Monday, December 10, 2007
my dead end is looking for an outlet
every time i sit and continue to work on this essay in progress my brain begins to hurt. i choose an avenue to explore and continue coming to dead ends. i'm not sure if it's a lack of information, clarity or i'm an idiot who can't carry a thought from beginning to end. do i think this pacs classification system works for all human action? sometimes yes, sometimes no, it all depends on the action. there are so many human actions to take into account and so many gray areas. i find it myself caught up in "what if's" and "why's" and definitions and i find myself wondering how i got so far off track. i have a theory that was been in the works for years and only 3 months to determine it's possible validity or lack thereof and i just don't feel it's enough time for me to gain full, if not, enough understanding to tackle a theory with so many complexities. i want to write a clear, cohesive paper but how can i when faced with so many uncertainties. now my brain hurts more.
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First, you are in good company. Grab -- or find online -- a copy of one of Plato's Socratic dialogues. I recommend the Euthyphro, because it's short, and so you can get to the substance of what I'm about to say quickly. In these dialogues, Socrates begins by inquiring of another or group of others about the meaning of a relatively common term, one which the other or others believe that he (it's generally a male) or they can readily define, since he or they use it all the time. Socrates and his partner or partners set out to "examine" this term, and before long they reach a dead end. For definition after definition, Socrates shows the logical flaws that plague everyday understandings of reality (generally he examines everyday understandings of values). By the end of the dialogue, no finally satisfying definition has been reached, and very ofen the dialogue ends with the partner(s) frustrated, angry with Socrates and with themselves, and at times even violent.
So, you're in good company.
As to a theory being in development for years... well, isn't this just the very nature of education? Did you think that in other subjects the material had just sprung newly created from nothing? If this theory has only been in development for a decade, it is hardly begun! And yet, folks take on theories of long-standing -- evolution or plate tectonics, to take some "junior" examples -- quickly enough. Sure, to really "get your brain around" PACS may take the rest of your life, but the basics of it seem simple enough.
Assessing it, however, requires, in part, that one must have at least one other view of the totality of human action. For some people that might be nothing more complicated than "there is no theory that adequately explains all human activity". For others, PACS is simply too simplistic, and a whole range of templates are desired to be applied simultaneously.
If one is looking to PACS to PREDICT human behaviors, the only value I can see there is in understanding the likelihood tat in any behavior one can identify what might be called a "philosophy component", a "craft component", a "science component", and an "art component". If one views a particular action, then, which has an apparently obvious "component", say, art, one can predict that there will be related science, craft, and philosophy "components"... with experience one might come to know HOW such "components" will be related to each other. Beyond this I can't say I am aware of a clear "practical" application of the theory at the moment. Perhaps a value lies simply in having a fuller understanding of the self and the operations of the self.
I suppose I should be flattered t read that the theory of PACS has "many complexities". I think of it as painfully obvious and simple. Maybe it is a greater "discovery" than I had thought.
In part I read between these lines a crie de coeur so common to those confronting philosophy: "just tell me the answer and put me out of my misery: is the thesis valid or not?"
I'm sorry: even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you now. You will come to know for yourself the validity and the value of this idea the longer you play with it.
As for the other cry-between-the-lines, well: there's nothing for it. Construct an essay as well as you can -- how can you do more than that?
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