On Nonlinearity I am going to try to make a coherent reply to both Jud and Mariano on non-linearity. Both of you have honed in upon aspects that are very important, showing precisely the need for such thinking. I shall be doing editing to supposedly clarify the points made so pay attention to both your words and mine. There are a number of both general and very specific reasons why I am pursuing this course. Unfortunately, they are time consuming for someone short on time and intelligence.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
What I understand by a "point of view" is neither the same as "opinion" nor as "belief".

GARY.C. MOORE:
My approach is an imitation by my limited understanding of Merleau-Ponty's PHENOMENOLGY OF PERCEPTION, a science based study giving physical and logical basis for philosophical premises when they are justified. Merleau-Ponty is an expert in physical human psychology who also wrote THE STRUCTURE OF COMPORTMENT. Disregard all his other works even though many pieces are quite valuable to my thesis. Phenomenology, HERE, means precisely and ONLY the reception of sense impressions bound within the context of the human body. This is no derogation of an external 8world*. If you have not read the book, do not judge it. It is NOTHING like Heidegger or Sartre. In fact, Heidegger did not like him.

*Point of view* here is a strict and logico-mathematically bound concept. It can be broken down, at one point, into simple line of sight. My point is, though, that is an invariable. *Line of sight* as a physical situation can belong only to one unique person. Uniqueness, I hesitate to say, is absolute perceptual aloneness. However, each person is numbered one unique person. In this regard, one can generalize, for arguments sake, that all unique people are exactly the same, even though there are physiological variations for some people. AND those varieties are important because, not only do they help define the *rule*, they show perception – as COMMUNICATED from one person to another such as blindness, blurred vision, having only one eye – CAN BE fundamentally different from one person to another, showing different kinds of perception.

I will not try to show it here, but Impressionism in painting, for instance Monet, shows both A] perception is always perception in every situation, not sufficient or deficient, and B] brings in contextually an interpretation of the *world* through mood, etc. Seeing London in a fog impresses one differently than seeing London in the bright day. The impression cannot be separated from perception. This will be important for Stoic doctrine and determining what is open to *free will* and is not. Not only is the Stoic concept of *free will * highly restrictive BUT, in it, ALL APPROACHES TO ETHICS IS THROUGH WHAT THEY CALL PHYSICS which, seems to me, more like epistemology. It is founded upon the independence of the impressing object, as Jud says, in itself from the impressed perceiver whereby, most importantly, a judgment is made on JUST the impression! The object *in itself* is always indifferent and outside any moral order which only exists inside the perceiver. So, situating the perceiver and determining what perception is and does is important to ethical as well as logical and mathematical judgment as they all operate upon the same plain.

A QUOTE FROM EPICTETUS: [edited] *Instruction consists precisely in learning to desire each thing exactly as it happens. How do they happen? As Nature that ordains them has ordained. It has ordained that there be summer and winter, and abundance and dearth, and virtue and vice, and all such opposites, for the harmony of the whole, and has given us a body, and members of the body, and property and companions. Mindful of this ordaining, we receive instruction, not in order to change things [non-technological but evaluative, aesthetic], but that we may keep our wills in harmony with what happens. For can we escape from men? What method can we find for living with them? While they will act as seems best for them, we will be in a state comfortable to nature. You ought, when staying alone, to call that peace and freedom, and look upon yourself as like the gods. What is the punishment of those who do not accept? To be just as they are. 'Throw him into prison.' What sort of prison? Where he now is. [DO YOU SEE THE IRONY?] For he is there against his will, and where a man is against his will, that for him is a prison. Just as Socrates was NOT in a prison because he was there willingly. Things proportionate to the faculty which you possess [perception, logic, physics] are brought before you, but you turn that faculty away at the very moment you ought to keep it wide open and discerning. The gods allowed you to be superior to all the things that they did not put under your control [note the phrasing!], and rendered you accountable only for what is under your control. As for family, the gods have released you from accountability [Remember - *They will act as seems best for them*, i. e., if they want to listen to you, they will – if not, not]. As for the body, they have released you [*Is the house filled with smoke? The door is wide open!*]. For what have they made you accountable? For the only thing that is under your control – the proper use of impressions.* END EPICTETUS QUOTE, DICOURSES, Bk. I, 12.

The editor of my Epictetus from the Harvard Loeb Classical Library, W. A. Oldfather, writing in 1925 is unexpectedly ruthless and to the point in his examination of the Stoic doctrine of *free will*. QUOTE

Every man bears the exclusive responsibility himself for his own good and evil, since it is impossible to imagine a moral order in which one person does the wrong and another, the innocent, suffers. Therefore, good and evil can only be those things which depend entirely upon our moral purpose, what we generally call, but from the Stoic point of view a little inaccurately, our free will; they cannot consist in any of those things which others can do neither to us or for us. Man's highest good lies in the reason. This reason shows itself in assent or dissent, in desire or aversion, and in choice or refusal, which in turn are based upon an external impression, PHANTASIA, that is, a prime datum, a constant, beyond our power to alter. But we remain free in regard to our attitude towards them. The use which we make of the external impressions is our one chief concern, and upon the right kind of use depends exclusively our happiness. Page xxi. END QUOTE

The point is, THIS ALL IS AS MUCH PHYSICS AND PHYSIOLOGY AS PHILOSOPHY!

What I choose is the unexceptional and average ability. *Opinion* and *belief* are secondary in the sense of not being primary to the physiology of sight. *Sight* is chosen as the primary representative of *perception*. However, the other senses always operate in combination with sight, an inescapable fact. Therefore, though their effects may be evaluated as trivial, that is because one's primary attention is almost always focused on sight. There are things, then, going on within you that you literally know nothing about.

And *opinion* and *belief* also effect sight just as the other senses do in a usually unnoticed fashion. You like Masserattis. You look at a street lined with parked cars. Suddenly the only thing clear in your line of sight is a Masseratti. This happened to me is Pisa. The rest of perception became mere background. My attention is focused on a single object and someone could have walked by me with a gun and shot me and I would not have realized what happened till the bullet hit me. I was also shot by a man in Pisa that also focused my attention, but it was a grown man with a cowboy cap pistol and leather scabbard. One forgets everything else in such situations, and they effect you physically, materially. So, in effect, initial judgment and evaluation literally reaches into sight – but not the object of sight - and determines a focal point with vastly decreased peripheral vision.

Now, peripheral vision, itself, is fascinating, and, guess what?, what happens in it can save your life through reflexive action without your knowing why you are acting. Another fascinating fact one has to deal with is that peripheral vision has no clear physiological boundaries, however much common sense and objective observation by others tells you otherwise, whereas focused vision is always situated in the context of peripheral vision and, to a certain degree, situates it, maps it UNLESS the object obsesses one too much!

So, though all these things constantly are present and interplay, to establish phenomenologically what literally happens with vantage point and point of view I am deliberately emphasizing line of sight, taking into context the point from which the view is taken and all that is present to view including literal obstructions, angles, amount of light, and so forth. That fact that, even though someone is standing right next to me, at the same approximate height, facing the same direction, physically our points of view cannot be the same. This is not a trivial point. It means, as close as we can get an experience to be EXACTLY shared, it cannot ever happen. It is the difference between
*close enough* and *exactly perfect*. And this is when all the elements of the situation are as alike as are deliberately physically possible. There is a world of conceptual difference between *almost* and *perfectly*. THIS IS UNDER STRINGENTLY CONTROLLED CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!

Remember, and this is crucial not only for this but for understanding Aristotle, A is equal to A ONLY at the same place at the same time. And, as Hegel pointed out – he does have his moments – A can therefore NEVER be PERFECTLY equal to A. And therefore what happens when we get away from this extremely exact method of thinking? We have to do this to live in the everyday.

