History, mind and consciousness in the Classical Age (was Re: Double use of "Blue"
Mike Cleven
> On Tue, 04 Jun 2002 07:42:02 GMT, Mike Cleven <iro...@bigfoot.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 03 Jun 2002 16:13:10 GMT, Mike Cleven <iro...@bigfoot.com>
>>>wrote:
>>
>
> [...]
>
>
>>>>The
>>>>gods were real for these people; the lightning really was the "fire from
>>>>heaven" of Herakleitos (whose complete writings, if ever dug up in some
>>>>hoped-for dig, are probably going to be an eye-opener into the ancient
>>>>past in a rather unique way); Herakles, Achilles and even Alexander
>>>>really _were_ demigods, in their own minds as well as in the minds of
>>>>those around them.
>>>
>
>>>You're confusing fact with belief.
>>
>
>>No; I'm saying that the nature of mind at the time (as described not
>>only by Jaynes and others) indicates that perceived reality is the
>>nature of fact as fact is conceived of by the _contemporary_ human mind.
>> Achilles _did_ see Athena; Athena was real for him; and she gave good
>>advice. That's all Achilles knows.
>
>
> So what? Some people apparently have similar experiences today. I'm
> saying that the nature of mind has not changed significantly in
> historical time.
You obviously haven't read Jaynes then, or any similar material which
indicates that there was a major shift in consciousness at the time of
the Classical era; he uses Homer as an example of the older state of
mind (in contrast to the "Classical" revolution that was to come half a
millennium later), and explores the various ancient religious
literatures for clues as to how the mind worked and perceived the world.
The dawn of "history" as a frame of mind during the upheavals in
consciousness which _is_ the Classical Age in Athens is core to not only
Jaynes (whose writing takes this idea quite a few steps further) but to
a lot of study and scholarship concerning that era; "classical mind"
representes a major departure from the way people thought and behaved
beforehand, or so the usual rendering of "the history of civilization"
goes. This can be explored in the progression of the different
psychological frames of reference of the plays of Aeschylus,Sophocles,
and Euripides as well as in the impact of the teachings of Socrates and
Plato. It's interesting that you would use the term "historical time"
since the _idea_ of history was only born with Herodotus and Thucydides.
The nature of mind _has_ changed significantly in 'historical time' if
you're using that term to take in everything from the founding of Egypt
and Babylon on down; since the beginning of writing. But those were
chronicles, not histories; there's a difference. The whole point of
Classical Humanities is consideration of the revolution in human mind
represented by the Periclean generation. Jaynes maintains it has
neurophysiological underpinnings, and that once it took place and the
ideas and perspectives of men like Thucydides and Socrates spread, it
also had neurophysiological _impacts_ on those who came in contact with
it; a "breakdown" in fact of their former mental framework, often a very
traumatic one. Other writers like Graves and Renault explore this whole
notion as well, although without the effort at neurophysiological theory
that Jaynes makes in rather interesting detail.
>
>
>>You can't impose 20th Century
>>standards of "what is a fact" on 12th Century Archaic-era Hellenic mind.
>
>
> Yes, I can. I do. I don't expect Achilles to agree with me, of
> course.
That you do and you can doesn't mean that you're knowledgeable about the
subject. It just means you're arrogant, and don't know the material.
>
>
>> Read the Jaynes book and get back to me on this; I don't think you
>>understand the issues involved.
>
>
> I have no intention of wasting my time on that book; I've read more
> than enough *about* it.
Hmmm. I guess you only read movie reviews, too, and prefer to hear what
people say about someone rather than talking to them personally. Nice.
Maybe you're just afraid it might upset your applecart.
>
>
>>>>Modern science posits an objective reality beyond the framework of the
>>>>human mind;
>>>
>
>>>And the reproducibility of results is evidence in favor of the
>>>assumption. The alternatives -- e.g., the 'brains in a vat' scenario
>>>-- are rather pointless.
>>
>
>>You didn't understand what I was saying, Brian; science claims to
>>embrace what Plato and the Brahmins call "the Ideal", the ur-Existenz
>>that lies beyond human conception;
>
>
> I do understand what you're saying, in so far as it isn't empty noise;
> it's not clear that you understood my response, however. You're
> wrong, that's all, largely because you don't understand science. It
> would be far less inaccurate to say that the goal of science is to
> find efficient explanations of physical phenomena with great
> predictive power. If you don't like 'explanations of', you may
> substitute 'ways of looking at'. Efficiency here is only loosely
> defined, but the idea is clear enough: it is preferable to use a few
> principles to explain many observations rather than the reverse.
> Presumably I needn't explain 'predictive power'.
The whole point here is that your blessed science is the product of the
revolution in human mind that Jaynes' book and SO MANY OTHERS addresses;
the dawn of reason and discourse and the beginnings of scientific method
come out of one or two generations in ancient Greece; if you
"scientific" specialists were to have any useful exposure to REAL
humanities at all it would be in the study of this particular era of the
human experience. "You're wrong, that's all, largely because you don't
understand classics".
