Peter Kropotkin wrote: I am going to try to answer your questions in a slightly different way today....
ambiguity: the quality of being open to more then one interpretation: inexactness,
synonyms: ambivalence, equivocation, more obscurity, uncertainty, puzzle,
doubtfulness, enigma.....
ambiguity is tied to possibilities and chance and randomness...
it is ambiguous because there are so many possibilities and
because it is so random and as chance plays a major role in our lives....
Peter Kropotkin wrote: I am a man born during the hunter-gatherer age, which lasted a million years
or so, depending upon whom you talk to....
what possibilities did I have during the hunter-gatherer stage of civilization?
not that many... I can hunt or I can gather (although realistically it was women
who gathered and men hunted) I could have been a priest/shaman, chief of the tribe,
warrior, a tool maker, the list I can make of possibilities of the hunter-gatherer isn't
really that large..... there are limited possibilities for the hunter-gatherer...
which means the possibilities are also limited... and limited possibilities means
limited ambiguity....chance and randomness still played a role, but frankly
there weren't a whole lot of possibilities for a human being during this time period...
thus there was a limited amount of ambiguity..
Peter Kropotkin wrote: however with the increase of our possibilities comes an increase in
the ambiguity in our lives. Ambiguity is about the possibilities,
the possible interpretations that can exists within any given
situation/ possibility.....
Peter Kropotkin wrote: justice is just another ambiguity because justice has a number of
interpretations, a number of different possibilities...…
and when the possibility of justice collides with the possibility of
freedom, we have a collision of conflicting values, of conflicting
goods.....how do we decide between two conflicting values or
two conflicting goods?
as a liberal, I have made my two values being freedom and justice...
what happens when my two primary values collide?
Peter Kropotkin wrote: let us take another ongoing, current situation.....
we have those who favor security, the right and then
there are those who favor freedom...….
and we have those who favor security, wanting to limit
freedom, to watch everyone, a police state, where we
have no freedom to speak or to write or to think....
because those who demand security want to be completely
safe, they want to limit freedom or completely end freedom
in the name of safety.....
so they allow the state to moniter our mail, our e-mail, our
telephone conversations, our text messages and all in the name of
security, safety...…
but as a liberal, I want freedom, so I am more then willing to
be a little less safe and to have greater freedom...so, If I could,
I would end all state monitoring of all communications, no more
listening to our phone conversations, no more invasions of our
privacy in the name of security, safety...no more monitoring
our e-mails or our text messaging or our mail...………
I am far more in favor of freedom, which is a value,
then I am afraid which is security, another value....
I favor one value over another.....
Peter Kropotkin wrote: but of course, IAM wants specific acts based upon specific grounds....
but I have my value/values of freedom.... and with that in mind,
I can decide best how to act when we have conflicting goods or values.....
where my choices are made blind.... and every choice is
full of ambiguity....full of possible interpretations.....
I cannot say with certainty that my "values" are better or
more meaningful then Wendy's values.... I simply can't know.....
I cannot assume or even think that my values have more
meaning or are better then Wendy's.....
they are simply my values, made in the midst of millions
of possible values... why? I have no justification for the values
I have chosen.....the choice of those values are as random
and chaotic as any choice of values we might make....[/
Peter Kropotkin wrote:
all I can do is stand here and say, I have these values...
they are conditional values which represent me at this time....
as I have noted before, I have changed my values more then once...
both politically and philosophically....so a battle over values earlier
in my life would have me picking different values because I held different
values...…
Peter Kropotkin wrote: the battle between conflicting goods/values is a temporary conflict...
because the values are temporary....today, I will fight the good fight
for freedom and justice... tomorrow, I might renounce those values
and turn to the dark side (but even saying the dark side is a relative one
you have to compare and contrast viewpoints and values to even understand
them, little less condemn them)
Meno_ wrote:"we use our day to day living to mask or hide or deny the important questions
of human existence"
Can we overcome the denial of our inner self, that causes us to deny the values which we repress in the process of living?
Or, is such denial absolutely excluded from our self conscious star of mind, resulting in an unbearable and equally absolute negative reaction.?....
The present social reality reveals both of these enigmatic queries. It is obvious.
Meno_ wrote:"the search of for knowledge is the search for the "truth"
and the search for wisdom is the search for the "meaning"
does the search for one or the other, preclude the other?
no, for we seek some sort of synthesis of the two..
we seek that knowledge and wisdom become one......."
Kropotkin
M: Exactly, what happened was a separation of truth from meaning, and trying to put them together in a humpty dumpty kind of way is not an easy or even an absolutely adorable task.
Meno_ wrote:Yes and more. Because we could do all those things, we could be more honest and less jealous and full of greed, but resist them, we should do and stand by truth, even if we get side tracked by the meaning of falsely advertised values, we are reduced, as human beings, existentially toward less truthful ways, more dishonest and confusing, we actually cause to effect and affect others into false and less meaningless values.
We are split as to what we should do from what we are doing, and consequently start adopting less human attributes, and we become existentially hollow and start to play games based on dishonesty and self service, rather then in accordance to the benefit of others, even to those to whom we are closely related.
Peter Kropotkin wrote:this question of existence...…
is the question of existence a fact? is it a truth?
or, or is the question of existence about meaning?
science looks at existence and wonders about its truths, the facts,
religion looks at existence and wonders about it meaning, why?
who is right?
Kropotkin
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