SUO: Re: Conformance & Conformity
From: "Jon Awbrey" <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
> ¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
>
> JA = Jon Awbrey
> SR = Seth Russell
>
> SR: That's a bit of a subjective evaluation on your part ...
> from my way of thinking its not true. People might
> want to conform to a dictionary just because they
> get more strokes from their peers if they do.
>
> JA: Well, I did say "best reason", not "only reason",
> but, yes, judgments of what's best are relative
> to an arbiter, hence "arbitrary".
>
> JA: Still, there are reasons to be sought in primate evolution
> why different folks should desire these strokes from peers.
> And those reasons evolve from the adaptive relationships
> of communities to realities, else we would not be here,
> such as we are ... for as long as we are ...
>
> SR: Adapting to reality is certainly something that goes on in evolution.
> Another thing that goes on is shaping external reality to reflect
> internal urges. There is probably as much or more of the latter
> going on as there is of the former. Case in point: consider
> modern culture: most of what we encounter in our daily lives
> that is important to us was not part of our reality a mere
> 5,000 years ago ... where did that reality come from?
>
> I probably use the word "reality" differently here.
> I tend to reserve it more for the underlying laws
> that are indifferent to the passing show and thus
> invariant through time -- not to say that I know
> what those are -- leaving words like "actuality"
> and "existence" to this parade of appearances.
Well, while certainly respecting you style of cutting, I cannot help but be
pained by its depth. You have excised into a mere parade of appearances
such noble human endeavors as commerce, art, framing, and education ... to
mention but a few. In fact, a case could be made (not here), that you have
separated our ideals, however truly invariant, from the process of life
itself. I must recoil in fear from such a surgeon as yourself.
Seth Russell
A graph models reality,
if every stated or inferred
arrow in the graph corresponds
with a fact in reality.