this assumption-the human brain does not process what it "actually" sees in any kind of linear way. We do not process our visual cues like a camera where we take in the whole scene and then dissect the scene. And this was much of the gist of the course-it was how we see the world mainly in the visual arts. And how that a paradigm shift (I always wanted to use that phrase) occurred caused by the visual arts. Reason is part of man's endowment, and through reason he uses technology to extend or enhance his natural abilities. [Tommy Armstrong] No problem there with me-but as I think of it reason comes from language. And language, I believe is what makes us human. When one can use language in the mind to manipulate "images and concepts" reason can follow (or not as the case may be-lol) "In the beginning was the Word" It is in a sense not natural for man to transport himself in cars and planes rather than with his legs, but it is natural for man to use his mind to find technical solutions to the problem of transportation. Greene is absolutely right that the genius of the modern world was to create a technical invention that provided a unique perspective on the world, a perspective that allowed the development of modern science. The problem is that we have concluded that this perspective is the only legitimate perspective on the world, in other words, scientism. [Tommy Armstrong] Absolutely-and that was one of the points I was trying to make-that in today's society because of the fact that this perspective or world view is the defacto one and has been so assimilated into the cultural mindset, we are not able to adequately interpret many of the phenomena that the world presents. And sadly, those that we cannot interpret, we many times simply dismiss. It is as if, after the invention of the automobile, we decreed that legs were no longer legitimate means of transportation. I would qualify your statement by saying "The problem is that human beings do not only see in this manner." [Tommy Armstrong] We definitely do not actually see through our eyes "only in this manner" -in fact I purport we NEVER see through our eyes in such a linear manner. Which brings me to the question of Prof. Greene's theory itself. It seems that the theory is itself an example of the "linear thinking" he criticizes. [Tommy Armstrong] I probably misrepresented him to a bit-I probably caused that by not explaining it in depth. He did not necessarily criticize "linear thinking"-just that he criticized the fact that by thinking only linearly we cannot fully appreciate all that the universe has to offer. Beethoven for instance or Mahler. Or Matisse. Prof. Greene does not use multiple perspectives or an existential approach in the theory. He propounds it like any other Western, linear theory. Nothing wrong with this, but it seems to indicate that the Western theoretical approach is not merely one perspective among many, because it is the perspective through which the distinction between singular and multiple perspectives itself becomes known. Ancient Egyptians may have thought in multiple perspectives, but they didn't know they were thinking this way in distinction to a singular perspective. [Tommy Armstrong] Will get back to you on that -needs some thought and need to engrave some LEGO bricks-lol Sorry if so disjointed but would like to carry on conversation later either on or off list. I only wished I could have gotten him to read WP and get his comments. Cheers, David Tye _____ From: tfa at brickengraver.com To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:41:50 -0400 Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a "deep old file" as Patrick O'Brian -my equally favourite novelist with WP-described Stephen Maturin in his Aubrey Maturin Series. POB was also a Roman Catholic and Stephen was one also . I am not sure why my two favourite authors are RC when I am a pretty confirmed Protestant. Anyway a comparison between the two would make for a good dissertation or two for an academic type. What I would like to discuss is the theory of a very learned professor I had when I went back to school to finally get my degree, a one David Greene. I am wondering if in this learned group anyone else has seen this theory published or thought about it. I took a strange course called Beethoven and Revolution in which we studied among other things, Renaissance painting and sculpture and the subsequent Enlightenment, Beethoven symphonies and quartets and Napoleons' influences on their structure, Chinese philosophy and Chinese scroll painting, Matisse, and Sartre, and a smattering of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, if I remember correctly. The theme that brought them all together was perspective. Specifically the discovery or invention of single point perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi in the year 1415. It was with this discovery of linear perspective that science and essentially "Western" thought as we know it began. For when on sees in perspective, one can visualize "complex" systems that can be measured, it made possible Newton's calculus and Decartes coordinate system and his vision of the world. It changed imagery as we knew it forever. And within 200 years was so engrained into the Western mind that it was considered to be the "normal and natural way" of seeing the world. Egyptian, Chinese and African art was now considered to be "primitive". Plotting the orbits of the planets was now possible with this new way of seeing. The novel itself was born, being a linear invention as was the symphony, with a beginning, middle and end. We in the Western world became "linear". Cause and effect is a linear or what I think of as a dyadic concept. The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner. It is artificial for us-an invention. We do not see as the camera sees, but rather from ever changing points of view and we do this unconsciously. Think about the simple act of walking into a room-and see how many times one changes not only the angle of view but the focus. Think about the difference of scanning a picture of a room and actually scanning the room. It is pretty evident that we do not see as the camera does. But not only is our seeing but our thinking is not linear-except when with exertion we try and force it to be. When man begins, according to this theory, to treat himself from this linear point of view which we think endemic in our thought processes-but is really not, one loses what Dr. Green referred to as "My Ownness"-The so called Cartesian Dualism is only made possible and can only be explained through linear thinking. Much like what I think of Percy railing against the giving away of ones self to the "experts". When one essentially delegates his life to the so called experts, one loses "My Ownness". A particular state brought on by using an artificial perspective and particular perhaps to a Post Renaissance Western culture. That is of course until Post Reanissance Western Culture became the de facto world culture. Matisse for example understood this and came up with a "new" but really an old way of looking at the world-a world where ones view was not constrained from a single point but from a multiplicity of view points all at once and in no linear progression. Matisse saw the constraining nature that art had taken on and wanted to create a new are more in tune with human perceptions and therefore one that did not delete the My Ownness of the viewer. Stream of consciousness writing was a reaction to this constraining system. Picasso tried to depict the world from multiple points of view on a single two dimensional canvas. Sartre and existentialism is a reaction to the Cartesian world view. When we got to China and Chinese Scroll painting we found an art that was multipoint perspective-for the viewpoint of the viewer was constantly moving as the scroll was unrolled. One did not lose his "myowness" in the viewing because he was not being directed by the mathematical Cartesian constraining laws. In many ways a much more humanly way of depicting the world. But a viewpoint that did not give rise to calculus, high technology, etc. But did give us Lao Tzu. Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that perhaps our perspective is clouding reality. We are so engrained with this perspective of things that we believe it to be correct. But it has only existed in human consciousness and culture for a fraction of our existence on the earth. It brings a certain kind of reality into focus, but only a single type-and to try to interpret human beings with this perspective is patently flawed-even in trying to interpret pre-perspective art and writing one must be cognizant of this viewpoint. Kind of like the Uncertainty principle-where the presence of the viewer makes it impossible to actually view the subject being studied. Film-an invention of the past century-in many ways is multipoint and perhaps is the reason for it being the popular art form of today-Why was Binx such a moviegoer? This is of course a bit of a disjointed and perhaps flawed view, but I throw it out for discussion. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.com Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:10 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Dear Rhonda, At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues -- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep autism generally... Nikki _____ Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. _____ Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. Enter for your chance to win. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dmtphilosophy at hotmail.com Fri Mar 28 14:59:04 2008 From: dmtphilosophy at hotmail.com (DMT Philosophy) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:59:04 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. In-Reply-To: <000001c890ed$014ad730$03e08590$@com> References: <008801c8906c$83861790$8a9246b0$@com> <000001c890ed$014ad730$03e08590$@com> Message-ID: This Professor Greene sounds like a very intersting fellow.... did he publish anywhere? David From: tfa at brickengraver.comTo: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgDate: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:01:37 -0400Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 (910) 893-5508 www.brickengraver.com ?If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you? Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of DMT PhilosophySent: Friday, March 28, 2008 7:34 AMTo: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical DiscussionSubject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Tommy, I am a long time lurker on this list who rarely contributes, but I would like to respond to your interesting theory. Prof. Greenecertainly seems to be on to something... I have a few points and questions. The notion of linear time - that things have a beginning, middle, and end - is not an invention of Renaissance Man butwhat Thomas Cahill calls "The Gift of the Jews." The Jews are the real source of the notion of history. What makes history? No one has history as long as he views one event as no more significant than another. Since every human act is no more significant than any other, as long as the world is constituted by merely human acts it has no absolute beginning, middle or end, since to posit such would be to elevate one human act above all others. A merely human world is necessarily a cyclical world. But if Almighty God intervenes in the world, then a singular event has taken place, and an absolute reference for history is established; we have "linear history." The history of the Jews is the history of God's singular acts in history that constitute absolute points of reference and give it a beginning, a middle, and (presumably) an end. The Old Testament can even be read as a novel, as some writers have attempted to do. The New Testament, of course, takes linear history to a new level, with the Incarnation as the Absolute Reference Point of history; thus the dating of our calendar with the birth of Christ. [Tommy Armstrong] I did not mean to imply that the notion of linear time had its origins with the discovery of perspective?only that by use of it that time, using that tool could now be broken into segments that could actually be measured. Calculus was not one of my strong parts, but the way I understand it is that the speed of a projectile at any certain point on it trajectory could, using calculus, be calculated by segmenting the curve into an infinite number of points and thus, since one was observing those points as discrete and all from a single point, that its distance and speed could be calculated. A very necessary concept for the dissection of the world and a way of explaining it. I of course may have some things not quite right?but think the gist of the matter is correct. But does man conceive of time in a linear way, naturally. Another discussion for ?another time?. I know I certainly do not as in my everyday life impressions and memories do not well up in a linear fashion?I wish sometimes they did. Do we segment it into discrete measurable slices?no?not me anyway. I can get immersed in anything and time ?floats away? and yet when waiting for the coffee maker to finish?time never moves. When you write