Habits of thought (from Mary)

[Hans Blom, 960531]

(Mary Powers (960509))

Belatedly, a reply.

And, very much more belatedly, a reply back. In the mean time I have
relocated to Gainesville, Florida, for a three month period to work
on the book that accompanies the course that I teach on Respiratory
an Circulatory Measurements. It's great to be away from my students
and other usualities. I'm really able to use my time as I wish now,
and then inspiration and concentration seem to arise in abundance. In
other words, things go smoothly, and I'm proud of how much I've done
already. Two more months to go...

So don't expect much from me in the way of contributions to the list
for the coming period. But, Mary, you deserve a reply anyway.

     Aren't ALL habits of thought products of the culture that we
     grew up in, except maybe for those very, very few original
     thoughts we've generated ourselves...

I disagree with this. I think we generate all our own thoughts,
habitual and otherwise. We observe what is going on, and we are
told a lot of things, including explanations which are other
people's thoughts about what is going on. These we can
incorporate into our own thinking, reject as inconsistent with
our own thinking or observation, forget, misunderstand,
reinterpret, change our minds about, etc., etc. Culture provides
data, and it provides considerable pressure to think about that
data a certain way. People (especially as children) buy into
normative cultural thinking because a) it is easy (it takes a lot
of effort - in many cases wasted effort - to reinvent the wheel,
and after all, that is a lot of what culture is for, to save each
individual the need to work out everything), b) often it is
necessary (learning one's language is learning a "habit of
thought"), and c) the consequences of not doing so can be
unpleasant (i.e. be a disturbance to important reference signals
such as being accepted). But every thought is an original
product of a unique individual - even habitual, culturally
approved, cliches.

     ...but see the (apparent) contradiction?
     1) the reference signals have come about through the forces
     of the environment (variation and selection).
     2) the reference signals are not subject to alterations by
     the forces of the environment.
     How can BOTH be true? My explanation is that 1) is such a
     slow process that, temporarily [temporally?], 2) can be
     approximately true within short time scales.

Variation and selection are not the product of environmental
forces. They result from the interaction of the environment and
organisms. An intrinsic reference signal in an organism cannot
be altered by the environment, but organisms, even those of the
same species, vary in some degree in their intrinsic reference
signals. Those organisms "are selected" which have a variation in
their intrinsic reference signals which, in a particular
environment, enable them to better survive and pass on the
variation to their offspring.

I see no contradiction.

Mary, I agree with you completely. All what you say rings true to my
ears. Yet, you start your mail to me with "I disagree with this". How
can that be? You disagree with what I say while I agree with what you
say -- without withdrawing what I've said? I wish life were logical...

Can it be that we consider one and the same thing from different
perspectives and thus see different things? Can it be that, when we
change perspective, we can see what the other person saw? Can it be
that we would never have chosen the other person's perspective if
he/she hadn't first shown us that such a perspective exists at all?

Why do people talk so much? Is it to demonstrate that different per-
spectives exist, and that life would be boring without them all?

Thank you for your perspective.

Greetings,

Hans