Re: Cookbook for Creation
Above you implied that 0 was the neutral, with 1 and -1 on either side.
Well, I understand what you’re saying in the other thread, but I’m not so sure that I agree (my initial smart-arse comment had more than just the one layer, you realise).
It’s similar to the way that Levi-Strauss would group mythemes in binary pairs of either opposition or similarity in his analysis of myths. It is, to be sure, a useful analytical tool (assuming you’re interested in Structural analysis) and has lead to valuable results. However, Levi-Strauss (and Structuralist analysis of myth in general) has been criticised because to make something conform to this, you need to have a fairly liberal interpretation of the mythemes and to concentrate on certain aspects at the expense of others.
Let’s take his analysis of the Oedipus myth (I’ll only bother to outline the elements important to my example. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, I can explain more, or point you in the right direction with a few pertinent links. And I’m sure you’re capable of finding your own sources of information, too. There’s talk of spirals…). Okay, the things he puts in column 3 are: “Cadmos kills the Dragon” and “Oedipus kills the Sphynx”. I’m sure you can see how those two are similar and fall within the same mytheme.
In column 4 we have “Labdacos (Laois’ father) =lame?”, “Laois (Oedipus’ father)=left-sided?” and “Oedipus=swollen-foot?”. The first problem we have is that these are not definitive interpretations of the words. The etymology may not be what Levi-Strauss suggests at all. Secondly, only the names that support the theory are included. “Jocasta” means “lighthearted”, but her name doesn’t fit with his classification of the mytheme, so she is not included.
The final problem is the definition of the mythemes. Column 3 refers to monsters being slain. Fair play there. Column 4 refers to difficulties walking straight and remaining upright. Again, that’s fair enough. But how do they relate? Well, column 3 represents “denial of the authochthonous origin of man” which you can see at a stretch, and colum 4 represents “persistence of the authocthonous origin of man” because, according to Levi-Strauss’ definition, difficulty in walking straight and remaining upright is a characteristic of “men born from the Earth”. I think you’ll agree that that’s a little more tenuous in definition.
I think that this kind of tenuousness and omission of relevent details is what I’m seeing in the other thread, too (and I often see with this kind of subject). Let’s take a couple of examples.
I would certainly argue that these two aren’t diametrically opposed. “What you want” and “What you don’t want” are opposed as are “what you get” and “what you don’t get”. At times what you want and what you get are equal. At other times they’re unimaginably disproportionate. One being 0 and the other being 1? No, I really don’t think so.
This leaves out universal creation and individual percerption. You do mention individual perception, but you contrast it with individual actions. Perception, it seems, is opposed and contrasted with different things, depending on how many people are doing it.
So, yeah, I think the same flaws that can be found in Levi-Strauss’ Structuralist analysis can be found in your, well, Structuralist analysis.
You do like to assume, don’t you? Actually, I used 3 different translations: the NIV Bible, the Torah and this page (http://mb-soft.com/believe/text/literal.htm) which, as you can see, is a literal word-for-word translation of the Hebrew. I stand by what I said above. Can you show how you arrived at the figures you did, please?
Why do you say things and then refuse to elaborate? You claim you’re here to share ideas. Why not share them? I’m interested in your opinion, not someone else’s. I had assumed that what you had posted above was your opinion. If it’s your opinion that seeing is an act of creation, then why not explain why this is the opinion you hold?
I’ve addressed this before on this site, but never got a reply. Basically, yes, if you arbitrarily take letters and arrange them in an arbitrary fashion you can make a spiral out of them. But so what? And, yes, it is arranged arbitrarily. To make even the tenuous 'pattern" that he claims, there has to be some fudging. Look at the gap from the “L” to the next letter (the “E”). To make it fit the predetermined pattern, he has to go almost an entire turn without a letter.