that "The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner" that seems a bit strong. [Tommy Armstrong] I am using the word ?see? to refer to the actual act of seeing with the eye. How we humans see the world through our eyes. Not the seeing or visualizing of a concept or relationship in the mind. Not ?Now I see what he is talking about?. And I will stand firm on this assumption-the human brain does not process what it ?actually? sees in any kind of linear way. We do not process our visual cues like a camera where we take in the whole scene and then dissect the scene. And this was much of the gist of the course?it was how we see the world mainly in the visual arts. And how that a paradigm shift (I always wanted to use that phrase) occurred caused by the visual arts. Reason is part of man's endowment, and through reason he uses technology to extend or enhance his natural abilities. [Tommy Armstrong] No problem there with me?but as I think of it reason comes from language. And language, I believe is what makes us human. When one can use language in the mind to manipulate ?images and concepts? reason can follow (or not as the case may be?lol) ?In the beginning was the Word? It is in a sense not natural for man to transport himself in cars and planes rather than with his legs, but it is natural for man to use his mind to find technical solutions to the problem of transportation. Greene is absolutely right that the genius of the modern world was to create a technical invention that provided a unique perspective on the world, a perspective that allowed the development of modern science. The problem is that we have concluded that this perspective is the only legitimate perspective on the world, in other words, scientism. [Tommy Armstrong] Absolutely?and that was one of the points I was trying to make?that in today?s society because of the fact that this perspective or world view is the defacto one and has been so assimilated into the cultural mindset, we are not able to adequately interpret many of the phenomena that the world presents. And sadly, those that we cannot interpret, we many times simply dismiss. It is as if, after the invention of the automobile, we decreed that legs were no longer legitimate means of transportation. I would qualify your statement by saying "The problem is that human beings do not only see in this manner." [Tommy Armstrong] We definitely do not actually see through our eyes ?only in this manner? ?in fact I purport we NEVER see through our eyes in such a linear manner. Which brings me to the question of Prof. Greene's theory itself. It seems that the theory is itself an example of the "linear thinking" he criticizes. [Tommy Armstrong] I probably misrepresented him to a bit?I probably caused that by not explaining it in depth. He did not necessarily criticize ?linear thinking??just that he criticized the fact that by thinking only linearly we cannot fully appreciate all that the universe has to offer. Beethoven for instance or Mahler. Or Matisse. Prof. Greene does not use multiple perspectives or an existential approach in the theory. He propounds it like any other Western, linear theory. Nothing wrong with this, but it seems to indicate that the Western theoretical approach is not merely one perspective among many, because it is the perspective through which the distinction between singular and multiple perspectives itself becomes known. Ancient Egyptians may have thought in multiple perspectives, but they didn't know they were thinking this way in distinction to a singular perspective. [Tommy Armstrong] Will get back to you on that ?needs some thought and need to engrave some LEGO bricks?lol Sorry if so disjointed but would like to carry on conversation later either on or off list. I only wished I could have gotten him to read WP and get his comments. Cheers,David Tye From: tfa at brickengraver.comTo: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgDate: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:41:50 -0400Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a ?deep old file? as Patrick O?Brian ?my equally favourite novelist with WP-described Stephen Maturin in his Aubrey Maturin Series. POB was also a Roman Catholic and Stephen was one also . I am not sure why my two favourite authors are RC when I am a pretty confirmed Protestant. Anyway a comparison between the two would make for a good dissertation or two for an academic type. What I would like to discuss is the theory of a very learned professor I had when I went back to school to finally get my degree, a one David Greene. I am wondering if in this learned group anyone else has seen this theory published or thought about it. I took a strange course called Beethoven and Revolution in which we studied among other things, Renaissance painting and sculpture and the subsequent Enlightenment, Beethoven symphonies and quartets and Napoleons? influences on their structure, Chinese philosophy and Chinese scroll painting, Matisse, and Sartre, and a smattering of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, if I remember correctly. The theme that brought them all together was perspective. Specifically the discovery or invention of single point perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi in the year 1415. It was with this discovery of linear perspective that science and essentially ?Western? thought as we know it began. For when on sees in perspective, one can visualize ?complex? systems that can be measured, it made possible Newton?s calculus and Decartes coordinate system and his vision of the world. It changed imagery as we knew it forever. And within 200 years was so engrained into the Western mind that it was considered to be the ?normal and natural way? of seeing the world. Egyptian, Chinese and African art was now considered to be ?primitive?. Plotting the orbits of the planets was now possible with this new way of seeing. The novel itself was born, being a linear invention as was the symphony, with a beginning, middle and end. We in the Western world became ?linear?. Cause and effect is a linear or what I think of as a dyadic concept. The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner. It is artificial for us-an invention. We do not see as the camera sees, but rather from ever changing points of view and we do this unconsciously. Think about the simple act of walking into a room?and see how many times one changes not only the angle of view but the focus. Think about the difference of scanning a picture of a room and actually scanning the room. It is pretty evident that we do not see as the camera does. But not only is our seeing but our thinking is not linear?except when with exertion we try and force it to be. When man begins, according to this theory, to treat himself from this linear point of view which we think endemic in our thought processes-but is really not, one loses what Dr. Green referred to as ?My Ownness??The so called Cartesian Dualism is only made possible and can only be explained through linear thinking. Much like what I think of Percy railing against the giving away of ones self to the ?experts?. When one essentially delegates his life to the so called experts, one loses ?My Ownness?. A particular state brought on by using an artificial perspective and particular perhaps to a Post Renaissance Western culture. That is of course until Post Reanissance Western Culture became the de facto world culture. Matisse for example understood this and came up with a ?new? but really an old way of looking at the world?a world where ones view was not constrained from a single point but from a multiplicity of view points all at once and in no linear progression. Matisse saw the constraining nature that art had taken on and wanted to create a new are more in tune with human perceptions and therefore one that did not delete the My Ownness of the viewer. Stream of consciousness writing was a reaction to this constraining system. Picasso tried to depict the world from multiple points of view on a single two dimensional canvas. Sartre and existentialism is a reaction to the Cartesian world view. When we got to China and Chinese Scroll painting we found an art that was multipoint perspective?for the viewpoint of the viewer was constantly moving as the scroll was unrolled. One did not lose his ?myowness? in the viewing because he was not being directed by the mathematical Cartesian constraining laws. In many ways a much more humanly way of depicting the world. But a viewpoint that did not give rise to calculus, high technology, etc. But did give us Lao Tzu. Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that perhaps our perspective is clouding reality. We are so engrained with this perspective of things that we believe it to be correct. But it has only existed in human consciousness and culture for a fraction of our existence on the earth. It brings a certain kind of reality into focus, but only a single type-and to try to interpret human beings with this perspective is patently flawed?even in trying to interpret pre-perspective art and writing one must be cognizant of this viewpoint. Kind of like the Uncertainty principle?where the presence of the viewer makes it impossible to actually view the subject being studied. Film-an invention of the past century-in many ways is multipoint and perhaps is the reason for it being the popular art form of today?Why was Binx such a moviegoer? This is of course a bit of a disjointed and perhaps flawed view, but I throw it out for discussion. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 www.brickengraver.com ?If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you? Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.comSent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:10 PMTo: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.orgSubject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Dear Rhonda, At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues -- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep autism generally... Nikki Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. Enter for your chance to win. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/ZuneADay/?locale=en-US&ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Mobile_Zune_V3 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tfa at brickengraver.com Fri Mar 28 17:30:36 2008 From: tfa at brickengraver.com (Tommy Armstrong) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:30:36 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. In-Reply-To: References: <008801c8906c$83861790$8a9246b0$@com> <000001c890ed$014ad730$03e08590$@com> Message-ID: <004901c8911a$f6db17f0$e49147d0$@com> http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4224(198507)66%3A3%3C271%3AMCAT%3E2.0. CO%3B2-0 http://www.amazon.ca/How-Respond-Strangeness-Art-Unfamiliar/dp/0773457798/re f=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8 &s=books&qid=1206739743&sr=1-2 did not know he had published that one-might need to buy it if make sure it is same guy-which surely seems to be. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 (910) 893-5508 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of DMT Philosophy Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 2:59 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. This Professor Greene sounds like a very intersting fellow.... did he publish anywhere? David _____ From: tfa at brickengraver.com To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:01:37 -0400 Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 (910) 893-5508 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of DMT Philosophy Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 7:34 AM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Tommy, I am a long time lurker on this list who rarely contributes, but I would like to respond to your interesting theory. Prof. Greene certainly seems to be on to something... I have a few points and questions. The notion of linear time - that things have a beginning, middle, and end - is not an invention of Renaissance Man but what Thomas Cahill calls "The Gift of the Jews." The Jews are the real source of the notion of history. What makes history? No one has history as long as he views one event as no more significant than another. Since every human act is no more significant than any other, as long as the world is constituted by merely human acts it has no absolute beginning, middle or end, since to posit such would be to elevate one human act above all others. A merely human world is necessarily a cyclical world. But if Almighty God intervenes in the world, then a singular event has taken place, and an absolute reference for history is established; we have "linear history." The history of the Jews is the history of God's singular acts in history that constitute absolute points of reference and give it a beginning, a middle, and (presumably) an end. The Old Testament can even be read as a novel, as some writers have attempted to do. The New Testament, of course, takes linear history to a new level, with the Incarnation as the Absolute Reference Point of history; thus the dating of our calendar with the birth of Christ. [Tommy Armstrong] I did not mean to imply that the notion of linear time had