SUO: Re: Conformance & Conformity
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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?
JA: 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.
SR: Well, while certainly respecting your 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 ourideals, however
truly invariant, from the process of life itself. I must recoil
in fear from such a surgeon as yourself.
if that's a dagger you see before you, then it's your own knife you brought
to the table. all I brought was these sticky little post-it notes that
i paste a bit obtrusively but entirely non-destructively to the stuff
that i see and intuit around me. if i distribute them differently
than you would prefer, well, okay, but i never said i was one
who didn't love a parade.
jon awbrey
SR: A graph models reality,
if every stated or inferred
arrow in the graph corresponds
with a fact in reality.
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