That what's happened since the Industrial Revolution _also_ represents
another major shift in the nature of mind seems to have escaped the
vanity of fans of "science" like yourself. The immense wars and
depravities of the 20th Century plus the advent of mind-altering and
culture-altering technology like television and computers have wrought
immense changes in the way people think and behave and in the way
children are raised; and it just so happens that there's been a lot of
scientific work that's discovered that there _are_ neurophysiological
changes in people exposed to technologies on the scale we are today; no
doubt you're going to dismiss this as unscientific but the fact is that
there's a lot of actual scientists and psychologists out there working
on this as we speak. And the impact can be seen in any schoolyard, or
in any kid locked to an XBox for the afternoon.
>
> None of this requires the existence of Plato's Ideal. It doesn't even
> absolutely require the existence of an objective reality beyond the
> human mind; that's merely the simplest assumption compatible with the
> evidence.
You've missed the whole point of Plato's Ideal and what I was saying
about it. Again, you are demonstrating my point that scientists who do
not know their classics are missing out on core philosophical issues.
It's also already been observed by various physicists and cosmologists
that a proper reckoning with four-dimensional timespace is a difficult
thing for the human mind to grasp; more-dimensional space even moreso.
Our own perception of time as a linear experience biases our experience
of the timespace continuum; up/down, left/right, front/back make up a
three dimensional space we can move in any direction in; time we can
only move forward, and we also arrange our experiences along that
forward-moving line (psychology gets into this as much as physics does;
I guess you linguists don't deign to study it for the reason that you
don't understand it enough to need to). But even the timespace
continuum in all its vast incomprehensibility aren't the "Ideal" that
I'm talking about, or that the Gnostics and Brahmins are referring to;
that's "transcendent" reality, a placein the pure Euclidean sense (in
fact, Euclid was in on this, too).
>
> [...]
>
>
>>>> Much of what modern
>>>>science knows would be "impossible" if not for greater and greater
>>>>resolution of the "technological senses" (quantum tunneling microscopes,
>>>>radio and x-ray astronomy, the Hubble deepfield);
>>>
>
>>>Yes, that's how science works: it's open-ended.
>>
>
>>>[...]
>>
>
>>And very close-minded.
>
>
> That is a claim made mostly by cranks and by people who know very
> little about science. (The former group is mostly but not entirely a
> subset of the latter.) It is often made by people who confuse 'this
> isn't within the domain of science' with 'this is rubbish'. This
> group includes many people who share a number of your attitudes toward
> science. It also includes some scientists, who should know better.
> (There are also those who don't confuse the two but think that in fact
> they happen to be nearly synonymous; that is a perfectly defensible
> point of view.)
Well, you're demonstrating a great deal of closemindedness yourself by
saying you don't need to Jaynes because you read critical reviews of the
book (I saw a lot of reviews, too, and most had no idea what Jaynes was
talking about). Also in your apparent lack of knowledge of the
classical revolution in mind, which is a well-established thing in
humanities scholarship.
You're the one doing the "this is within the domain of science" and "all
else is rubbish", which is an expression of the closemindedness I'm
talking about.
>
>
>>>> As for alchemy, if
>>>>it wasn't for all those guys playing with their compounds and retorts a
>>>>lot of basic chemistry wouldn't have gotten figured out in the first
>>>>place;
>>>
>
>>>So what? That says nothing whatsoever about the merits of the
>>>alchemical nonsense.
>>
>
>>It doesn't? The cataloguing of substances and their interactions?
>>Experiments with mechanics, magnetics and electrics (no kidding;
>>alchemical history is studded with such stories, notably around the
>>court of Rudolf II in Prague). Attempts to give structure to the
>>substances catalogued? (in many ways the Table of Elements just the most
>>resonant version of these, however false or illusory many of the old
>>categories were). Efforts at experimental science, even if
>>understanding how to conduct experiments properly was not fully
>>understood?
>
>
> So what? This says nothing whatsoever about the merits of the
> alchemical nonsense. The elixir of youth and the philosopher's stone
> are nonsense. The experimental techniques and empirical data
> developed by the alchemists are not.
Phlogiston, ether, spontaneous generation and a whole flock of post-Age
of Reason "science" were also nonsense; and even those are only the
wilder ideas out of a bevy of misguided "scientific" thinking since
scientists first put on their white coats and taking over the panoply of
the priesthoods interceding between humanity and higher truth.
>
>
>>"Alchemical nonsense" is the godparent of chemistry in the
>>same way the astrology is the godparent of physics and astronomy, or
>>Pythagorean mathematics of post-18th C. mathematics.
>
>
> So who denies this?
LOTS of scientists, who knee-jerk dissociate themselves with the
traditions that gave their own tradition birth. Including philosophy,
which they also denounce as meaningless.