its origins with the discovery of perspective-only that by use of it that time, using that tool could now be broken into segments that could actually be measured. Calculus was not one of my strong parts, but the way I understand it is that the speed of a projectile at any certain point on it trajectory could, using calculus, be calculated by segmenting the curve into an infinite number of points and thus, since one was observing those points as discrete and all from a single point, that its distance and speed could be calculated. A very necessary concept for the dissection of the world and a way of explaining it. I of course may have some things not quite right-but think the gist of the matter is correct. But does man conceive of time in a linear way, naturally. Another discussion for "another time". I know I certainly do not as in my everyday life impressions and memories do not well up in a linear fashion-I wish sometimes they did. Do we segment it into discrete measurable slices-no-not me anyway. I can get immersed in anything and time "floats away" and yet when waiting for the coffee maker to finish-time never moves. When you write that "The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner" that seems a bit strong. [Tommy Armstrong] I am using the word "see" to refer to the actual act of seeing with the eye. How we humans see the world through our eyes. Not the seeing or visualizing of a concept or relationship in the mind. Not "Now I see what he is talking about". And I will stand firm on this assumption-the human brain does not process what it "actually" sees in any kind of linear way. We do not process our visual cues like a camera where we take in the whole scene and then dissect the scene. And this was much of the gist of the course-it was how we see the world mainly in the visual arts. And how that a paradigm shift (I always wanted to use that phrase) occurred caused by the visual arts. Reason is part of man's endowment, and through reason he uses technology to extend or enhance his natural abilities. [Tommy Armstrong] No problem there with me-but as I think of it reason comes from language. And language, I believe is what makes us human. When one can use language in the mind to manipulate "images and concepts" reason can follow (or not as the case may be-lol) "In the beginning was the Word" It is in a sense not natural for man to transport himself in cars and planes rather than with his legs, but it is natural for man to use his mind to find technical solutions to the problem of transportation. Greene is absolutely right that the genius of the modern world was to create a technical invention that provided a unique perspective on the world, a perspective that allowed the development of modern science. The problem is that we have concluded that this perspective is the only legitimate perspective on the world, in other words, scientism. [Tommy Armstrong] Absolutely-and that was one of the points I was trying to make-that in today's society because of the fact that this perspective or world view is the defacto one and has been so assimilated into the cultural mindset, we are not able to adequately interpret many of the phenomena that the world presents. And sadly, those that we cannot interpret, we many times simply dismiss. It is as if, after the invention of the automobile, we decreed that legs were no longer legitimate means of transportation. I would qualify your statement by saying "The problem is that human beings do not only see in this manner." [Tommy Armstrong] We definitely do not actually see through our eyes "only in this manner" -in fact I purport we NEVER see through our eyes in such a linear manner. Which brings me to the question of Prof. Greene's theory itself. It seems that the theory is itself an example of the "linear thinking" he criticizes. [Tommy Armstrong] I probably misrepresented him to a bit-I probably caused that by not explaining it in depth. He did not necessarily criticize "linear thinking"-just that he criticized the fact that by thinking only linearly we cannot fully appreciate all that the universe has to offer. Beethoven for instance or Mahler. Or Matisse. Prof. Greene does not use multiple perspectives or an existential approach in the theory. He propounds it like any other Western, linear theory. Nothing wrong with this, but it seems to indicate that the Western theoretical approach is not merely one perspective among many, because it is the perspective through which the distinction between singular and multiple perspectives itself becomes known. Ancient Egyptians may have thought in multiple perspectives, but they didn't know they were thinking this way in distinction to a singular perspective. [Tommy Armstrong] Will get back to you on that -needs some thought and need to engrave some LEGO bricks-lol Sorry if so disjointed but would like to carry on conversation later either on or off list. I only wished I could have gotten him to read WP and get his comments. Cheers, David Tye _____ From: tfa at brickengraver.com To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:41:50 -0400 Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a "deep old file" as Patrick O'Brian -my equally favourite novelist with WP-described Stephen Maturin in his Aubrey Maturin Series. POB was also a Roman Catholic and Stephen was one also . I am not sure why my two favourite authors are RC when I am a pretty confirmed Protestant. Anyway a comparison between the two would make for a good dissertation or two for an academic type. What I would like to discuss is the theory of a very learned professor I had when I went back to school to finally get my degree, a one David Greene. I am wondering if in this learned group anyone else has seen this theory published or thought about it. I took a strange course called Beethoven and Revolution in which we studied among other things, Renaissance painting and sculpture and the subsequent Enlightenment, Beethoven symphonies and quartets and Napoleons' influences on their structure, Chinese philosophy and Chinese scroll painting, Matisse, and Sartre, and a smattering of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, if I remember correctly. The theme that brought them all together was perspective. Specifically the discovery or invention of single point perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi in the year 1415. It was with this discovery of linear perspective that science and essentially "Western" thought as we know it began. For when on sees in perspective, one can visualize "complex" systems that can be measured, it made possible Newton's calculus and Decartes coordinate system and his vision of the world. It changed imagery as we knew it forever. And within 200 years was so engrained into the Western mind that it was considered to be the "normal and natural way" of seeing the world. Egyptian, Chinese and African art was now considered to be "primitive". Plotting the orbits of the planets was now possible with this new way of seeing. The novel itself was born, being a linear invention as was the symphony, with a beginning, middle and end. We in the Western world became "linear". Cause and effect is a linear or what I think of as a dyadic concept. The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner. It is artificial for us-an invention. We do not see as the camera sees, but rather from ever changing points of view and we do this unconsciously. Think about the simple act of walking into a room-and see how many times one changes not only the angle of view but the focus. Think about the difference of scanning a picture of a room and actually scanning the room. It is pretty evident that we do not see as the camera does. But not only is our seeing but our thinking is not linear-except when with exertion we try and force it to be. When man begins, according to this theory, to treat himself from this linear point of view which we think endemic in our thought processes-but is really not, one loses what Dr. Green referred to as "My Ownness"-The so called Cartesian Dualism is only made possible and can only be explained through linear thinking. Much like what I think of Percy railing against the giving away of ones self to the "experts". When one essentially delegates his life to the so called experts, one loses "My Ownness". A particular state brought on by using an artificial perspective and particular perhaps to a Post Renaissance Western culture. That is of course until Post Reanissance Western Culture became the de facto world culture. Matisse for example understood this and came up with a "new" but really an old way of looking at the world-a world where ones view was not constrained from a single point but from a multiplicity of view points all at once and in no linear progression. Matisse saw the constraining nature that art had taken on and wanted to create a new are more in tune with human perceptions and therefore one that did not delete the My Ownness of the viewer. Stream of consciousness writing was a reaction to this constraining system. Picasso tried to depict the world from multiple points of view on a single two dimensional canvas. Sartre and existentialism is a reaction to the Cartesian world view. When we got to China and Chinese Scroll painting we found an art that was multipoint perspective-for the viewpoint of the viewer was constantly moving as the scroll was unrolled. One did not lose his "myowness" in the viewing because he was not being directed by the mathematical Cartesian constraining laws. In many ways a much more humanly way of depicting the world. But a viewpoint that did not give rise to calculus, high technology, etc. But did give us Lao Tzu. Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that perhaps our perspective is clouding reality. We are so engrained with this perspective of things that we believe it to be correct. But it has only existed in human consciousness and culture for a fraction of our existence on the earth. It brings a certain kind of reality into focus, but only a single type-and to try to interpret human beings with this perspective is patently flawed-even in trying to interpret pre-perspective art and writing one must be cognizant of this viewpoint. Kind of like the Uncertainty principle-where the presence of the viewer makes it impossible to actually view the subject being studied. Film-an invention of the past century-in many ways is multipoint and perhaps is the reason for it being the popular art form of today-Why was Binx such a moviegoer? This is of course a bit of a disjointed and perhaps flawed view, but I throw it out for discussion. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.com Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:10 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Dear Rhonda, At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues -- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep autism generally... Nikki _____ Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. _____ Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. Enter for your chance to win. _____ Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. Enter for your chance to win. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tfa at brickengraver.com Fri Mar 28 17:32:28 2008 From: tfa at brickengraver.com (Tommy Armstrong) Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:32:28 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. In-Reply-To: References: <008801c8906c$83861790$8a9246b0$@com> <000001c890ed$014ad730$03e08590$@com> Message-ID: <004e01c8911b$390da840$ab28f8c0$@com> David B. Greene Prof Emeritus NCSU http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/701-4945792-1448320?%5Fen coding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books-ca&field-author=David%20B.