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From: tsf@THEORY.CS.CMU.EDU (Timothy Freeman)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Individualism - Reality or Myth?
Message-ID: <1384@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 11 Apr 88 20:36:14 GMT
References: <779@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> <1081@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <7705@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <4344@chinet.UUCP> <5539@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <5646@well.UUCP>
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In article <5646@well.UUCP> pan@well.UUCP (Philip Nicholls) writes:
>In article <5539@spool.cs.wisc.edu> gautier@ai.cs.wisc.edu (Jorge Gautier) writes:
>>..."groups" ...are merely convenient abstractions
>>devised to help us in thinking about the complexities of existence.  To claim
>>that the "groups we belong to" define our selves is ridiculous.  At most
>>these "groups" will influence our selves, but never completely determine
>>them.
>>
>>Groups do not exist.  Individuals exist.
>
>One might argue also that material objects are really abstractions devised to
>help us in thinking about the complexities of exitence.  As we know, the solid
>appearance of an object is a illusion, as atoms are mostly empty space.
>
>To paraphrase:
>
>Objects do not exist.  Atoms exist.

Philip's analogy leads to the conclusion that Jorge is right, which
may not have been what he wanted.  To continue with Philip's analogy,
when you deal with atoms grouped into material objects, you have to be
prepared for them to act as a collection of atoms, because some of the
details you throw away when you make the "material object" abstraction
may turn out to be important.

Mapping that back to Jorge's original domain, when you deal with
people in groups, you have to be prepared for the people to act as
individuals, because some of the details you threw away when you
formed the "group" abstraction may turn out to be important.

The difference here is that people are more intelligent and
interesting than atoms (thank goodness!), so the "group" abstraction
is less reliable than the "material object" abstraction.

Read General Semantics by Korzybsky; he repeats himself a lot, and his
ideas about mathematics and the workings of the brain are wrong, but
his ideas about how the process of abstraction works are useful.
-- 
Tim Freeman

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