Klarinet Archive - Posting 000841.txt from 2002/10

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: Re: [kl] This thing on my front door
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2002 19:49:02 -0500

On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 15:51:01 -0800 (PST), b5w@-----.net said:

> Tony Pay wrote:
>
> > The point is a real one.
>
> No argument, Tony. *But* if you turn the key in the wrong direction,
> or if you have chewing gum stuck on the key....
>
> So I think it's meaningful to point out that few devices can be reduced
> entirely to their mechanisms alone. The human element is (a) what
> makes the difference and (b) can seldom be completely explained.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bill <who didn't mean to abuse the analogy>

OK. But you did abuse it, because it wasn't what I meant at all. (I
obviously have to take some responsibility for that, because I made the
typo.)

The point of my post was to imagine dividing the lock/key system into
two parts, and then to ask, nonsensically, which was 'more important'.

It's another case of using the analytical knife to divide up a situation
inappropriately, and then going on to worry about the resulting
philosophical puzzle without seeing that you actually *created* it by
making the division.

A blind man walks along the road, using his stick to guide him. As
we look at his behaviour, where do we think his mental system -- what we
call 'him' -- stops?

Is it bounded by the handle of his stick? Is it bounded by his skin?
Does it start at the tip of his stick?

Obviously it's a nonsense in this case to divide the situation into
'him' and 'his stick'; just as it's a nonsense to divide someone looking
at something into 'them' and 'their eyes', or someone speaking into
'them' and 'their voice'; or finally, a clarinet player playing a
clarinet into 'them' and 'their clarinet'.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
| |ay Oxford OX2 6RE http://classicalplus.gmn.com/artists
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