%20Greene Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 (910) 893-5508 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of DMT Philosophy Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 2:59 PM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. This Professor Greene sounds like a very intersting fellow.... did he publish anywhere? David _____ From: tfa at brickengraver.com To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:01:37 -0400 Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 (910) 893-5508 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of DMT Philosophy Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 7:34 AM To: Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Tommy, I am a long time lurker on this list who rarely contributes, but I would like to respond to your interesting theory. Prof. Greene certainly seems to be on to something... I have a few points and questions. The notion of linear time - that things have a beginning, middle, and end - is not an invention of Renaissance Man but what Thomas Cahill calls "The Gift of the Jews." The Jews are the real source of the notion of history. What makes history? No one has history as long as he views one event as no more significant than another. Since every human act is no more significant than any other, as long as the world is constituted by merely human acts it has no absolute beginning, middle or end, since to posit such would be to elevate one human act above all others. A merely human world is necessarily a cyclical world. But if Almighty God intervenes in the world, then a singular event has taken place, and an absolute reference for history is established; we have "linear history." The history of the Jews is the history of God's singular acts in history that constitute absolute points of reference and give it a beginning, a middle, and (presumably) an end. The Old Testament can even be read as a novel, as some writers have attempted to do. The New Testament, of course, takes linear history to a new level, with the Incarnation as the Absolute Reference Point of history; thus the dating of our calendar with the birth of Christ. [Tommy Armstrong] I did not mean to imply that the notion of linear time had its origins with the discovery of perspective-only that by use of it that time, using that tool could now be broken into segments that could actually be measured. Calculus was not one of my strong parts, but the way I understand it is that the speed of a projectile at any certain point on it trajectory could, using calculus, be calculated by segmenting the curve into an infinite number of points and thus, since one was observing those points as discrete and all from a single point, that its distance and speed could be calculated. A very necessary concept for the dissection of the world and a way of explaining it. I of course may have some things not quite right-but think the gist of the matter is correct. But does man conceive of time in a linear way, naturally. Another discussion for "another time". I know I certainly do not as in my everyday life impressions and memories do not well up in a linear fashion-I wish sometimes they did. Do we segment it into discrete measurable slices-no-not me anyway. I can get immersed in anything and time "floats away" and yet when waiting for the coffee maker to finish-time never moves. When you write that "The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner" that seems a bit strong. [Tommy Armstrong] I am using the word "see" to refer to the actual act of seeing with the eye. How we humans see the world through our eyes. Not the seeing or visualizing of a concept or relationship in the mind. Not "Now I see what he is talking about". And I will stand firm on this assumption-the human brain does not process what it "actually" sees in any kind of linear way. We do not process our visual cues like a camera where we take in the whole scene and then dissect the scene. And this was much of the gist of the course-it was how we see the world mainly in the visual arts. And how that a paradigm shift (I always wanted to use that phrase) occurred caused by the visual arts. Reason is part of man's endowment, and through reason he uses technology to extend or enhance his natural abilities. [Tommy Armstrong] No problem there with me-but as I think of it reason comes from language. And language, I believe is what makes us human. When one can use language in the mind to manipulate "images and concepts" reason can follow (or not as the case may be-lol) "In the beginning was the Word" It is in a sense not natural for man to transport himself in cars and planes rather than with his legs, but it is natural for man to use his mind to find technical solutions to the problem of transportation. Greene is absolutely right that the genius of the modern world was to create a technical invention that provided a unique perspective on the world, a perspective that allowed the development of modern science. The problem is that we have concluded that this perspective is the only legitimate perspective on the world, in other words, scientism. [Tommy Armstrong] Absolutely-and that was one of the points I was trying to make-that in today's society because of the fact that this perspective or world view is the defacto one and has been so assimilated into the cultural mindset, we are not able to adequately interpret many of the phenomena that the world presents. And sadly, those that we cannot interpret, we many times simply dismiss. It is as if, after the invention of the automobile, we decreed that legs were no longer legitimate means of transportation. I would qualify your statement by saying "The problem is that human beings do not only see in this manner." [Tommy Armstrong] We definitely do not actually see through our eyes "only in this manner" -in fact I purport we NEVER see through our eyes in such a linear manner. Which brings me to the question of Prof. Greene's theory itself. It seems that the theory is itself an example of the "linear thinking" he criticizes. [Tommy Armstrong] I probably misrepresented him to a bit-I probably caused that by not explaining it in depth. He did not necessarily criticize "linear thinking"-just that he criticized the fact that by thinking only linearly we cannot fully appreciate all that the universe has to offer. Beethoven for instance or Mahler. Or Matisse. Prof. Greene does not use multiple perspectives or an existential approach in the theory. He propounds it like any other Western, linear theory. Nothing wrong with this, but it seems to indicate that the Western theoretical approach is not merely one perspective among many, because it is the perspective through which the distinction between singular and multiple perspectives itself becomes known. Ancient Egyptians may have thought in multiple perspectives, but they didn't know they were thinking this way in distinction to a singular perspective. [Tommy Armstrong] Will get back to you on that -needs some thought and need to engrave some LEGO bricks-lol Sorry if so disjointed but would like to carry on conversation later either on or off list. I only wished I could have gotten him to read WP and get his comments. Cheers, David Tye _____ From: tfa at brickengraver.com To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:41:50 -0400 Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a "deep old file" as Patrick O'Brian -my equally favourite novelist with WP-described Stephen Maturin in his Aubrey Maturin Series. POB was also a Roman Catholic and Stephen was one also . I am not sure why my two favourite authors are RC when I am a pretty confirmed Protestant. Anyway a comparison between the two would make for a good dissertation or two for an academic type. What I would like to discuss is the theory of a very learned professor I had when I went back to school to finally get my degree, a one David Greene. I am wondering if in this learned group anyone else has seen this theory published or thought about it. I took a strange course called Beethoven and Revolution in which we studied among other things, Renaissance painting and sculpture and the subsequent Enlightenment, Beethoven symphonies and quartets and Napoleons' influences on their structure, Chinese philosophy and Chinese scroll painting, Matisse, and Sartre, and a smattering of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, if I remember correctly. The theme that brought them all together was perspective. Specifically the discovery or invention of single point perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi in the year 1415. It was with this discovery of linear perspective that science and essentially "Western" thought as we know it began. For when on sees in perspective, one can visualize "complex" systems that can be measured, it made possible Newton's calculus and Decartes coordinate system and his vision of the world. It changed imagery as we knew it forever. And within 200 years was so engrained into the Western mind that it was considered to be the "normal and natural way" of seeing the world. Egyptian, Chinese and African art was now considered to be "primitive". Plotting the orbits of the planets was now possible with this new way of seeing. The novel itself was born, being a linear invention as was the symphony, with a beginning, middle and end. We in the Western world became "linear". Cause and effect is a linear or what I think of as a dyadic concept. The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner. It is artificial for us-an invention. We do not see as the camera sees, but rather from ever changing points of view and we do this unconsciously. Think about the simple act of walking into a room-and see how many times one changes not only the angle of view but the focus. Think about the difference of scanning a picture of a room and actually scanning the room. It is pretty evident that we do not see as the camera does. But not only is our seeing but our thinking is not linear-except when with exertion we try and force it to be. When man begins, according to this theory, to treat himself from this linear point of view which we think endemic in our thought processes-but is really not, one loses what Dr. Green referred to as "My Ownness"-The so called Cartesian Dualism is only made possible and can only be explained through linear thinking. Much like what I think of Percy railing against the giving away of ones self to the "experts". When one essentially delegates his life to the so called experts, one loses "My Ownness". A particular state brought on by using an artificial perspective and particular perhaps to a Post Renaissance Western culture. That is of course until Post Reanissance Western Culture became the de facto world culture. Matisse for example understood this and came up with a "new" but really an old way of looking at the world-a world where ones view was not constrained from a single point but from a multiplicity of view points all at once and in no linear progression. Matisse saw the constraining nature that art had taken on and wanted to create a new are more in tune with human perceptions and therefore one that did not delete the My Ownness of the viewer. Stream of consciousness writing was a reaction to this constraining system. Picasso tried to depict the world from multiple points of view on a single two dimensional canvas. Sartre and existentialism is a reaction to the Cartesian world view. When we got to China and Chinese Scroll painting we found an art that was multipoint perspective-for the viewpoint of the viewer was constantly moving as the scroll was unrolled. One did not lose his "myowness" in the viewing because he was not being directed by the mathematical Cartesian constraining laws. In many ways a much more humanly way of depicting the world. But a viewpoint that did not give rise to calculus, high technology, etc. But did give us Lao Tzu. Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that perhaps our perspective is clouding reality. We are so engrained with this perspective of things that we believe it to be correct. But it has only existed in human consciousness and culture for a fraction of our existence on the earth. It brings a certain kind of reality into focus, but only a single type-and to try to interpret human beings with this perspective is patently flawed-even in trying to interpret pre-perspective art and writing one must be cognizant of this viewpoint. Kind of like the Uncertainty principle-where the presence of the viewer makes it impossible to actually view the subject being studied. Film-an invention of the past century-in many ways is multipoint and perhaps is the reason for it being the popular art form of today-Why was Binx such a moviegoer? This is of course a bit of a disjointed and perhaps flawed view, but I throw it out for discussion. Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.com Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:10 PM To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism. Dear Rhonda, At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues -- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep autism generally... Nikki _____ Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. _____ Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. Enter for your chance to win. _____ Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. Enter for your chance to win. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at loyno.edu Sat Mar 29 08:30:47 2008 From: marcus at loyno.edu (marcus at loyno.edu) Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 06:30:47 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Hockney and images Message-ID: <47ee3677.2bc.2f21a2.11177@loyno.edu> I think the recent posting about Prof, Greene's theories of perspective and the linear imagination were interesting. Perhaps those arguments need to be adjusted by David Hockney's discussions of images? Marcus Smith Pictures and power Whoever controls images has great social influence. Did the camera damage the church's popularity? * David Hockney * The Guardian, * Thursday March 27 2008 * Article history This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday March 27 2008 on p35 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at 07:26 on March 27 2008. Michael Curtis, one of the founders of Hollywood and director of Casablanca and many swashbuckling Erroll Flynn movies, tells a story about seeing his first bit of cinema in about 1908, in the Cafe New York in Budapest. He recalls what fascinated him: it wasn't the film itself but the fact that everybody watched it. He realised not everyone goes to the theatre, not everyone goes to the opera, but the cinema will attract the masses. By 1920 he was in Hollywood - which was the sticks then, compared with Budapest - but California had the money, the light, and the technology. He was right. Now let's go back 350 years, to Neopolitan scholar Giambattista Della Porta, who published a book, Natural Magick, about optical projections of nature. He was a renaissance man: scientist, playwright and showman. He put on shows using optical projections (simple to do) and was hauled before the Inquisition by the church. The church at that time was the sole purveyor of pictures. It knew the power of images, and Della Porta would have noticed, like Michael Curtis, how people were attracted to that optical projection. They still are. The church had social control. Whoever controlled the images had power. And they still do. Social control followed the lens and mirror for most of the 20th century. What's now known as the media exert social control, not the church, but we are moving into a new era, because the making and distribution of images is changing. Anyone can make and distribute images on a mobile phone. The equipment is everywhere. We do not have debates about images. The world of art is separate from the world of images, but the power is with images, not art. An obvious problem is seen. The world of images claims a relationship to visual reality - television and cinema - but this claim cannot now be sustained. We will get more confused if we don't think about them. For instance, the NHS published an image of a boy (it could have been a girl) with a fish hook in his mouth. "Don't get hooked," it said, for the anti-smoking campaign. There were protests at the disturbing image, which had been seen on television and bus stops. It had to be withdrawn. The image looked like a photograph, and by that I mean the idea that an event took place in front of a camera at a particular time and place. If this had been true, the photographer should have been prosecuted - depicting cruelty to another human being is against the law in Britain under the Obscene Publications Act, obviously meaning there is a difference between painting and photography because paintings of the crucifixion are "allowed". No one was prosecuted. Why? Because no one believed the event actually happened. It was made with an application such as Photoshop. People are now prosecuted for owning images. How do we know they have anything to do with reality? Parliament will discuss depiction, but not art. We are in a confusing time. The decline of religion in Europe is seen as part of the "scientific" revolution. I have begun to doubt this now; it is quite likely that it's to do with images. The decline of the church parallels the mass manufacture of cameras. They are deeply connected. I noticed on a recent tour of Italy that not many Italians went in the churches to see pictures. They see them at home, not made by Botticelli but by Berlusconi. Think about it. ? David Hockney this week donated his largest work, Bigger Trees Near Water, to the Tate; it will hang at Tate Britain From tfa at brickengraver.com Sat Mar 29 13:07:29 2008 From: tfa at brickengraver.com (Tommy Armstrong) Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 13:07:29 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] Hockney and images In-Reply-To: <47ee3677.2bc.2f21a2.11177@loyno.edu> References: <47ee3677.2bc.2f21a2.11177@loyno.edu> Message-ID: <000001c891bf$5f4e30c0$1dea9240$@com> I actually took a philosophy course under the head of philosophy at NCSU that about 15 years ago addressed this very problem. Back then the only way to really alter an image, a Kodachrome transparency, for example was a million dollar scanning machine. Today one can achieve those results with a mere $1000 worth of equipment. But the thrust of the course was that the camera image was "real" and carried weight as a true depiction of reality. This is of course a very flawed concept and one of the main reasons is that a camera or optical projection is taken from a single point of perspective. A great way for a scientist to perhaps analyze a specific time-place event from a specific viewpoint, but inherently is a flawed view of true reality. At least the reality in which human conscious beings exist. And why is it not such a great view of reality--it is because not only the instrument used to "depict it" has inherent limitations, but also the operator of that instrument makes both conscious and unconscious decisions about his image that bring an enormous bias (if we are thinking scientifically) or an enormous artistic vision (if we are not thinking scientifically). The operator decides all kinds of things not the least among which are: 1 The single point from which to take the picture 2 The subject of the picture 3 What should be excluded from the picture--that is the context of the picture is solely up to the photographer 4 The exact time down to 1/1000 second or more of when his "slice of reality" is to be captured 5 And in many, many, situations not only the point of perspective from which to capture the image but the actual placement of the subject (and elimination of non-subject matter) from the constructed scene. And this does not even get into all the other subjective decisions about quality of light, printing, etc that come into play in a photograph. Today-- a photographer not only controls the above at the time of capture, but can go back and modify it post capture with inexpensive tools of the trade. This is exactly what say Matisse was reacting against as he saw the inherent inadequacies of a photograph to depict "reality". " The world of images claims a relationship to visual reality - television and cinema - but this claim cannot now be sustained." THE FACT IS THAT HIS CLAIM COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN SUSTAINED. "Visual reality" cannot be achieved through a camera. I am not sure whether it can be achieved through any means. But despite all these biases, we still give a photographic image a great deal of weight Later Tommy Armstrong PO Box 484 Lillington, NC 27546 (910) 893-5508 www.brickengraver.com "If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you" Walker Percy -----Original Message----- From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of marcus at loyno.edu Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2008 8:31 AM To: Percy list Subject: [percy-l] Hockney and images I think the recent posting about Prof, Greene's theories of perspective and the linear imagination were interesting. Perhaps those arguments need to be adjusted by David Hockney's discussions of images? Marcus Smith Pictures and power Whoever controls images has great social influence. Did the camera damage the church's popularity? * David Hockney * The Guardian, * Thursday March 27 2008 * Article history This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday March 27 2008 on p35 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at 07:26 on March 27 2008. Michael Curtis, one of the founders of Hollywood and director of Casablanca and many swashbuckling Erroll Flynn movies, tells a story about seeing his first bit of cinema in about 1908, in the Cafe New York in Budapest. He recalls what fascinated him: it wasn't the film itself but the fact that everybody watched it. He realised not everyone goes to the theatre, not everyone goes to the opera, but the cinema will attract the masses. By 1920 he was in Hollywood - which was the sticks then, compared with Budapest - but California had the money, the light, and the technology. He was right. Now let's go back 350 years, to Neopolitan scholar Giambattista Della Porta, who published a book, Natural Magick, about optical projections of nature. He was a renaissance man: scientist, playwright and showman. He put on shows using optical projections (simple to do) and was hauled before the Inquisition by the church. The church at that time was the sole purveyor of pictures. It knew the power of images, and Della Porta would have noticed, like Michael Curtis, how people were attracted to that optical projection. They still are. The church had social control. Whoever controlled the images had power. And they still do. Social control followed the lens and mirror for most of the 20th century. What's now known as the media exert social control, not the church, but we are moving into a new era, because the making and distribution of images is changing. Anyone can make and distribute images on a mobile phone. The equipment is everywhere. We do not have debates about images. The world of art is separate from the world of images, but the power is with images, not art. An obvious problem is seen. The world of images claims a relationship to visual reality - television and cinema - but this claim cannot now be sustained. We will get more confused if we don't think about them. For instance, the NHS published an image of a boy (it could have been a girl) with a fish hook in his mouth. "Don't get hooked," it said, for the anti-smoking campaign. There were protests at the disturbing image, which had been seen on television and bus stops. It had to be withdrawn. The image looked like a photograph, and by that I mean the idea that an event took place in front of a camera at a particular time and place. If this had been true, the photographer should have been prosecuted - depicting cruelty to another human being is against the law in Britain under the Obscene Publications Act, obviously meaning there is a difference between painting and photography because paintings of the crucifixion are "allowed". No one was prosecuted. Why? Because no one believed the event actually happened. It was made with an application such as Photoshop. People are now prosecuted for owning images. How do we know they have anything to do with reality? Parliament will discuss depiction, but not art. We are in a confusing time. The decline of religion in Europe is seen as part of the "scientific" revolution. I have begun to doubt this now; it is quite likely that it's to do with images. The decline of the church parallels the mass manufacture of cameras. They are deeply connected. I noticed on a recent tour of Italy that not many Italians went in the churches to see pictures. They see them at home, not made by Botticelli but by Berlusconi. Think about it. . David Hockney this week donated his largest work, Bigger Trees Near Water, to the Tate; it will hang at Tate Britain -- An archive of all list discussion is available at http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/ Visit the Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy From wriddick at usa.net Mon Mar 31 07:00:45 2008 From: wriddick at usa.net (Wade Riddick) Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:00:45 -0600 Subject: [percy-l] Autistics, mirror neurons and representational monopolies Message-ID: I was surprised to see a topic on autism and language with nary a mention of that relatively recent discovery, mirror neurons - which are distinctly, specifically different in humans compared to other animals. This biological difference is a necessary, if perhaps not sufficient, condition for the development of language. In the last ten years, the study of genetics and functional MRIs has shed much light on how the brain receives words and images and processes them - how it interprets reality generally. Mirror neurons are at the heart of that. We have a built in mechanism for automatically understanding what other people are thinking and feeling. We have separate, specialized visual processing for human faces and human eye movements. The only creature remotely comparable is the dog, which, over the last twenty thousand years, seems to have independently coevolved methods for interpreting human gestures and expressions - if not fully understanding them. It seems to me the big social problem with representation is that it's supposed to mirror reality and, at telling moments, it doesn't. We tell each other things that aren't always true or completely true. This is what Baudelaire might regard as the crashing low that came along with the soaring high of ideals, drugs, love and other methods of transcending the mundane (the essential problem being one shouldn't worry about transcending the mundane oneself in the first place). When that constructed reality is too ideological, too doctrinaire, too rooted in ideals eventually the representation diverges from the reality independently perceived by the audience, creating cognitive dissonance - and, in Walker Percy's case, irony. Kuhn would say when this dissonance becomes booming, it sets the stage for a scientific revolution. The perception of human reality occurs inside a social system. (And the ancient Greeks, as opposed to the Hebrews, have an oral, circular - vs. linear - form of history-telling up until Herodotus.) As people are always being born and dying, new recruits have to be 'educated' in the ways of the world - or at least whatever ways the adults think the world has. The moment of revolution occurs when the newly initiated receive the message and find it lacking in the concordance it was supposed to provide. Once those failed initiates reach a critical mass and a credible alternative interpretation appears, there is revolution. Competition improves efficiency. If there is a monopoly on the means of reproduction (the Catholic