virus: War of the Worlds (Was Wittgenstein)

D. H. Rosdeitcher (76473.3041@compuserve.com)
24 Apr 97 14:23:54 EDT


Karl Popper, who influenced the development of pancritical rationalism, made
a distinction between the process of thinking which he labelled World 2 and
ideas or information itself, which he labelled World 3. World 2 consisted of
states of consciousness and can only be found in a mind and not in books, since
it concerns the physical functioning of the brain.World 3 consisted of ideas,
theories, information, etc. which could exist in the mind, but can also be found
in books and computers which can store such knowledge. There can sometimes be
conflicts when one person refers to the World 2 thinking process and another
person refers to World 3 ideas. Here is an example:

Richard B. wrote:
DHR wrote:

>> This theory is self-refuting. Wittgenstein forms this theory about
>>language, yet claimed that theories were meaningless.

>Boy, that Wittgenstein was a real idiot! What could he have been
>thinking?
>Damn! He says language is arbitrary and meaningless. Yet he uses
>language to say that! What a paradox! What a dilemma! How can it be
>resolved?

James W. wrote:
> d) Richard brings up the possibility that it is a paradox, and
>unresolvable.

In this case, Richard did not really make a comment about Wittgenstein per
se, but made a comment about my state of consciousness--an apparently rigid
mentality of seeing the world through a limited model that is based on a program
called "logic". James, on the other hand, responded to what Richard said, as if
Richard expressed an opinion about the topic of Wittgenstein. There seemed a
clash of paradigms, as one guy relates to an action (ie. mental functioning)
while the other relates to an idea (ie. Witt's paradox). This can create a
conflict that has nothing to do with ideas, but states of consciousness, in
which the guy in World 3 doesn't get the guy in World 2.

Richard wrote:
>He is a prisoner of your mind!
Maybe you can let him (Wittgenstein) out if you show me he has something
interesting to say.
Richard is a man in Seattle who said that memes control us and that there's no
such thing as truth. Now, YOU are a prisoner in my mind. Try to escape.
--David