That is the intellectual point we must proceed from, that is, if the intellectual perception of *reality* cannot be *perfect*, instead of *close* or *good enough*, then all our other determinations are going to necessarily have to suffer from some degree of approximation EXCEPT THAT we CANNOT POSSESS any perfect standard to judge by. And what does that mean? Approximation must necessarily be measured by another approximation, even if regarded as a trivial fact in everyday action.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
An opinion may be a generalization of a point of view, a belief may be an illogical generalization of a point of view. A point of view is a singular or a general statement, -but it is not a generalization-, and has a logical sense or is a part of a logical theory.

If we wish to develop a logical theory of points of view, we may start by remembering one of the oldest theories, the logical theory of the Jain religion, based upon the principles of: anekanta vada (non-one-sided talk), syat vada (may-be talk), and the seven sides paralogism (may be is; may be is not; may be, undecidably, is and is not; may be is or is not; may be, undecidably, is; may be, undecidably, is not; may be, undecidably, is or is not).

European thinkers might be said to have started to think in a logical theory of points of view with Gottlob Frege's notion of "mode of presentation", in which "the morning star" and "the evening star" both referring to "Venus" are taken to be different modes of presentation.

GARY.C. MOORE:I loved all of this. It reinforces what I said above. The identification of Venus1 as Venus2 is temporal and positional.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
I like the idea of talking of a non-linear logic and relating it to a theory of chaos. There are at least two other related names which may be mentioned: "informal logic" and paraconsistent logic". As well there is the science called Pragmatics of Language which might deal well with a theory of points of view. I take a more philosophical than mathematically formal approach.

GARY. C. MOORE: wrote:
I am trying to approach a problem of personal human point of view from an aspect whose focus is assumed outside of that point of view which, as I have always said, factually and materially means MY point of view, meaning that *point of view* always and necessarily, in materialist terms, must mean MY point of view since that is the only perceptual point of view I can physically possess.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
As there is not a physical subject who might the possessor of the point of view, because "subject" is a term within a logical theory, -a subject is not a reality, it is not an object-, I understand that the term "possess", above, has a logical sense too, equivalent to say: the physical locus which 'determines' the logical point of view. Then, I talk about a 'physical locus' as being the determinant of a point of view, and not a 'physical entity'; so that, say, for example: what determines your point of view is not your body, but the place of your body.

GARY.C. MOORE:
Yes. Get rid of subject. As a Stoic, I do not *possess* a point of view, it strikes within me as phantasm. It is there without my willing. It is neutral in evaluation till I judge it. A Stoic denies ALL instant judgment, even if there is an involuntary immediate reaction of body or moral/emotional reflex, but notes in his detached physics the object exists, and, as existing, is neither good or evil or necessarily connect to any other opinion, i. e., *a pretty wench* Epictetus uses unusually often. You are neither cold nor hot but a neutral observer who may – or may not – judge at all. You do not have to judge, and if you do judge, must neither forget physics or logic.

*Physical locus* is usable ONLY if one does not forget its necessary source IS a *physical entity*, your body and moral history, which automatically provides reactions you must not act on without detached judgment. * What determines your point of view is not your body, but the place of your body * is good, EXCEPT the body ALWAYS has a place, though sometimes, being slothful and negligent, we abstract it out of this real world into another of mere fantasy.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
This would be different for an 'opinion', in my view, an opinion is determined by a physical entity, say, for example: your body, where emotions, perceptions and conceptions are conditionings of opinions; opinions are not determined just by physical loci.

*Opinions are not determined JUST by physical loci* is true, but it is always and in every case A determinant.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
Now, if what determines a point of view is a physical locus, then several questions arise:

As long as we can not fix a physical locus for a body say: for our body the is an ever changing location and an ever changing constituent matter, therefore "my" point of view is ever changing, then, a point of view may not be fixed even for a single observer.

GARY.C. MOORE:
What I said about Aristotle and A=A applies here and the necessity of always measuring by an approximation, however *close*.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
I am ever losing a point of view to take another, or, in other words: my self lacks of a consistent physical locus; and it is not that my self has another locus than a physical one, it is that its physical locus can not be determined because it is a plainly conditioned locus, any condition you may think of is a condition of the self's locus.

Also, as long as the size of a physical locus is not determined, say, for example: by our body, so that, it is undetermined. We may have a physical locus embracing several observers giving a common perception or a shared point of view.

GARY.C. MOORE:
That the body cannot determine precisely its physical locus comes under what I said about peripheral vision. My body, as locus, is always, therefore, a *more than . . . * what can be logically accounted for at many levels. Another approximation.

But that does not justify *embracing several observers* because my physical locus necessarily remains cognitively primary since it is ontologically unique, that is, as physical locus physically alone quite literally. And this *aloneness* has several other connotations connected to it necessarily that have to be worked out, as the Stoics do, with physics and logic. *Embracing several observers* can only be allowed physically and logically through communication through language. Thereupon it becomes symbolic and abstract, no matter how reliable it may turn out to be in one's own calculations.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
For example: as we all are in Earth we have a common earthly point of view; thus there may be material general statements; notice, that the point of view of a shared physical locus is not a generalization, but a general point of view, not a single person can perceive it, but all sharing the locus perceive it.

GARY.C. MOORE:
Unfortunately time makes me call a stop here. But this will be where I introduce Jud Evans' comments and the non-linearity of the points of view of *others* which is in reality a euphemism for a *God's point of view* and the introduction of the theological aspects of abstractions we can only delimit to a degree by Stoicism and Eliminativism. Any abstraction habitually dealt with as a reality is theological. That it is a *habit* implies a number of things. Everything we learn, we DELIBERATELY make habitual like ridding a bicycle. We need to examine the nature and historical archeology of *habit* - the only way of parents teaching their young in Aristotle which means, all education, all knowledge starts out, with children, spoken from a *God's point of view*.

JUD EVANS:
This is something I have been trying to do for years. I have been attempting to view the things that exist, our earth, the cosmos as if I was an independent observer - meaning someone else - not me. I have been attempting to conceive of *things-in-themselves.* It is far too difficult for me to try to describe what I mean here, but part of it involves looking at a tree and trying to imagine what it is like for the tree not to be looked at, or - how it exists as a thing in itself free from sensorial human attribution - too see it *in the mind's eye* as it really is existing in the way that it exists. I do NOT believe that it exists in different phenomenological versions depending upon whether a human or a cow or a bird or an insect is looking at it and interpreting it sensorially.

GARY.C. MOORE:
Quickly, I can agree with all of that. But account should be taken of the mathematics and geometry of an insect's point of view as well as the fact there are other variables one knows little or nothing about, for instance, segmented eyes. In fact, that may well be extremely important for this discussion. Have there not been scientific studies SUPPOSEDLY showing how a fly sees things?

JUD EVANS:
I believe that it simply exists in the *raw* way that it exists and that it is the human causal object which exists and sees it differently. The bottom line? All objects in the universe exist in ever-changing modalities, but there is only ONE VERSION OF THE CHANGING OBJECT AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT IN TIME.

GARY.C. MOORE:
Appropriate to what I said about A=A.

JUD;
I do not believe for example that electrons can exist a point-particles and waves at the same time. A very convincing case for the wave nature of the electron has been posited and the electron certainly behaves like a particle sometimes. An electron has a definite mass and charge, it can move slowly, it can travel through a piece of apparatus from a gun to a screen. What, then, is the relationship between the wave and particle viewpoints? {point of view?] I believe it is the human observer who is misinterpreting the true nature of the electron in the same way that the human observer of the tree and the insect's are entirely different. I feel it in my guts that the confusion over the electron gun and the impact scattering is NOT an indication of chaos but an indication of the experimenters not being able to see or detect or understand the nature of the electron as *a-thing-in-itself* but persist in slapping erroneous attributes on it which misunderstand it true nature. The standard modern interpretation is that the intensity of the wave (measured by the square of its amplitude) at any point gives the relative probability of finding the particle at that point. Hide and Seek.

Now I may appear to be going off the subject a bit here - I mean the question you raise about *point-of-view* and the reason for that is that I do not believe that such a thing exists. I believe of course that all humans are *point-of-viewers* and that we all have *attitudes* and *preconceptions* based upon our antecedal experience of similar objects or situations. My *attitude* or *point of view* towards work if I am lying on Southport beach in the sun with a beautiful blonde [my wife is the ideal candidate for that] with a *mint julip* [whatever that is - but it sounds good?] in my hand, will be quite different to that if I find myself in the garden with a vibrating lawnmower in my control and a passing neighbour congratulates me upon my roses.

GARY.C. MOORE:
OUT OF TIME.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
To easy things, it can be used the term "may be" as well as the term "point of view" as technical terms intended to mark a statement as an 'undecidable truth', as something which can not be said openly. Say, for example: "May be cows exist", to include the cases in which by "cows" we understand a word, a drawing, a concept, a class,... which do not exists, nevertheless cows exist, as long as we take the "cows" to have a referent, in reality, different than any of those mentioned (word, drawing, concept, class,...). Again, as any statement, being a representation, purports ambiguity, any statement may be marked with a "may be", else, we may take any statement as having implicated a 'may be' mark. Notice, that this is may be a way to avoid reifications, -or false generalizations.

Again, you might say, that 'your' point of view is the point of view 'located in the place indicated by the word "you"' which may be pertinently interpreted, in this case, to be the same as the locus "Gary" or, may be, of the DNA+finger prints-Gary. Now, if this is so, think, then, that we may be unable to say openly what is the referent of Gary, because there is not a universal -or general- manner to determine it. Again: we may know Gary, but we may not be able to acknowledge such knowledge openly, we may not be able to demonstrate that we know Gary, even in the event of being able to say things about him or to point to him, because we can not be in -or can not know- the same particular point of view which Gary possess; we may not share with him his particular physical locus... Or, also, we may share a particular physical locus different than his locus or my locus... this depends on which physical locus are we talking about. There may be truths which can not be said openly, -or as mathematicians say: "undecidable truths"- about Gary, truths which even think we may know them, we can not put them within a theory -or a system- by means of which we might decide what is true and what is false.

Resuming. I think that there is more than one point of view possible, physically speaking, I can not have the same particular point of view as you have, in a body bounded physical sense, in another of those views I communicate with you, and this communication act is in fact -or physically- sharing a space and time which determines a common physical locus, a locus of you and me, which imply to have an, undecidable, same point of view. This common, to both -you and me-, point of view is not a question of agreeing or disagreeing, it is a question of being in the same physical locus; which is not the locus of the body, it is, for example, the locus of communication. In my logical theory about points of view, physical loci are not restricted to bodies, and knowledge is not restricted to what happens inside a brain, as there are senses by which physical communication happens. Communication means continuity between loci, therefore there can not be communication between different loci, we talk, metaphorically, about a communication between loci when there is a common locus of two or more loci; it my be said that each personal loci, your, mine, other, is a part of a common locus of us. When you express your point of view, and I interpret your _expression there is a point of view, different of the expressed point of view and different of the interpreted point of view which is a point of view of both of us.

Another example of a non-person bounded point of view, as long as we share to be physically in an Earth bounded physical sense, we may share a same general point of view; this an ontological question not an epistemological one.

GARY.C. MOORE:
Now automatically, as you well know, such a pin pointed determination brings objections that there must be other points of view. However, materially, such so-called points of view are physically impossible to an actual human being and are mere abstractions, likenesses made from my perceptual point of view made on the assumption that, other human beings seeming physically like me and more or less communicating information that can be corroborated factually or logically, they also have perceptual points of view exactly like mine. However, I can never ever EXPERIENCE this as a physical fact. One makes deductions from language but that is where it must remain.

JUD EVANS:
The way I see things the question: *What is Gary's point of view* can be answered that: *Points of view* are rather like qualia, or the answer to yet a further question:
*What is it like to be a bat?* The answer is Gary's point of view is one of the ways, manners or modes in which Gary exists - Gary's point of view ... is... Gary, and what it is like to be a bat is to be a bat. As you say above: I can never ever EXPERIENCE this as a physical fact. One makes deductions from language but that is where it must remain.*

GARY.C. MOORE:
So one fictionally, that is, abstractly assumes there are perceptual points of view other than one's own. They seem exactly alike in quality and ability - generally in
*normal* people - but many differences arise from different mathematically diagrammed vantage points. There is also the problem of what is
*important*, that is, what is worth paying attention to. This sometimes notably *warps* - not really meant derogatorily but rather simply factually - transmitted information from another's point of to be integrated into my own.

JUD EVANS:
As we get older we become more attuned to guessing how another person must be feeling because we have met so many other people of a different sex, different age, different nationality and class that we get a good idea of the average person responds to certain stimuli and situations. There are ALWAYS exceptions and we can encounter people who react entirely differently to our expectations.

GARY.C. MOORE
:It is essentially the FUNDAMENTAL meaning of the concept *importance* I am trying to delineate, attempting a historical portrayal of how it came about as something different from the strictly, physically personal and uniquely individual. After all, even many animals regard their mates and offspring, as it seems, *naturally* as IMPORTANT. But it is not the lion as a SPECIES that values its progeny but the lion as a UNIQUE INDIVIDUAL supposedly just like me.

JUD EVANS:
Yes, I agree that though the lion is imprinted with the necessary deterministic coding in accordance with *nature* or the existential imperative [or whatever] at conception to manifest protective behaviour in relation to its young to ensure the eventual reduplication of its genes, etc., you are right that it is the individual daddy-lion that is at the cutting-edge carrying out the protection.

GARY.C. MOORE:
THIS lion values ONLY its own progeny and eats another's. THEREFORE is there the possibility of plotting a non-linear vector outside my personal point of perceptual view? I think it is all too easy to say *Of course!* since such a conclusion is emotionally comforting, but you know very well that is NOT what I want. I want facts. I want MATERIALLY or LOGICALLY ascertainable FACTS.
*Matter* may possibly be out of the question here, though, and the logic seems to be getting away from the digital and wandering into the analogical. Analogically, I can put myself in the lion's point of view - but not factually.

JUD EVANS:
Yes, a man like you can make intelligent guesses/judgements based upon your own experience which no doubt includes stuff you have studied, read, seen on TV about the behaviour of lions and other mammals and reached certain conclusions about the nature of the deterministic concatenational patterns that motivate them.

GARY.C. MOORE:
And here determinism comes in, but not quite as obviously as it might seem to be at first glance. With a lion, is there really any such thing as instinct
- which it would seem to immediately put it beyond my purview - or is the lion's brain essentially like mine in all aspects? It is the point of instinct, that is, automatic appropriate action, that is the sticking point. However, I have never, using Occam's razor, ever seen to need to make that assumption. Instinct assumes qualities above and beyond mere nerve reflex so I see no comparison between to two whatsoever. Instinct has to be selective for whatever reason, by whatever cause, whereas reflex ALWAYS occurs with the proper stimulus. So there is a physical chain of causation in a lion's actions, but, going by the simplest explanation of the matter, it operates just like mine. You can corroborate point of view even with a lion to a certain degree.

JUD EVANS:
Predictably I do not believe that some *thing* called instinct exists. For me what exists is a causal object we call a lion. The animal is programmed genetically to act in certain ways [just like plants are programmed to turn their leaves towards the sun etc] which explains what we humans perceive and describe as *a physical chain of causation in a lion's actions* when what ACTUALLY exists is a physically concatenationally programmed and acting causal object called a lion. I hate these mouthful of words, but in order to be ontologically correct there is no way to avoid them.

GARY.C. MOORE:
But you can see many of these arguments are merely approximations as compared to an absolute fact such as a normal mathematical equation. Therefore I was wondering about non-linear thinking, something I got from Malcolm and his chaos theory in reviewing JURASSIC PARK, and its appropriateness in dealing with problems like
- I *believe* other human beings are very much like me but I do not KNOW this.

Below is an article from Wikepedia --- Non-linearity From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Non-linear) This article describes the use of the term non-linearity in mathematics. For other meanings, see non-linearity
(disambiguation).

JUD EVANS
:I think that linear thinking is an impossibility. There is a danger that it is confused with opinion. I am looking forward to responding to you longer piece received today on SCHOPENHAURIAN SHENNAGINS. which I find very interesting because it addresses certain personal traits I recognise in myself, which might be perceived as cognitive linearity. As Richard points out human thought processes are so diversely antecedally determined that though the RESULTS of my deterministically arrived at attitudes to [say] ontology look like a
*one-track-mind* in action, the origins of why I am like that in my attitudes go back a long, long way. In that sense it is difficult to draw a line in the deterministic sand and say: The Israeli attack on Lebanon happened because the Palestinians kidnapped two soldiers [or was it one soldier?] when plainly the deterministic origins of the invasion can be traced back concatenationally nearly 70-years during the long period of the gradual take-over of the Arab homeland by the Israelis.

I suppose, if I am honest with myself, although the origins of what led to my linear thinking are interesting, the more interesting point is identifying at what precise stage any competing [ontological] ideas ceased to be deterministically successful? In other words when was it that any residual transcendentalist ideas or influences became concatenationally ineffective in altering my *fixiation, strong beliefs, obsession, considered opinion, sincere belief, philosophical analysis, loony ideas? I realise that the above developmental paradigm could be applied to Hitler, Stalin, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a dedicated golfer, or just about anybody who has decided to concentrate on a certain subject to the exclusion of most others, and I am reminded rather guiltily, of my attitude some years ago to a certain guy [who was a nice chap actually] who was on a list that Richard and I were both members of [I cannot remember its name or his right now?] who had a similar preoccupation with Wittgenstein. All you got was: *Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein,* all of the time. I left in the end. Richard will remember.

Well, now I am conscious that all you seem to get from me is: *X doesn't exist, X doesn't exist, X doesn't exist, X doesn't exist,* and I thank you all for being so forbearing and patient with me. It is indeed a pleasure to read all your mails and to enjoy the changes of subjects that you all bring to this list. Thank you all once more.

The amusing/comforting part is, that when my critics or my sympathisers select which of the above terms best describe my *Point of View,* they are themselves as much
*casualties* of their own experiential catenulate culmination as the person they criticise or congratulate. ;-)

Regards,

Jud Evans. Science and the Insanity Defense Posted by: "gevans613@aol.com" gevans613@aol.com tenbury220002003 Thu Aug 3, 2006
Sunday, July 30,  2006 Science and the insanity defense

Writing in the Times on July 30, 2006, judge Morris Hoffman and law professor Stephen Morse defend the insanity defense. They rightly point out that the very notion of moral responsibility requires us to excuse those who don’t have sufficient capacity for what they call moral cognition. But in reaching what should be an uncontroversial conclusion, they argue that science and the law are at odds, when in fact they collaborate. First, they say

The rise of various materialistic and deterministic explanations of human behavior, including psychiatry, psychology, sociology and, more recently, neuroscience, has posed a particular challenge to the criminal law’s relatively simple central assumption that with few exceptions we act intentionally and can be held responsible. These schools of thought attribute people’s actions not to their own intentions, but rather to powerful and predictable forces over which they have no control. People aren’t responsible for their crimes: it’s their poverty, their addictions or, ultimately, their neurons. This levels a false charge against science and is misleading about control. Although materialistic and deterministic psychiatry, psychology, sociology and neuroscience deny contra-causal free will, they don’t deny human intentions or responsible agency. Rather, science shows their causes in biology and culture, and eventually might describe their neural correlates in some detail. And, in point of fact, we aren’t in control of the powerful and predictable forces that, early in life, shape our brains, and therefore our personalities and proclivities – we aren’t self-made. Nevertheless, we form intentions, and can be held responsible for acting on those intentions, if we have normal capacities for rationality and self-control, all of which are entirely material and determined
(as Morse freely admits elsewhere).

So why this straw man of scientific eliminativism, one wonders? Perhaps to carve out a special domain for the law by casting science as an inept interloper, a misguided threat to commonsense moral responsibility. Furthermore, scientific materialism and determinism do, of course, undermine widely held supernaturalist notions of moral agency, those that ground ultimate metaphysical responsibility in contra-causal free will. So maybe Hoffman and Morse, both materialists as far as I know, distance themselves from science in order not to offend certain sensibilities.

Second, they claim that “we should recognize that the criteria for responsibility — intentionality and moral capacity — are social and legal concepts, not scientific, medical or psychiatric ones.” But they immediately point out that in ascribing responsibility we recognize that “some people suffer from a mental disorder, and some do not” and of course we don’t hold responsible those with serious mental disorders. So, if psychiatric illness is real (and few would dispute this, except notoriously Thomas Szasz or, curiously, neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga), then at least some of the criteria for responsibility are indeed medical, psychiatric and scientific.

Third, Hoffman and Morse say that “Convicting and punishing a defendant who genuinely believed that God commanded him to kill is not unscientific, it is immoral and unjust.” But the immorality and injustice of such punishment stems directly from the fact that the defendant (Andrea Yates, for instance) suffered from a morally impairing psychosis, the diagnosis of which is a matter of science, not law. The point again is that, contrary to their op-ed thesis, the law’s definition of responsibility isn’t conceptually independent of science. Rather, neural and functional deficits in rationality and impulse control, undermining the capacity for responsibility, are precisely what medicine, psychiatry and neuroscience can help us discern. The legal test for insanity can’t be divorced from these.

Much of the injustice in the recent rollbacks of the insanity defense is due to the failure to take the science of human behavior seriously, and substitute instead the narrow, stern and retributive judgment that wrongful behavior must be punished, what ever the mental state of the accused. If they were less concerned with defending the law from science, Hoffman and Morse would discover in a materialist understanding of the mind an ally in clarifying our judgments of when a person has, or has not, the neurally instantiated cognitive capacities to be justly held responsible. We need not keep science at a distance to retain moral agency, even if we are fully material, and fully determined. posted by Tom Clark at 9:30 PM 0 comments

regards,

Jud Evans.

GARY. C. MOORE:
NON-LINEARITY AND THE TREE
Fri Aug 4, 2006


So why this straw man of scientific eliminativism, one wonders? Perhaps to carve out a special domain for the law by casting science as an inept interloper, a misguided threat to commonsense moral responsibility. Furthermore, scientific materialism and determinism do, of course, undermine widely held supernaturalist notions of moral agency, those that ground ultimate metaphysical responsibility in contra-causal free will. So maybe Hoffman and Morse, both materialists as far as I know, distance themselves from science in order not to offend certain sensibilities.

Second, they claim that we should recognize that the criteria for responsibility ” intentionality and moral capacity” are social and legal concepts, not scientific, medical or psychiatric ones. But they immediately point out that in ascribing responsibility we recognize that some people suffer from a mental disorder, and some do not and of course we dont hold responsible those with serious mental disorders. So, if psychiatric illness is real (and few would dispute this, except notoriously Thomas Szasz or, curiously, neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga), then at least some of the criteria for responsibility are indeed medical, psychiatric and scientific.

Third, Hoffman and Morse say that Convicting and punishing a defendant who genuinely believed that God commanded him to kill is not unscientific, it is immoral and unjust. But the immorality and injustice of such punishment stems directly from the fact that the defendant (Andrea Yates, for instance) suffered from a morally impairing psychosis, the diagnosis of which is a matter of science, not law. The point again is that, contrary to their op-ed thesis, the laws definition of responsibility isnt conceptually independent of science. Rather, neural and functional deficits in rationality and impulse control, undermining the capacity for responsibility, are precisely what medicine, psychiatry and neuroscience can help us discern. The legal test for insanity cant be divorced from these.

Much of the injustice in the recent rollbacks of the insanity defense is due to the failure to take the science of human behavior seriously, and substitute instead the narrow, stern and retributive judgment that wrongful behavior must be punished, what ever the mental state of the accused. If they were less concerned with defending the law from science, Hoffman and Morse would discover in a materialist understanding of the mind an ally in clarifying our judgments of when a person has, or has not, the neurally instantiated cognitive capacities to be justly held responsible. We need not keep science at a distance to retain moral agency, even if we are fully material, and fully determined. posted by Tom Clark at 9:30 PM 0 commenNON-LINEARITY.

Dear Jud

- or any one knowledgeable - I am trying to approach a problem of personal human point of view from an aspect whose focus is assumed outside of that point of view which, as I have always said, factually and materially means MY point of view, meaning *point of view* always and necessarily, in materialist terms, must mean MY point of view since that is the only perceptual point of view I can physically possess.

JUD EVANS:
Hi Gary, This is something I have been trying to do for years. I have been attempting to view the things that exist, our earth, the cosmos as if I was an independent observer
- meaning someone else - not me. In other words I have been attempting to conceive of *things-in-themselves.* It is far too difficult for me to try to describe what I mean here, but part of it involves [say] looking at a tree and trying to imagine what it is like for the tree not to be looked at, how it exist as a thing in itself free from the sensorial contamination of human attribution - too see it *in the mind's eye* as it really is existing in the way that it exists. I do NOT believe for example that it exists in different phenomenological versions depending upon whether a human or a cow or a bird or an insect is looking at it and interpreting it sensorially.

GARY.C. MOORE:
To clear up a misunderstanding – possibly – what I propose deals with pure factual perception. I do not believe in a Ding-an-sich other than either A] materially and sensorally, it persists in time and place, or as Aristotle ALWAYS insisted for material identity *at the same place and the same time* THEN A=A AND ONLY THEN, with certain qualities in literal UNINTERPRETIVE perception, that is, the qualities are there in one place BUT THAT FACT NEITHER CREATES AN OBJECT OR IDENTIFIES ONE. HOWEVER, I can hand hand this glass to you, and say *Describe this* and you say *This is a glass*. And I reply, *No, that is an interpretative concept. What I want is a description of your sensorium of it in the present moment and place.* Though we would probably agree it is a glass, a description of its sensorium, if I am using that word correctly, would closely agree. We could disagree about its qualities AS A GLASS but that does not effect the sensorium we agree upon.

AS A SENSORIUM, I do not see how *a human, a cow, or a bird or an insect* would or even could disagree on any part of the sensorium they can adequately perceive according to there physiology. I say *physiology* very deliberately to make a point. Not only do the dumb animals not possess language to tell us what it is they perceive, but, if we are literally and persistently honest, we say absolutely nothing about their cognitive abilities.

Well, you think, Gary is always saying animal minds are basically no different from human minds, and since, though common sense says otherwise, I cannot scientifically get inside an animal's mind [that is, *mind* as operative and sensing brain] I have to humor him. But I invoke Occam's Razor again. Is not the simplest explanation of comparison of operative brains, including GARY. C. MOORE:e's of Jud Evan's, is that basically they are alike but objectively, for historical and physiological reasons, are seen to operate differently? This means that nothing sees a tree as a different kind of tree simply because of what or who they are, but necessarily see the same tree from a different vantage point as an insect, or special human being, and each and all of them from a different point of view positionally. Now you say, as a straw man, this distinction is trivial, but I say it is not. I say it is a fundamental point of what you literally KNOW versus merely verbal erasure of what are real distinctions in perception. The inconvenience of this way of thinking encourages abstraction to make the real tree into a mere abstraction WHEREAS Dr. Hannibal Lecter, if in fact his cell had a view which it does not, would be able to view a tree from only one vantage point, from his cell and all the connotations and implications of that, and ONLY ONE SIDE of the tree facing him. Is this important? Extremely. The tree is outside in freedom whereas he is inside caged. That jumps over a lot of logically steps of literal interpretation, but certainly the passion it aroses should be obvious. The vantage point, the situation of the perceiver, and the point of view, what the perceiver CAN perceive, are physically limited whereas we slovenly disregard our literal freedom to view the tree any way we want to and merely say, *It is a tree – so what?* Great differences in physiological abilities make great differencies in thought. An insect or prisoner can only do so much whereas we take our freedom to perceive for granted and consider any other limited perceptual view as morally and species-wise *inferior*, a useless, meaningless moral judgment added on arbitrarily to a fact that remains materially the same.

This is one of the things reading the Stoics and about the Stoics has taught me. *So-and-so is talking behind your back.* It is a fact these words physically are heard by your ears. Your over-imaginative mind thinks *I have been hurt!* This is a figment and does not exist. My saying the tree is ugly and your saying the tree is beautiful changes nothing of the sensorium of the tree. *He kills people*. That is factually said. *That is horrible!* That is invented. There can be an objective template of political action that determines the action of law enforcers. They say, *The man is a soldier. That is his purpose to kill people that threaten him.* *But the people killed are harmless BECAUSE they are civilians!* *Wrong*, the British Military Police say, as they apologize for bothering Air Marshall Harris, *By their actions, whether voluntary or not, whether directly contributive or not, help support and morally give approval, either actively or passively since if they disapprove they do nothing to contract it, to a murderous activity directed at the citizens of our country, not only killing people, destroying our culture and history, but also trying to destroy our government and political system. A rational world community has the same aim and motivation for their laws. Those people work against that rational purpose to destroy us whether they are forced to or not. Therefore they also are killers exactly as an enemy soldier is and it is this man's moral and legal duty to destroy them until they stop trying to destroy us by any means whatsoever.* *But the means he does it by are too much!* What is the rational standard for that? Marcus Aurelius had no compunction against killing Germans until Germans stopped killing Romans. The same for Air Marshall Harris. The same for Winston Churchill. The same for President Truman. It is a logical, and in its context
*moral*, statement – kill them till they stop. However, the *moral* is not necessary or needed. To achieve a specific physical fact you must do a specific physical action. Did your parents want to die under German bombs, Jud? Or did they prefer that German parents died until German sons stopped killing Englishmen?

It is never just killing is killing as a physical fact, but the PHYSICAL vantage point
- which includes the physical situation of the initiation of hostilities – and the PHYSICAL point of view - *I am here at the end of the trajectory of a German bomb* while *he is there at the end of the trajectory of an English bomb*. The physical continuity in time will eventually come to a stop with different results for the one or for the other. What is your vantage point and point of view of the tree between you and the German?

Ciao, Gary

GARY. C. MOORE:
Wed, 2 Aug 2006.
NON-LINEARITY

I am trying to approach a problem of personal human point of view from an aspect whose focus is assumed outside of that point of view which, as I have always said, factually and materially means MY point of view, meaning *point of view* always and necessarily, in materialist terms, must mean MY point of view since that is the only perceptual point of view I can physically possess. Now automatically, as you well know, such a pin pointed determination brings objections that there must be other points of view. However, materially, such so-called points of view are physically impossible to an actual human being and are mere abstractions, likenesses made from my perceptual point of view made on the assumption that, other human beings seeming physically like me and more or less communicating information that can be corroborated factually or logically, they also have perceptual points of view exactly like mine. However, I can never ever EXPERIENCE this as a physical fact. One makes deductions from language but that is where it must remain. So one fictionally, that is, abstractly assumes there are perceptual points of view other than one's own. They seem exactly alike in quality and ability - generally in *normal* people - but many differences arise from different mathematically diagrammed vantage points. There is also the problem of what is *important*, that is, what is worth paying attention to. This sometimes notably *warps* - not really meant derogatorially but rather simply factually  - transmitted information from another's point of to to be integrated into my own. It is essentially the FUNDAMENTAL meaning of the concept *importance* I am trying to delineate, attempting a historical portrayal of how it came about as something different from the strictly, physically personal and uniquely individual. After all, even many animals regard their mates and offspring, as it seems, *naturally* as IMPORTANT. But it is not the lion as a SPECIES that values its progeny but the lion as a UNIQUE INDIVIDUAL supposedly just like me. THIS lion values ONLY its own progeny and eats anothers. THEREFORE is there the possibility of ploting a non-linear vector outside my personal point of perceptual view? I think it is all too easy to say  *Of course!* since such a conclusion is emotionally comforting, but you know very well that is NOT what I want. I want facts. I want MATERIALLY or LOGICALLY ascertainable FACTS.

    *Matter* may possibly be out of the question here, though, and the logic seems to be getting away from the digital and wandering into the analogical. Analogically, I can put myself in the lion's point of view - but not factually. And here determinism comes in, but not quite as obviously as it might seem to be at first glance. With a lion, is there really any such thing as instinct - which it would seem to immediately put it beyond my purview - or is the lion's brain essentially like mine in all aspects? It is the point of instinct, that is, automatic appropriate action, that is the sticking point. However, I have never, using Occam's razor, ever seen to need to make that assumption. Instinct assumes qualities above and beyond mere nerve reflex so I see no comparison between to two whatsoever. Instinct has to be selective for whatever reason, by whatever cause, whereas reflex ALWAYS occurs with the proper stimulus. So there is a physical chain of causation in a lion's actions, but, going by the simplest explanation of the matter, it operates just like mine. You can corroberate point of view even with a lion to a certain degree. But you can see many of these arguments are merely approximations as compared to an absolute fact such as a normal mathematical equation. Therefore I was wondering about non-linear thinking, something I got from Malcom and his chaos theory in reviewing JURASSIC PARK, and its appropriatness in dealing with problems like
- I *believe* other human beings are very much like me but I do not KNOW this.

JUD EVANS:
This is something I have been trying to do for years. I have been attempting to view the things that exist, our earth, the cosmos as if I was an independent observer - meaning someone else - not me. I have been attempting to conceive of *things-in-themselves.* It is far too difficult for me to try to describe what I mean here, but part of it involves looking at a tree and trying to imagine what it is like for the tree not to be looked at, or - how it exists as a thing in itself free from sensorial human attribution - too see it *in the mind's eye* as it really is existing in the way that it exists. I do NOT believe that it exists in different phenomenological versions depending upon whether a human or a cow or a bird or an insect is looking at it and interpreting it sensorially.


GARY.C. MOORE:
Quickly, I can agree with all of that. But account should be taken of the mathematics and geometry of an insect's point of view as well as the fact there are other variables one knows little or nothing about, for instance, segmented eyes. In fact, that may well be extremely important for this discussion. Have there not been scientific studies SUPPOSEDLY showing how a fly sees things?

JUD EVANS:
I believe that it simply exists in the *raw* way that it exists and that it is the human causal object which exists and sees it differently. The bottom line? All objects in the universe exist in ever-changing modalities, but there is only ONE VERSION OF THE CHANGING OBJECT AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT IN TIME. GARY.C. MOORE:Appropriate to what I said about A=A. JUD EVANS:I do not believe that electrons can exist a point-particles and waves at the same time. A very convincing case for the wave nature of the electron has been posited and the electron certainly behaves like a particle sometimes. An electron has a definite mass and charge, it can move slowly, it can travel through a piece of apparatus from a gun to a screen. What, then, is the relationship between the wave and particle viewpoints? [point of view?] I believe it is the human observer who is misinterpreting the true nature of the electron in the same way that the human observer of the tree and the insect's are entirely different. The confusion over the electron gun and the impact scattering is NOT an indication of chaos but an indication of the experimenters not being able to see or detect or understand the nature of the electron as *a-thing-in-itself* but persist in slapping erroneous attributes on it which misunderstand it true nature. The standard modern interpretation is that the intensity of the wave (measured by the square of its amplitude) at any point gives the relative probability of finding the particle at that point. Hide and Seek. GARY.C. MOORE:That is much like Mariano's Jain blind men studying the elephant. One interprets the unknown by what one knows.

     An Eliminativist approach would be to state the facts as they are without a comprehensive interpretation. That is something not only that we need to get use to but actually develop a methodology, something you are very good at, of anticipating results that are necessarily always going to be incomplete, therefore not encouraging a comprehensive God's eye point of view. How does one go about describing something when it is not a *something* is the problem. The God's eye point of view wants a *thing-in-itself*. And the real kicker is BOTH approaches have their correct vantage points and points of view if used correctly. What I am trying to bring to the foreground is that NONE of this is simple and obvious. The God's eye point of view is absolutely essentially to both an astronomer and an atomic physicist because they deal with realms necessarily, that is, when being  *comprehensive* which translates in practical terms *What does it mean to us in the world we live in?* Nobody, including the most detailed and fanatical scientists, just want bits and particles of information and mathematical formulas for highly delimited aspects, they want something to show their real bits and pieces – which they can actually demonstrate in one fashion or another – have important meanings for the *whole scheme of things*, that is, and only can be, the God's eye point of view. So, we know the process in the laboratory only gives us certain particles of information that do not *interpret themselves for us*. And if we leave it at that, that is, simply show the real facts of the matter, we want to say *And so . . . ? What does this MEAN? Why is it IMPORTANT? What are we to DO with this?*

    What have we done? A number of *human* issues have suddenly been connected to material facts where there is no physical, material connection, and, considering that scientific experiments – ideally – are performed not to achieve BENEFICIAL results but are LEGITIMATE only if there is detached neutrality as to the outcome which simply wants to find a fact of reality no matter what it is. BUT, once done, THEN the God's eye point of view immediately – and, in its own way, legitimately - intervenes giving the experiment a moral framework of purpose and comprehensive understanding. Now, this is in the very nature of language AS WE HAVE LEARNED IT FROM OUR PARENTS. As such, it is an inescapable fact not to be avoided but should be dealt with straight forward in an honest manner. *What should be* always overwhelms in one fashion or its opposite another *what is*, that is, the bare facts of the matter. Therefore abstractions always have a theological implication to give them a sense of reality that they cannot logically and scientifically truly possess. Does this invalidate their use? Then you must cease to speak – and write. OR – you can think of it this way. The *God's eye* point of view gives one an IMAGINATIVE grasp of things one cannot possibly grasp through mere bits and pieces. It gives a MORAL imperative to see logical connections that only the imagination can bring together, which then – maybe – can be scientifically verified. We not only have a comprehensive grasp but also a purpose and aim to our thinking – where, in material fact, none exist. Now, in this regard, the Stoics can be greatly helpful because essentially what they are trying to do is move in the opposite direction. They want to LEAVE a world of overly emotional, traditional belief smothering aspects. They want to cut the theological in language down to the bare bone. Though there is a necessary and even useful theological remnant between their vantage point and point of view and our vantage point and point of view, none the less, the purposes and directions, though opposite, are true opposites, and are as compatible, and mutually necessary, as the north and south geographical and magnetic poles. Opposites are absolutely necessary to understand reality beyond bits and pieces in the hand to the overall comprehension in the bush.

     Both Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius constantly hammer at the point *What do you TRULY possess?* which translates *What do you really control?* which translates into OUR bugbear *How are you Free?* - NOT does free will exist, but, coming from the opposite direction where everything and anything is considered in the power of human free will including the powers and purpose of nature and the wills of the various gods, those two savagely cut your existence down to a bear sliver of self-responsibility, that is, *Do you assent to your sense impressions?* Mere assent. Absolutely nothing else. No changing of any external reality TO THAT ASSENT. And that *assent* means ONLY do you give that sense impression *importance*? All moral – and theological – importance – ALL OF IT, TOTALLY – hangs on that one threadbare point – and it CANNOT be expanded into anything more that that because both Stoics rub your face repeatedly in the fact the real object that caused that sense impression is COMPLETELY OUTSIDE YOUR CONTROL, YOUR *FREE WILL*, as a material fact even if it may be your wife and children. You cannot make a material exception for them. They fall into the same material status as physical objects as any other physical objects. If they are important to you, and they compel you to do certain things, then you are enslaved by them. You have given them your assent to be your masters. A harsh realization, but an undeniable one. Guess where God has a place in this? God is Nature, and what happens is natural, and as natural is good because it is rational and it has to be that way and no other. And now you have been introduced to the heart of Stoic physics and logic. They are disciplined to approach their wife knowingly in the same way they would approach a scientific experiment. I said *APPROACH*, no more. The Stoic acknowledges you will have feelings, but that is exactly and only how THEY should be approached, as
*sense impressions*, *Do you give assent and to what degree?* As Epictetus says, It is foolish to say you will not love your children, but even more foolish to IGNORE the ever-present fact they will die. Kiss them, he says, with the thought in your mind, *Tomorrow morning you could be dead.* In other words, THE ONLY THING YOU OWN is what you assent to. Period. Sum total of your life. In fact, even your life, your body, is totally at the use and abuse of anyone who chooses to do something with it. That too is part of reality as Nature. What happens, really happens, and since it does happen, grieving over it in a magical incantation of emotion as if that would change reality makes things much, much worse, not better, despite the fact that is what the bystanders around you expect from you. That is all that they can be in such a situation, bystanders. They are people of absolutely no importance. So, your assignment, Jud, should you assent to pursue it, is to approach imaginative comprehension and scientific particulars in a Stoic fashion, always knowing the facts of the matter are absolutely beyond your control – or *free will*, that what happens happens, that you and I are specks of absolutely no importance from the *God's eye* view of the Goddess Nature – maybe from here we can find out the insect's view of things, that is, if we are not stepped on first – and things go on without us as if we had never lived. Now, a normal person would cry out *That is an absolutely horrible thing to say!* But a Stoic would say, *It makes you free.*

3] JUD EVANS:
Now I may be going off the subject here - the question you raise about *point-of-view* and the reason for that is that I do not believe that such a thing exists. I believe of course that all humans are *point-of-viewers* and that we all have *attitudes* and *preconceptions* based upon our antecedal experience of similar objects or situations.

GARY. C. MOORE:
That is actually what I am trying to get away from. But a better way to put it is *distancing ourselves from . . . * since several kinds, and very different types, of just such a general methodology have arisen here.

A] I am trying to eliminate all *subjective* aspects from vantage point and point of view to the bare bones so anyone can say, no matter what their particular vantage point or point of view physically is, that what I say fits your facts of the matter.

B] *Opinions*, *attitudes* and, more technically correct, *preconceptions* are, as concepts and modes of behavior toward thought, essential and ever-present in each unique individual. But they are only as empty concepts generally applicable as necessary forms one must apply to one's living thought. In each person's case, according to their individual experience, they are filled with different items, as if going to a grocery store and shopping, since we each think we need different things to solve different individual needs.

C] Preconception determines without prior thought what one does with philosophy. The urge to change fundamentally one's present situation takes on forms DETERMINED by one's unique circumstances, therefore the aims and purposes of two different individual's pursuit of philosophy will necessarily be different even though they have many points of agreement.

D] These points of agreement, though logically coherent, are still different in their aims. This is why I am trying to stay with a coherent and consistent and universally acceptable concept of physical line of sight. Each person's line of sight must necessarily be different. But, graphically, optically, geometrically, they accords with the same definitions and follow the same rules. Why? It is because we can draw a picture and, instead of locating each point with a physical particularity present only to oneself, we can put in algebraic symbols, as in classroom algebraic geometry, to show the SHAPE of our thought and see an easy and coherent method of comparison and general situational likeness.

E] These forms are still abstract, and, as such, still liable to theological overtones giving them a reality in themselves as, for instance, *a word that everyone understands the same way*. But, since one can change one's thinking from solely using words to drawing lines on paper or figuratively in one's head, one has at least one item at hand one can simply perceive, though its interpretation and context will still be verbal and, hence, theological.

F] If one cannot completely rid oneself of the theological point iof view, especially such a tremendously useful one as the *God's eye point of view* that places in a form or order all the particular facts you know, then make it mathematical. Now, mathematics was born directly out of theology through the agricultural and herd dependent astronomy as well as the priest developed geometry of Egypt for re-ploting the boundaries of farmer's fields after the Nile Flood, and even abstractly out of Pythagoras. But these theological origins were bound immediately and directly with correct versus incorrect physical results, or rational solutions to logical and mathematical problems, and any further mystical interpretation thereof extraneous and discardable if unwanted. And the history of the discarding of the mystical connections of mathematics has had varying ups and downs throughout history, but almost always with educated intellectuals with overall and even ulterior purposes in mind. It did not operate as an opiate of the mind as common religion does with the mass of people, but rather just the opposite.

GARY.C. MOORE [previously]
Automatically such a pin pointed determination brings objections that there must be other points of view. However, materially, such so-called points of view are physically impossible to an individual human being and are mere abstractions, likenesses made from my perceptual point of view made on the assumption that, other human beings seeming physically like me and more or less communicating information that can be corroborated factually or logically, they also have perceptual points of view exactly like mine. However, I can never ever EXPERIENCE this as a physical fact. One makes deductions from language but that is where it must remain.

Jud: The way I see things the question: *What is Gary's point of view* can be answered that: *Points of view* are rather like qualia, or the answer to yet a further question: *What is it like to be a bat?* The answer is Gary's point of view is one of the ways, manners or modes in which Gary exists - Gary's point of view ... is... Gary, and what it is like to be a bat is to be a bat. As you say above: I can never ever EXPERIENCE this as a physical fact. One makes deductions from language but that is where it must remain.*

GARY. C. MOORE:
I am concentrating on two individuals with the most similar and nearly identical point od view – as in a geometrical drawing, in the abstract. I am making *opinion* and different species secondary for now, ALTHOUGH one should carry over a geometrical model of perception to *opinion* and bats since even these have to be geometrically positioned and related in the world. Remember, I am concentrating on things that can have a literal geometrical figure drawn about them.

MARIANO dV. C-T:
To easy things, it can be used the term "may be" as well as the term "point of view" as technical terms intended to mark a statement as an 'undecidable truth', as something which can not be said openly. Say, for example: "Maybe cows exist", to include the cases in which by "cows" we understand a word, a drawing, a concept, a class,... which does not exist. Nevertheless cows exist as long as we take the "cows" to have a referent in physical reality different than any of those mentioned (word, drawing, concept, class,...). Again, as any statement, being a representation, purports ambiguity, any statement may be marked with a "may be", else, we may take any statement as having implicated a 'may be' mark. Notice that this is may be a way to avoid reifications, -or false generalizations.

GARY. C. MOORE:
Yes, ambiguity is inherent as no one can occupy the same place at the same time as anyone else whereby, even just geometrically, no one can have the same experience as physically equal or identically the same. But words, drawings, concepts, and classes are also physical with exactly plotable physical positions in their material realities as breathes of air, as printed words on a page, as grammatical positions in a physically delineated linguistic context. One can use as a model, Can a computer do it? It can provide the word, the drawing, the concept, the class in a physical object, a material space geometrically positioned and mathematically measurable so being *may be* or *undecidible* is not ontological in language or logic but merely incidental and accidental. And, as my computer just demonstrated, it can edit my words without my permission.

MARIANO:
'Your' point of view is the point of view 'located in the place indicated by the word "you"' which may be pertinently interpreted, in this case, to be the same as the locus "Gary" or, may be, of the DNA + finger prints-Gary. Now, if this is so, think, then, that we may be unable to say openly what is the referent of Gary, because there is not a universal -or general- manner to determine it. We may know Gary, but we may not be able to acknowledge such knowledge openly, we may not be able to demonstrate that we know Gary, even in the event of being able to say things about him or to point to him, because we can not be in -or can not know- the same particular point of view which Gary possess; we may not share with him his particular physical locus... Or we may share a particular physical locus different than his locus or my locus... this depends on which physical locus are we talking about. There may be truths which can not be said openly, -or as mathematicians say: "undecidable truths"- about Gary, truths which even think we may know them, we can not put them within a theory -or a system- by means of which we might decide what is true and what is false.

GARY.C. MOORE:
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I am NECESSARILY a mere abstract locus to you no matter what initially. In time, a history of locus points accumulates around my locus point as mere meaningless word, maybe taking the form *He is really a bastard is he not?* The vantage points on the map of my/your/X's experience accumulate detail through time and more incidental experience. If a single theme predominates, then X achieves a *character*, a *personhood*. It may well be completely bogus and most certainly will be partially so. You cannot know me like the rock you hold in your hand. I cannot know you like the brick I cement into a wall. WE WILL ALWAYS BE A CONTINUAL SURPRIZE TO EACH OTHER unless we are extraordinarily dull in which case, in that fashion, we will be extraordinary and objects of pseudo-scientific experimentation.

However, I am always a place, a point. I am this word *Gary* and not *John*. The difference is minute and trivial in the extreme. But it is still the point where I exist to you – AND for myself. I am my writing – now – and, to tell the truth – pathetic as it is - most alive now. I am literally the words you read, no more. In time, maybe, as on a crime scene map, pins may accumulate at a spot, a town, say York, and the chief of detectives says, This is the center point of the serial killings. Though we must intensify the search for the killer here, we must also keep our minds open to the possibility this may be complete misdirection on his part. But, for some reason, he commits his murders here and either lives in York or has easy access for some reason to the city. You must study the clues. Hopefully they will tell you if he is a home town boy or an outsider. Knowing this will give us a great advantage in either locating him or at least discouraging him from further murders.

In other words, determining the vantage point AND the point of view is a detective story where only FACTS are desired, COMPLETELY DIVORCED FROM WILD ABSTRACTIONS not closely derived from the literal facts only. No one is able to share the locus with the murder except in the most logical and mathematical method possible.

GARY.C. MOORE [previously]
So one fictionally, that is, abstractly assumes there are perceptual points of view other than one's own. They seem exactly alike in quality and ability - generally in *normal* people - but many differences arise from different mathematically diagrammed vantage points. There is also the problem of what is *important*, that is, what is worth paying attention to. This sometimes notably *warps* - not meant derogatorily, but simply factually - transmitted information from another's point of to be integrated into my own.

JUD EVANS:
As we get older we become more attuned to guessing how another person must be feeling because we have met so many other people of a different sex, different age, different nationality and class that we get a good idea of the average person responds to certain stimuli and situations. There are ALWAYS exceptions and we can encounter people who react entirely differently to our expectations.

GARY.C. MOORE:
I would ask, How much of this is really getting attuned to others, others whose hearts we cannot know, or is it much more getting attuned to ourselves and saying, Differences really do not matter that much unless real harm is caused?

GARY.C. MOORE [previously]
It is essentially the FUNDAMENTAL meaning of the concept *importance* I am trying to delineate, attempting a historical portrayal of how it came about as something different from the strictly, physically personal and uniquely individual. After all, even many animals regard their mates and offspring, as it seems, *naturally* as IMPORTANT. But it is not the lion as a SPECIES that values its progeny but the lion as a UNIQUE INDIVIDUAL supposedly just like me.

Jud: The lion is imprinted with the necessary deterministic coding in accordance with *nature* or the existential imperative to manifest protective behaviour in relation to its young to ensure the eventual reduplication of its genes. You are right that it is the individual daddy-lion that is at the cutting-edge carrying out the protection.

GARY.C. MOORE
:I disagree on some points. A lion, and there is even a difference between the female and male lion on this, does not only not care about its progeny after a certain period of development, stops treating them as children, but often casts them out of the pride. Now a lion knows nothing about genes or even the survival of the species. It can only do things from its point of view. What we do is impose our point of view on them. Actually that is totally incorrect. How? We impose a point of view of how we SHOULD regard our families idealistically, completely disregarding A] how we actually treat our families in fact, and, even MORE so B] how we have seen others treat their families. So, how is the idealistic point of view? Through and through thoroughly theological, un realistic wishful thinking of the worst possible sort. Not only is it *One size fits all* but we do not even care to actually observe if the size fits.

And as to realistic observation of how we or others treat our and their families, we still strive laboriously to put an idealist show for others upon those actions while never paying attention to the actual facts of the matter. Tolstoy put it succinctly at the beginning of ANNA KARENINA, *All happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.* Though even that is inaccurate, it does nail down a number of points. The first point that is not at all obvious is that the happiness of the children determines the happiness of the family. For the adults, in a happy family, success in having a happy family depends A] on obviously necessary factors, but most importantly B] no abstract artificially imposed rules. The adults must establish rules, but sensible adults impose rules that are common sense and have immediate results that are observed carefully to maintain good results. IN OTHER WORDS, CAREFUL trial and error. And, of course, external events can completely destroy that. What makes a family unhappy should partially be evident, but the introduction even of traditionally bad rules will have different results with different members. I hope I am not talking complete nonsense – and someone bring this to Antonio's attention. One main point, in happy families, there is no primary imperative to carry on perpetuation of genes. That also gives an aspect as to unhappy families.

There will be similar differences in a lion's pride [the name is interesting]. The female lion is most caring to a temporal point. The male lion is merely tolerant up to a temporal point. If male children are cast out of the pride, it is certainly not because of any imperative against inbreeding. A more common sense view would be the male children are more competitive, and therefore thoroughly obnoxious, than the females. If a female is competitive like a male – I am guessing but I bet I am right – mother swats the heck out of her. Daddy might kill her. If she persists, her survival potential may decrease drastically.

Point of view? It is easy to see the simplicity of the lion's point of view and vantage point – IF ONE DOES NOT IMPOSE IDEALISTIC COMPLICATIONS THAT ARE NOT AT ALL SELF EVIDENT. And maybe it is just as easy to see the simplicity of human families – after all, they are animals too – except that WHAT SHOULD BE scoops our eyes out with a brutal spoon. The lion pride does give us an example of family life where there is the LEAST amount of interference in the education and raising of children. But if correction is needed, it is immediate, direct, and very severe. As if, let us pretend for a moment, that it were a life or death matter. The child gets the point or dies.