church in the 11th century) or a concentration in the means of reproduction (say, the big three TV networks plus government regulators), it's possible for presentations of reality to greatly drift from that underlying reality. The greater the monopoly, the greater the potential shock because the longer the pressure builds. Every era conspires not to say something. In the words of Walter Benjamin, "Every epoch not only dreams the next, but while dreaming impels it towards wakefulness. It bears its end within itself, and reveals it... by ruse" (_Baudelaire_). One has seen this fallout most recently in the collapse of Bear Stearns (a panic among investors about the company's expected or perceived ability to manage its obligations; it happens when financial bubbles pop) and the collapse of the Republican party's popularity. George Bush took the ideological dominance his party had after 9/11 (a 90% personal approval rating) and used it to crush his critics and justify whatever he wanted to do in the first place, claiming the right to do so by simple assertion instead of reasoned argument. His family has never been a big fan of Benjamin Franklin ("Our critics are our friends; they show us our faults."). This points to a certain "conservative" (if you want to call it that; I don't) attitude that man can't change and so intellectual criticism is not only pointless but dangerous (what Joseph Goebbels would call a menace to "character-building" - i.e., the adjusting of oneself to the Nazi will). The Pharisee right has been radically insecure about criticism to the extent of creating its own parallel educational institutions to churn out incompetent party hacks like Monica Goodling. This is quite literally political autism in action. Any type of political party can fall victim to it. If we don't compete for power, if we aren't open to criticism, we seem destined to attack ourselves from within, falling prey to our own vices. Received images processed by political parties tend to have generational interpretations. I personally think we're witnessing the collapse of the sixth party system in the U.S. which began in 1968 with the rise of Republicans in the South and independents nationwide (a realignment of the sixth electoral order, in poli sci parlance). Politics is about managing social realities and every generation has its problems. To quote my old professor, Walter Dean Burnham, some problems get organized in (like abortion under Nixon or the cold war under Eisenhower) and some problems get organized out (say, illegal immigration, deficits, the declining dollar, rent-seeking in health insurance and so on) - at least until the later become too pressing to ignore. The advent of television ushered in a bevy of critics claiming that under the constant glare of the camera politicians would never again be able to lie and get away with it. They obviously knew nothing about sociopaths or con men. We have a press corps so stupid or corrupt it couldn't figure out how absurd it was for Saddam Hussein to go to Africa to buy yellow cake uranium when he had barrels of the stuff sitting around Iraq under U.N. seal (which, by the way, concerned Bush so much he left them unguarded for months after the invasion along with all the Iraqi arms depots; talk about 'irony'). The same utopian claims about the internet are being made again today but the truth is people with money and vested interests will eventually figure out to pervert its depiction of reality too. Reality is socially constructed and the only thing the internet has going for it today is that rent-seekers aren't innovators and they've been slow to turn their attention from the traditional center of power, Washington, D.C. (but notice the fear, loathing and irrational absurdity typical journalists often use to describe the internet hoi poloi; they rightly fear that a college student can report on reality more accurately with a shoestring budget than they can with millions to spend; sometimes "less is more"). Photography is an art, not a science. Photography classes are taught in art departments. Perhaps someday journalism will be placed in art departments too, where it belongs along with creative writing. Certainly little about most of today's journalism could be considered scientific or deliberately representative of reality (deliberate in the full sense of 'deliberation'). It's descended into mere public relations. As it exists presently, it should be stuck in advertising. Ideology and propaganda are two separate entities. Ideology and reputation are cognitive short-cuts for navigating a confusing world and simplifying information. Most of the time they're efficient at what they do. Until they leave out something important. At that point, people clinging to bankrupt ideologies are left clinging to lies of omission. But it's usually not consciously intentional. Propaganda, however, is different. Propaganda isn't new. Alcybiades used it and had to put up with it when it was mainly spread by word-of-mouth - and he eventually got hoisted on his own petard. Text propaganda is the kind we're most familiar with, given the tremendous success Nazis and Communists had with it. You don't have to photoshop images, although you do need to have your Eisensteins and Riefenstahls lying around to make sure everything's staged perfectly for the camera. But even without film, text propaganda requires significant capital expenditure. You need printing presses, distribution, freedom to operate and you a bunch of con men willing to lie at the top of their lungs, even when the lie is absurd. It's deeply ironic that Freud fled Nazi propaganda and his nephew, Edward Louis Bernays, helped create public relations in America. Small world. Although these insights about the eye may seem new to Hockney, they aren't. In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan and Daniel Boorstin (The Image, 1962) wrote about the same topic. Or you could have waited to hear Obi Wan tell you your eyes will lie to you - in a theater, no less. Today almost every single advertisement I see for food is pure propaganda. Pretty packaging is added to trick our visual instincts into making a purchase. Food has been transformed from an object of sustenance and nutrition to an object of pleasure. Settings, packaging and even content are manipulated to get us to overeat foods that are unsound to begin with. The demographic data is pretty clear. Relative to whole, fresh foods, processed food is far less healthy. Grains are often "refined" (corrupted) to the point they have no fiber left and the amount of sugar instantly released trips the same dopamine reward circuitry involved in drug addiction, creating euphoria. But feeling good and being good are sometimes two different things. Let's face it. If the Swedish bikini team really airlifted into your backyard barbecue every time you bought beer like the ad says, you wouldn't need to advertise beer in the first place. That stuff would just fly off the shelves from word of mouth alone. (Maybe something about the female figure triggered that same circuit in Elliott Spitzer?) Just as political systems fall into decline when elites are shielded from competition with one another and don't have to work hard to stay in power, so too does our digestion fall into disrepair when it gets too much of what it's after too easily (sugar). Fiber is hard to chew and digest and very difficult for manufacturers to process and package - but without it your customer gets insulin resistance from the blood sugar spikes. That's exactly what advertisers want. Those spikes release dopamine in the brain. Better living through chemistry - well, the *illusion* of better living through chemistry, but it's purely perceptual. Actual body chemistry slowly goes to hell. The image is about to become even more central to our existential crisis than we might think. Beauty is considered by evolutionary biologists to be an unfakeable signal of genetic fitness. Fit bodies look good because unfit bodies don't have enough reserves or resources to be beautiful. And beauty affects earning power, especially in highly visible professions like drug company sales that involve meeting random members of the public. One economist who examined the amount of money female office workers in such public jobs spend on cosmetics and clothes concluded that it wasn't a cost-effective investment to overcome the wage advantage pretty women had. But he admitted he hadn't considered the investment value of cosmetic surgery. Rather than stop to consider whether we're getting accurate reporting from our news anchors, we tune in if we think they're nice to look at. Truth still matters, it's just not the top concern. In political markets, one reasonably scientific study concluded that good looks alone didn't help you win office but it got you an extra 5-10% of the vote (drop out of the race there, Hillary, and let the alpha male have the job). Our solution to eating food that ages you faster? Ignore it and get cosmetic surgery to hide the aging. I don't see how this trend gets reversed simply by giving everyone on the internet a camera and a YouTube account. The cost of maladjusted social models of reality is measured in very real blood and tears; what we think of as 'science' is, in its day-to-day practice, anything but. The FDA is a political construction that doesn't always respond to scientific evidence. The same can be said of medicine; doctors are as much scientists as computer programmers are. The FDA went and jumped on the transfats bandwagon in the 1960s and '70s despite an utter lack of evidence for safety. Since transfats kept "fresh" longer on shelves they had more economic utility and hence must automatically be superior for one's health. Commoditization of food equaled food industry economic health equaled consumer health. It didn't occur to many people that if no self-respecting microorganism would touch partially-hydrogenated canola oil sitting on a shelf, our livers might not want to touch it either. The head of the American Heart Association argued for the benefits of margarine over butter during this era. He died of heart disease . Irony. In my personal life, I've endured half a dozen categories of malpractice. Each time doctors could have stopped, weighed the evidence, checked the contemporary knowledge base and done the right thing. They didn't. I contracted mercury poisoning from a cracked filling. Seems you're not supposed to put such fillings into people with bruxism or autoimmunity. I had both and both pre-existing conditions then became unmanageable. Mercury by itself can cause autoimmunity. Had I not been trained in political economy and irony, I doubt I would have survived to type this. To treat my autoimmune inflammation, in 2001 I was given Vioxx, a Cox-2 inhibitor (and hence a PGE2 inhibitor). There were many reasons this was contraindicated for me at the time (e.g., I had thrush and a history of sinus infections; PGE2 is needed to fight infection). In 2005, Cox-2 was determined to be central to the function of regulatory T-cells (Tregs). Blocking Cox-2 blocked Tregs. Tregs are the cells in your immune system that *prevent* autoimmunity in the first place. Cox-2 inhibitors are designed to block PGE2, which happens to cause pain and inflammation in addition to fighting infections, mobilizing stem cells and preventing autoimmunity. You can block the negative effects of PGE2 without losing its autoimmune protection simply by consuming more omega-3 fats and fewer omega-6 fats. The body then has to ration out PGE2 production. But that's bad for the modern food industry since the omega-3's aren't as "stable" at room temperature and consumers would have to move away from manufactured foods back to whole foods and personal cooking. That's also bad for the patented drug industry. Celebrex (a cox-2 inhibitor) is under patent, fish oils aren't. Consider the implications of the true state of reality. Every rheumatoid arthritis patient and anybody else with autoimmunity is experiencing malpractice whenever they are prescribed Celebrex for more than a few days. Without PGE2 working, their Tregs become even more dysfunctional - and yet, the ads for Celebrex keep flowing some three years after this important discovery. That's not the reality to which the FDA is designed to respond. The FDA exists to provide a barrier of entry for established pharmaceutical firms - which, I will admit, has a notional basis in scientific evidence. If a drug is efficacious, it is supposed to get approved. If it isn't, it's not. But the human body is complicated, long-term studies are rarely performed on drugs like they're supposed to be and specific illnesses can't be well-represented in general clinical trials of a few thousand people. (The Supreme Court, by the way, has said recently that scientific evidence and state safety laws are not a basis for suing over medical devices once they've been licensed by the FDA - even when the FDA never conducted valid trials of said licensed device - a good example of this being arterial stents, which were assumed to be so efficacious, denying them to patients would be unethical; turns out skipping them might have saved a lot of stroke victims; but, hey, the FDA approved them for sale anyway). What does autoimmunity