[Wittrs] more pondering on "(Over)interpreting Wittgenstein"

kirby urner <kirby.urner@xxxxxxxxx> · Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:30:50 -0400

Book cover (in the field):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/6830344528/in/photostream

I continue to work my way through this road map of Biletzki's.  It's
like a guidebook to the world of Wittgenstein interpretations, and
cries out for visual diagrams, ala 'Maps of the Mind' by
Hampden-Turner.

http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Mind-Charts-Concepts-Labyrinths/dp/0020768702

We could subtitle this "A brief tour of the Hive Mind of the
Wittgenstein scholars" but of course that's a mind with many chambers,
which would be the point of the diagrams.

I've been reading on how Continental versus Analytic interpretations
stack up, and that comes across as another signature exercise in how
to distinguish the two camps.  Like, there's no rule saying you cannot
talk about Schopenhauer just because your an Analytic.  Rather, it's a
tell tale sign that you're analytic if, in admiring Wittgenstein, you
choose to downplay Schopenhauer's influence.

What I've not come across yet is any explicit mention of a noosphere,
which corresponds to the biosphere much as memes go with genes.
That's close enough to Holy Spirit to rope in a lot of teleological
writers, whom I would consider close neighbors with
transcendentalists, and by extension with the types who might take
Schopenhaurer more seriously.  Latter day Jungians.  These would be
your Continentals.

Myself, I've read enough Teilhard de Chardin to be attracted to
reverse causality, which looks like destiny molding past events to
insure "the right stuff" happens.  Applied to the history of
Russell-Frege style logic, one sees the seeds of a future computer
science already germinating, teaming up with boolean logic, to give us
today's PyBool (an example of something high level -- like the role of
"the eye" in Darwinism:  the intermediate stages seem to have few
evolutionary advantages, indeed the contrary would seem true, and yet
once a real eye is formed, the ends appear to justify the means
(reverse causality in a nutshell)).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/6976463155/in/set-72157629206299498

In my view, the Analytics are less comfortable with wholes governing
the parts and would prefer to see the logic of the action as reducible
to the logic of the parts considered more in isolation.  From a
problem solving perspective, I see little reason to argue against the
utility of such an approach, given its impressive track record.  It's
not either/or though.

I guess my question is whether "belief in a noosphere" (or something
like it) is indeed a simple and direct enough litmus test to divide
our two camps.

The other remark I have at this time is I'm always amazed by
interpretations which don't connect "the limits of my world"
(Tractatus) to its "waxing and waning" (also Tractatus).  They come as
a package:  solipsism and the eternal state of one's "soul" (as in
"microcosm").

Analytics do believe in "memes" (if reluctantly) and by that means
might be brought to appreciate "alchemy" in the form of Hollywood feel
good movies etc, the power of music to inspire mood shifts. Just
because you're an Analytic doesn't mean you can't be the designer of
strong advertising / media campaigns, at least apparently
sophisticated in ways Continentals appreciate (but aren't sure they
trust -- and why should they?).

In other words, I think teleological theories come and go in the meme
pool, as many grammars are simply prone to bubble away in that vein.
An ability to stand back from "belief" as a kind of spellbound
fascination (leading to superstition), is one of the promises a
philosophy may hold out.  "Study me, and you will be able to
appreciate the efficacy of beliefs without needing to believe them."
Analytics should feel right at home with such an approach.  "Let
philosophy be your channel changer."  "Remember your remote."

I think this particular guide book could be abetted by another with
more of the Wittgenstein and Buddhism lineage (still emerging).  The
anti-Cartesianism of non-believers (those who don't believe in a
"cogito" -- except as a kind of sham) receives nourishment from a well
developed library of dharmas.  I suppose that would come under
"religion" (one of the chapters), but there's so little to distinguish
same from philosophical or psychological lineages.  You can wire Zen
to gestalt psychology and get away with it.

Kirby

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[Wittrs] more pondering on "(Over)interpreting Wittgenstein"

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