>
>
>>>>and if astrologers hadn't kept ephemerises (ephemerides is the
>>>>plural I think) then the vast body of recorded observations so useful to
>>>>modern science would never have been compiled (I'm always amused how
>>>>they treat ancient star-observatories as run by "ancient astronomers",
>>>>who were of course actually running the places in their capacities as
>>>>astrologers).
>>>
>
>>>Your amusement is misplaced: either term is applicable, and both are
>>>used.
>>
>
>>Except when a scientist is citing ancient records; any association with
>>astrology is anathema for most astronomers and the like I've ever met
>>(and I've known quite a few).
>
>
> Astronomers who know anything about the history of their subject do
> not in my experience have any problem with recognizing that early
> observational astronomy was the handmaiden of astrology. They may,
> however, get a bit worked up when idiots who believe in natal
> astrology try to use this historical connection to make their
> foolishness appear respectable.
Actually I've known a lot of astronomers and can tell you you're wrong;
they distance themselves from astrology so strongly they have a hard
time admitting that ancient astrologers did anything useful. Of course,
they don't study history and more than you apparently have, so.....
>
>
>>>>The resemblance the modern church of science towards nonbelievers is
>>>>interesting;
>>>
>
>>>Science (as distinct from individual scientists) has a problem with
>>>'unbelievers' only when they try to pass off non-science as science.
>>
>
>>All I'm doing is challenging science's vanity over its own reflection,
>>challenging its presumption to be "the only truth". If that's
>>non-science then we should have more of it.
>
>
> It doesn't even claim to be the truth, let alone the only truth. You
> really *don't* know much about science.
But all too much about scientists, who DO think that they have the
handle on the only truth. cf. the Science vs. Philosophy thread in
sci.arch.
--
Mike Cleven
http://www.cayoosh.net (Bridge River Lillooet history)
http://www.hiyu.net (Chinook Jargon phrasebook/history)
Peter T. Daniels
widely, but not deeply, and basically didn't understand *anything* of
the ancient texts he referenced.
If you like Jaynes, you'd love Eric Havelock, who at least was skilled
in _one_ of the fields he pontificated on.
You'd especially love him because he considered himself a part of the
Toronto School, even though he ended his career at Yale ...
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Mike Cleven
Why would I love the Toronto School? I'm a Vancouverite, which implies
deep antipathy for anything Torontonian; if you knew anything about
Canada (as you pretend to after a bus tour or two) you'd know that.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > I don't suppose there's any point in pointing out that Jaynes skimmed
> > widely, but not deeply, and basically didn't understand *anything* of
> > the ancient texts he referenced.
> >
> > If you like Jaynes, you'd love Eric Havelock, who at least was skilled
> > in _one_ of the fields he pontificated on.
> >
> > You'd especially love him because he considered himself a part of the
> > Toronto School, even though he ended his career at Yale ...
>
> Why would I love the Toronto School? I'm a Vancouverite, which implies
> deep antipathy for anything Torontonian; if you knew anything about
> Canada (as you pretend to after a bus tour or two) you'd know that.
If there's any such thing as a Vancouver School of Literacy Studies, it
has certainly passed under the radar screen (as they say) of specialists
in literacy studies.
The only thing UBC is renowned for along those lines is the historical
study of Chinese, because of the presence of Edwin Pulleyblank.
Toronto School is such as McLuhan, Watt, de Kerckhove, Olson, ...
Mike Cleven
> Mike Cleven wrote:
>
>>Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>
>>>I don't suppose there's any point in pointing out that Jaynes skimmed
>>>widely, but not deeply, and basically didn't understand *anything* of
>>>the ancient texts he referenced.
>>>
>>>If you like Jaynes, you'd love Eric Havelock, who at least was skilled
>>>in _one_ of the fields he pontificated on.
>>>
>>>You'd especially love him because he considered himself a part of the
>>>Toronto School, even though he ended his career at Yale ...
>>
>>Why would I love the Toronto School? I'm a Vancouverite, which implies
>>deep antipathy for anything Torontonian; if you knew anything about
>>Canada (as you pretend to after a bus tour or two) you'd know that.
>
>
> If there's any such thing as a Vancouver School of Literacy Studies, it
> has certainly passed under the radar screen (as they say) of specialists
> in literacy studies.
Literary criticism, perhaps, though; George Woodcock is maybe more of a
political theorist than someone in "literacy studies"; there are other
areas where Vancouver has occasionally distinguished itself, but nothing
that I can think of that bothered to dub itself "the Vancouver School"
(other than as some institution or other).
>
> The only thing UBC is renowned for along those lines is the historical
> study of Chinese, because of the presence of Edwin Pulleyblank.
>
> Toronto School is such as McLuhan, Watt, de Kerckhove, Olson, ...
I don't know the latter three, but McLuhan has a large following in BC,
especially at the Dept. of Comunications at SFU; but the term
"McLuhanite" is more recognizable; "Toronto School" out of context here
would just mean a given discipline's/art's powerclique in TO.
Point is that "Toronto" is just a dirty word out here.