have to do with the autism in the subject line? When pregnant monkeys are given immunoglobulins (IgG - basically, antibodies) from human mothers with autistic babies, the monkey offspring develop autistic-like symptoms [PMID 18262386] - implying autism isn't so much genetic as it is an acquired reaction from being exposed to self-reacting maternal antibodies. Why is autoimmunity a modern ailment? Why is autism growing? Why are we losing empathy for one another in the modern era? Well, part of that answer is becoming clear. We wiped out intestinal parasites from our water supply without realizing how these critters manipulated our immune systems to protect themselves. Without them, our immune systems are prone to overreacting and attacking us. Autism may be one sign of not paying better scrutiny to Diogenes. Tourette's and anorexia are definitely caused, at least in part, by autoantibodies as are some cases of violent rage. None of this is to imply that biology is destiny; but it's certainly a part of destiny. To parody Jack D. Ripper, our precious bodily fluids must be corrupted with helminths or we will, in fact, bomb ourselves. (Notice how central disruptions to language are in two of these autoimmune disorders - Tourette's and autism.) I can't help but wonder how many other people have died from what nearly killed me. Should a person be sentenced to death simply because they lack the proper perspective to understand what's happening to them? I suppose in a broad Christian sense, that's the reality we all must face. But in a narrower secular sense, the short answer must be 'no.' Voodoo recipes are not an acceptable substitute for scientific reasoning in the practice of medicine. Why does medicine today not have even the most rudimentary statistical quality control procedures that Detroit now takes for granted? Is one industry closer to God and thus unquestionable? Of all the gifts we are given, a sense of humor and irony is perhaps the greatest. Humor is the only good feeling you'll ever get from knowing life's not perfect. I think it also saves that life. If you're interested in the brain and language, I recommend you bone up on mirror neurons. Wade Riddick Notes mirror neurons in the insula register uniquely human social emotions like guilt, shame, pride, embarrassment, disgust and lust; mirror neurons in various brain areas are activated when someone watches someone else perform an action and when someone performs the action themselves; some mirror neurons activate when kicking a ball, seeing someone kick a ball or hearing the word 'kick'; observation improves muscle performance via mirror neurons; mirror neurons also activate in men watching other men having sex with women, thus accounting for the vicarious thrill of pornography; multiple mirror neurons in the human brain not only carry out actions but understanding the actions of others - both how and why they perform them - the social meaning of those behaviors and the emotions involved; mirror neurons underlie the acquisition of culture by children by sharing, imitation and observation and form the basis of language, philosophy and art; in autistics, defects in mirror neurons prevent them from feeling the emotion they identify on another's face even though they can imitate the facial expression; autistics don't know what it's like to feel sad, angry, disgusted or surprised from simply observing other people; in children watching violent TV, mirror neuron involved in aggression overactivate leading to the increased probability of violent behavior the degree of tested empathy in a person is proportional to the amount of mirror neuron activity; it's lower in autistics; mirror neurons in people and macaque monkeys extend to auditory types which activate when you hear something; the sound of someone eating an apple, for instance, activates many of the areas of the brain which would activate if you were actually eating an apple yourself (which is why advertising works so well); hearing sounds of eating potato chips or crumpling paper activated brain areas associated with chewing or hand action; overlap occurred in the bilateral temporal gyrus and superior temporal sulcus autism is a dysfunction of mirror motor neurons - circuits which enable people to perceive and understand the actions of others and even imitate them; these neurons fire when you do an action or you watch another person doing it; in autistics these only respond to the actions they do and not what others do; in humans these mirror neurons are important for learning language, imitating others and empathizing with their pain (also valuable for not taking metaphors literally); mu rhythm, a human brain-wave pattern, is suppressed or blocked when the brain is engaged in doing, seeing or imagining action and this correlates to the activity of the mirror neuron system; in most people mu rhythm is suppressed both in response to their own movement and observing the movement of others; autistics only suppress mu rhythm in response to their own actions; mu rhythm may also be a factor in phantom limb pain and it may explain why mirror therapy is helpful for alleviating the pain in lung cancer, COX-2 and PGE2 underlie an immunosuppressive network that is important in the formation of non-small cell lung cancer; CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T-cells (Tregs) block antitumor immune responses when tumors secrete PGE2 and activate Foxp3 in the Tregs which increases Treg activity; this effect was significantly reduced without an EP4 (E-prostanoid) receptor and totally absent without an EP2 receptor; COX-2 inhibitors (Vioxx, Celebrex) reduced Treg activity, blocked FoxP3 and decreased tumor growth (this provides a pathway whereby COX-2 inhibitors can exaggerate allergies) [PMID 15958566]; and this is exactly what was hypothesized in this paper: broad-spectrum COX inhibitors can be arthritigenic interfering with the acquisition of tolerance to some arthritigens [PMID 16259716] (blocking COX-2 also blocks the ability of growth hormone to prod stem cells into making new cartilage for eroded joints) there is an inverse relationship between parasitic infection (especially worms/helminths) and allergy; as parasitic infections dropped on the Pacific island of Mauke, allergies increased proportionately; one theory is that when freed of parasitic targets, the immune system has time on its hands and turns on innocuous allergens; the body's Y-shaped IgG antibodies usually target bacteria and viruses by latching directly on to target proteins and recruiting immune cells; parasites activate a different mechanism - Y-shaped IgE antibodies - which attach their tails to the surface of mast cells; mast cells are found wherever the body comes into contact with the outside world and thus multicellular parasites - mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, and throat, and in the lining of the lungs and gut; once the initial IgE response is complete, each mast cell has 100,000 to 500,000 Y-shaped antibodies protruding from its surface with outstretched arms; usually within two weeks of worm infestation, the immune system is primed and each mast cell contains a thousand or more large, globular granules; a worm protein sticks to the arms of two adjacent IgE antibodies and sets off a reaction causing the mast cell to burst and spew its granules (mast cell degranulation) of histamines and other inflammatory chemicals that infiltrate local tissues; this causes itching; blood vessels dilate and leak; tissues swell and mucus production increases; this response may prevent worms from infiltrating further through the skin; other cells are attracted to dump toxins on the parasites; intestinal worms, on the other hand, come in through the mouth and attack the GI tract; in this case, an inflamed gut producing fluid and mucus causes in diarrheamaybe to flush out worms before they can attach; some worms can also spend part of their life cycle in the human lung (like schistosomiasis); this may trigger coughing and sneezing; this responses are all more acute to newcomers in the tropics when first exposed to parasites; some worms do get through though mostly the system works to protect people; in the absence of helminths, IgE antibodies can zero in on airborne allergens (causing asthma or hayfever) or ingested foods instead; worm infested rats have weak allergy responsesl their IgE antibodies are tied up fighting worms; however, in rural New Guinea, worm infestation doesn't lessen the asthma rate; there's an IgG antibody that competes with IgE; this G antibody (IgG4) grabs the worm protein before it bumps into the E antibody attached to a mast cell and this prevents the mast cell degranulation; IgG4 (1-2%) is the rarest of the IgG's; IgG1 targets viruses and bacteria and is the most common; in people with parasites; IgG4 jumpts to 18% the hygiene hypothesis was advanced in 1989 by David Strachan of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; the immune system expects a dirty environment and when it isn't living in on it becomes hyperactive; Gabonese children with worm infestations have fewer allergies (and more IL-10, which blocks inflammatory signals among immune cells); children treated for worms became much more sensitive to dust mites; Alan Brown of Britain's University of Nottingham has treated his hayfever with intestinal hookworms; they cause anemia and require overeating; Joel Weinstock (once at the University of Iowa, now Tufts) used pig whipworms (Trichuris suis; TSO from Ovamed) to treat ulcerative colitis "The American citizen lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than its original. We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories to the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves." - Daniel Boorstin, The Image, 1962 From Nikkibar at aol.com Mon Mar 31 13:26:48 2008 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:26:48 EDT Subject: [percy-l] Autistics, mirror neurons and representational monopolies Message-ID: This is quite a lot to digest... Nikki **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15&ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Hebrunson at aol.com Mon Mar 31 13:33:43 2008 From: Hebrunson at aol.com (Hebrunson at aol.com) Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:33:43 EDT Subject: [percy-l] PERCY Message-ID: I think that I just heard Nikki burp (academically, of course). Howard **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15&ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Nikkibar at aol.com Mon Mar 31 13:50:50 2008 From: Nikkibar at aol.com (Nikkibar at aol.com) Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:50:50 EDT Subject: [percy-l] PERCY Message-ID: Beg pardon... N. **************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home. (http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15&ncid=aolhom00030000000001) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karey1 at charter.net Mon Mar 31 21:21:39 2008 From: karey1 at charter.net (Karey ) Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:21:39 -0400 Subject: [percy-l] the fate of Nim Message-ID: <011001c89396$bcc406c0$364c1440$@net> Interesting, and sad, article - what do the Percy-ites think of this, in terms of language and the consciousness threshold? His sign language: sign or symbol? His consciousness: very human like - but capable of symbol? Langer says the photo is a presentational symbol - the beginnings of symbol-mongering is being evidence, but it's not discursive symbol. BTW, I have a friend who works with chimps, and they ARE dangerous - they can pull a man's arm off, I am told. A grown up chimp is different than a cute baby chimp, and has to be treated differently. This is from Salon: http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/03/31/Nim_Chimpsky/ The chimp who thought he was a boy Raised like a son by a New York City family as part of a language experiment, Nim Chimpsky was shipped away when funds ran out. A new biography tells Nim's story. By Chris Colin Mar. 31, 2008 | Sometimes we're animals . How else to account for a man who approaches a female chimp nursing its wide-eyed newborn, takes aim amid howling protests from nearby apes and blasts the mother with a tranquilizer dart -- then snatches the sobbing infant and delivers it to an otherwise thoughtful, loving woman, who whisks the creature off to her New York brownstone? It was science , this was the '70s, and the gauntlet had been thrown down by none other than Noam Chomsky. While nonhumans may communicate with one another, the MIT linguist said, they are fundamentally incapable of language. Columbia University professor Herbert Terrace set out to disprove the assertion with an ambitious and groundbreaking study. The experiment that followed involved a cleverly named chimpanzee and some less-than-clever human choices. The fascinating, ultimately heartbreaking account has finally been told in journalist Elizabeth Hess' primate biography, "Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human." Fancy Upper West Side address, nice clothes, summer in the Hamptons, fawning media attention, parents mellow enough to pass him their joint now and then -- for a year and a half, Nim had a life many humans would envy. But that was the