From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Dec 14 2002 - 17:31:16 MST
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> This may not be a comment by either Jef or Anava. But let us not confuse
> "freedom and individuality" with "personal experience". One person's
> "ignorance" is another person's "experience". You can *never* invalidate
> another person's experience -- the best you can do is to argue that it
> may not be relevant in specific situations. I cannot stress this
> enough. There is no "ignorance" -- there is only an expression of
> what "works" based on their knowledge base. Knowledge bases are not
> universal (though we might like them to be).
>
If "knowledge base" is just another name for everything the
person knows, believes, is programmed with and so on then this
explanation explains nothing. Could you say what you mean a bit
more precisely? There is, for instance, ignorance of the kind
that is not merely misinformed or uninformed but willful refusal
to see and integrate information for whatever *reason*. I
cannot invalidate someone else's experience but the conclusions
they have drawn or failed to draw can certainly be less than
correct or reasonable. There should be a distinction made, I
believe, between what really works and what one has simply not
been killed by yet. :-)
> So much of what may show up on the extropian list as rudeness, bickering, etc.
> is really a conflict in knowledge bases. I'm moderately certain if the
> knowledge bases could be exchanged "instantaniously" that much of this
> would go away. Unfortunately we cannot easily do this using current technology.
>
>
I don't think you can explain it all like that. There is real
rudeness and bickering present that doesn't have anything to do
with the knowledge base except being either evolutionary
programmed patterns or learned patterns that have not been
overcome even when time after time they are shown to be
inappropiate and counter-productive.
- samantha
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