GRGR (5) PK and other threads knotted into one another

[Michael Perez]

rj wrote:
"I'm not sure that probability theory frees you up from the determinist
bind of objectivism either in the long run. The numbers are still ones
and zeroes aren't they, but described rather than tested
for/conditioned/manipulated. Judgment and consequent action are taken
out of human hands: faith in and responsibility for these are
apportioned to the numbers alone, aren't they?"

This lays bare both statistical and behaviorist determinism as
objectifying the "subjects" they are studying.  This is done,
presumably, to uncover some sorts of general principles of human
behavior.  However, we are beginning to see in _GR_ how horribly this
can turn and what can be forgotten in the application and justification
of these objectifying principles.

With the study of humans, particularly where the data collected is from
the subjects' responses to questions or other methods, it is much more
difficult to make general statements about the propensity toward any
given action.  Even dogs, pigs, and octopi may not be as simple as we
can want to believe.  In some ways, all we have left to say anything
about for certain is the semantic.  Wilfred Sellars wrote in _Science,
Perception, and Reality_ (1963):  "The essential point is that in
characterizing an episode or state as that of *knowing*, we are not
giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are
placing it in the logical space of reasons of justifying and being able
to justify what one says."[p.169]  Even pre-linguistic reactions such
as pain possibly cannot be generally defined - see Wittgenstein's _Blue
Book_ - and we can all turn into solipsists.

Slothrop's journey into the "stone-white cervix"[63.11] reveals a world
where there is only one of everything.  In episode 14, there also is
mirror image (Katje/Gottfried), but, perhaps, neither is complete
without the other, and hemispheric opposites (Enzian/Gottfried), but
the relationships are not complete and the symmetry is flawed.  The
connections rely mostly on Blicero's fetishism - another form of
objectification.


Michael




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