problem: He himself wasn't human, merely raised to think he was. He bonded intensely with his adoptive family, and indeed learned around 125 words in American Sign Language, but in the end his fate wasn't that of a true son. Funding for the project ran out, Nim proved more difficult to handle as he got older, and eventually he was unceremoniously sent away. Terrace would make a dramatic concession to Chomsky on the language question, sending waves throughout the field. But the charismatic subject at the center of the study more or less vanished. Nim bounced through some of the assorted grim facilities that house chimps, all the while making it clear he longed for his human family. For a creature who would demand hugs after being disciplined, and bring tissues to his adoptive mother when she cried, relocating to a world of cages and strange, hairy beings was incomprehensible. Ultimately Project Nim illuminated as much about humans as about chimps. There was never any exit strategy. The implications of humanizing a wild, and intelligent, creature seem to have eluded the people responsible. At the time New York magazine referred to the study as a "scientific revolution with religious consequences that occurs once every few hundred years." One hopes it's no more often than that. Hess spoke to Salon from her home in upstate New York. How did people respond when they'd find out you were writing a book about chimpanzees? I got a lot of banana jokes. And people were surprised to see that these animals are so complicated, and so emotional, and that they form such deep and serious attachments to human beings. That's why I wanted to write this. It's a novel experience to read a biography of a wild animal. I was surprised myself. When I discovered Nim's story, it was like I was struck by lightning. No one really knew that story. He'd had these moments of incredible celebrity that were well documented, but ultimately what happened to him was a bit of a mystery. The fact that Nim had been raised in a human family [by Stephanie and W.E.R. LaFarge], and learned how to operate around people, made him a very interesting subject. His life also allowed me to write about a variety of landscapes where chimps end up. The book takes you behind the scenes of a major behavioral language science experiment, and inside a primate breeding colony, and briefly inside a biomedical research lab, and ultimately to a sanctuary. Which in the end is about as good as it gets for any captive-born animal. Can you describe the happy period when Nim first got to the house in New York? Nim was with the LaFarges for 18 months, and most of that was a pretty happy time. I think it was incredibly exciting to have this baby chimp around. He loved to be held, he drank from a bottle. By the time he was 2 months, he could cling to walls and get up and down the banister. There was a giant waterbed in the living room that Nim loved to bounce up and down upon. He was very beguiling. They dressed him in OshKosh and little T-shirts, and taught him how to sit at the table and use utensils. I think he really enjoyed being part of the family. After funding ran out and Terrace declared the project a failure, Nim was taken from his loving home in New York, and bounced around various grim research facilities before he wound up at Cleveland Amory's sanctuary, in Texas. Tell me about what it was like for Nim to be put back in a cage with other chimps after he'd only ever known humans. It was terrifying. One graduate student described the response that all the [research] chimps had [upon being reintroduced to other chimps] as a nervous breakdown. Nim's brother [and the subject of another study] Ally was so terrified and upset that he suffered a kind of paralysis for a while. They often pull out all their hair; they refuse to eat; some get beaten up by other chimps because they don't know how to respond to them. The former graduate students in New York believe that Nim had no idea he was a chimpanzee. One of them suggested to me that Nim might have thought he was going to grow up, lose all his facial and body hair and eventually look like the people who were around him. That would be a reasonable supposition. Throughout his life, Nim preferred to be with humans. Toward the end of his life, he was paired with an ex-circus chimp named Sally Jones. That, I think, was the first deep relationship he had with his own species. They were inseparable. Sally was a lot older, a lot milder. Nim had a reputation for breaking out of his cage in Texas. When Sally came, he would break out of his cage, but then he'd remember her, and he'd go back and get her. He'd lead her out of the cage and they'd go on a little romp together. Cleveland Amory was always afraid that Nim was going to run off into the woods. But he had no desire to run away. Nim would go to the nearest house and bring Sally with him, and they would raid the refrigerator, go through the closets and try on any shoes that were lying around, and sometimes they'd get into bed and turn on the TV. He was also dangerous. Chris Byrne, the manager at [Amory's] Black Beauty Ranch that Nim was closest to, learned that when Nim broke out, the best thing to do was to just be completely calm. He'd see Nim at the door and he'd say, "Nim, welcome," as if Nim had been invited over for cocktails. He'd let him sit down for a while. Then he'd slowly lead Sally back to the cage, and Nim would eventually follow. Can you describe the first time you met a chimp? Oh yes. I went out to the Black Beauty Ranch to see the three adult chimps who were Nim's companions when he died in 2000. I went out just to hang out with them, and learn what it's like to look in their eyes. I certainly remember the first time I held hands with one of them. It's quite a joyful-slash-terrifying experience. Partly it's so profound because they're so humanlike. But another part is that they're in a cage and you're on the outside. There's a built-in injustice to the relationship -- there seems to be a clear consciousness about that in them. Nim used to sign "out" all the time. Anybody who passed by his cage in Texas, he'd start signing to them, to see if they knew any sign language. If they didn't, he'd get disappointed and go to the back of his cage. He enjoyed signing and taught the other chimps some signs. When they like you, they're extremely gregarious. They want to show you things. They love books and magazines. There was a children's book all about Nim while he was in New York, basically a photo book, and Nim kept his one copy of this book safe, even though chimps tend to wreck everything. He would bring it down and show the other chimps, then bring it back to his bunk and keep it under his sleeping area so that no one could destroy it. He would just look at pictures of his New York City family, and himself, over and over again. What kind of response have you gotten from people who'd been involved with Nim? Everybody felt so bad that they'd worked so hard to convince him he was human, and then he was just shipped off at the end of the experiment. There was no exit plan. No one ever asked, "What's going to happen to the chimp?" In the '70s, this is the way research was done. At the end of the experiment, the animals were either euthanized or sent to the next experiment down the line. Nobody asked questions about it. There was a tremendous amount of sadness and guilt wrapped around the whole project. When Project Nim ended and Terrace finally published the results, years later, in Science magazine, he not only argued that Nim did not learn American Sign Language -- that he was merely mimicking his teachers -- he argued that all apes [in language programs] were mimicking their teachers. He basically tried to put a knife into the heart of all language research with animals. He sided with Chomsky. There were a lot of [other] projects under way at that time, and he had a huge effect on funding. It was a small, fragile movement to begin with. It took about five years for the field to recover. Why do the language capabilities of a chimp matter? I think they matter to different people for different reasons. The value of Project Nim is still hotly debated. The fact that chimps are really good at a gestural-based language is not surprising. Whether or not their use of ASL has anything to do with the way humans use ASL is still debated. What I can say is that those people who were around Nim had no problem understanding him. Yet in Project Nim they made many mistakes. They brought Nim into a classroom, they made him hang his coat up on a hook, they sat him down at a little desk, and they drilled him in sign language. This is not a great way to teach a little human person, and it's certainly not a great way to teach a chimp. Nevertheless they documented a vocabulary of more than 100 words and 20,000 different combinations. But the question of what Nim learned -- everyone has a different point of view about it. Now, we're looking much more closely at the animal mind, not the way in which the animal might use a human language. And what we're discovering is how little we know about how the animals communicate, and how little we know about their intellectual potential. Most of these captive animals have been born in captivity and locked in small cages their entire lives. If you did that to a human, it certainly wouldn't stimulate their intellect. Now that we know these animals have consciousness and desires and emotions, we think of them as sentient beings. We wonder not only what they have to say but whether we're doing the right thing by them, or to them. It sometimes seems there's a disconnect in our thinking about chimps. On the one hand, we know very well that they're capable of seeming human -- in movies and commercials they look and act very much like us. But on the other hand, people sometimes seem shocked when they find out how complex or intelligent they actually are. I think that's the lesson learned at Project Nim. This very adorable, humanlike baby turned into a wilder and wilder creature. People don't realize that chimps aren't forever these little people that are cute and funny. And they don't realize that they're actually an endangered species. They're kind of an invisible species here, too -- there are very few in zoos. Most are in research, and we don't get to see those. The ones we see on TV and in ads are babies. How many chimps are there in captivity in the U.S.? I think around 2,000. Five hundred are owned by the government and are in research labs. Another 600 are in privately owned research labs. Then there's a number of them in the entertainment industry and a number that are privately owned in exotic collections. And there's a huge, mostly hidden number in garages and attics, right? People take them in thinking they'll always be cute and little, but they get big and unwieldy, and go on to live a very long time. Yes. In the '70s, the period I was writing about, it was a kind of fad to raise a chimp as a pet in your home, and treat it very much as a child. None of these did very well. They not only tear through the families, but they tear through the house. They eat everything and wreck everything in sight. They're not easy to control. Marriages broke up, children were badly bitten, and people realized that while it was a really fun idea, the reality was far more harrowing than they'd imagined. How does a chimp break up a marriage? Chimps bond very tightly to their mothers. The fathers have very little to do with raising the babies. A lot of these women who had been raising orphan chimps [in the '70s] were suddenly engaged to be married, and their chimp babies would not accept their husbands. What needs to change to improve the lot of apes and monkeys in this country? We need to get the chimps, which have been in these small cages their whole lives, into sanctuaries where they can step on grass for the first time, and think about whether they want to climb a tree. We need to ask what we owe them, especially because many of these animals have given their lives to research. And once we start asking these questions, I think the answers are going to be so obvious. In many countries it's illegal to use chimpanzees for any biomedical research, or any invasive research at all, and I think that really needs to happen here. I predict it will. Just to anticipate some of the responses you'll get for that, I want to be clear that the chimps being studied are not all saving human lives. Oh no, not at all. But I think the whole attitude toward chimpanzees is finally starting to change. We're going to be the last country to protect chimpanzees legally. It wasn't so long ago that we were using them in car crash studies. We've used them for all kinds of useless toxicity studies. The AIDS studies were a disaster. There's a lot of research now that looks at how successful research on chimps has been -- [and it's] relatively unsuccessful. I think we're getting to a point where we have to ask, are they really necessary? Or are they being used because it's a good way of getting grant money, or because they're simply there? -- By Chris Colin http://judo.salon.com/rmads/RealMedia/ads/Creatives/default/empty.gif -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 167 bytes Desc: not available URL: