Jacques Derrida Interviews Ornette Coleman (1997) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Jacques Derrida Interviews Ornette Coleman (1997) [pdf]

#51

Post by TheMagicHorsey » Mon, Dec 08, 2014, 5:51 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #42

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noam Chomsky summarized as follows: "As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others h…

A number of these "deconstruction" texts are bad, like any other philosophy or attempt in any field. Not because of how it's written - the thinking behind it is bad. Other of these can indeed be stated in simpler words, and remain enlightening and profound observation (what Chomsky asks). But in general, what Chomsky says is BS. It's analogous to: this Charlie Parker jazz piece is meaningless. Play it to me with conv…

If plain words don't work, then invent new notation like physics and math do. Its nonsense because there is no "higher" concept. They are expressing pretty conventional concepts ... like for example the simple concept that language and meaning have a cultural context ... a concept which can be expressed both with simple language and simple anecdotes.

You ever notice how the best practitioners of Math, Physics, and Computer Science produce great output in multiple fields. Not just their chosen field. Like they might be 99.99 percentile in one field, and in another field they are 99 percentile. In other words they produce useful and interesting artifacts across a whole slice of human endeavors. Whereas it seems to me these post-modernists mainly focus on one thing ... this post-modern bullshit. And everyone I meet that spends time on this post-modern stuff is pretty third-rate in everything else they do.

Re: Jacques Derrida Interviews Ornette Coleman (1997) [pdf]

#52

Post by coldtea » Mon, Dec 08, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #51

coldtea wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A number of these "deconstruction" texts are bad, like any other philosophy or attempt in any field. Not because of how it's written - the thinking behind it is bad. Other of these can indeed be stated in simpler words, and remain enlightening and profound observation (what Chomsky asks). But in general, what Chomsky says is BS. It's analogous to: this Charlie Parker jazz piece is meaningless. Play it to me with conv…

If plain words don't work, then invent new notation like physics and math do. Its nonsense because there is no "higher" concept. They are expressing pretty conventional concepts ... like for example the simple concept that language and meaning have a cultural context ... a concept which can be expressed both with simple language and simple anecdotes. You ever notice how the best practitioners of Math, Physics, and Co…

>If plain words don't work, then invent new notation like physics and math do

Or, you know, do it like philosophy and poetry and literature do, and combine the words in new clusters, assign them new meanings, invent a few helper words, etc.

>Its nonsense because there is no "higher" concept. They are expressing pretty conventional concepts ... like for example the simple concept that language and meaning have a cultural context ... a concept which can be expressed both with simple language and simple anecdotes.

That you can express the core concept doesn't mean you can express it's nuances. I can play "My favorite things" melody from a fake book in the July Andrews version, but that doesn't convey much about Coltrane's version.

In the scope of what those philosophers describe and work with, reducing it to something like "that language and meaning have a cultural context" is like saying "I've read War and Peace. It's about Russia, right?".

>You ever notice how the best practitioners of Math, Physics, and Computer Science produce great output in multiple fields. Not just their chosen field. Like they might be 99.99 percentile in one field, and in another field they are 99 percentile. In other words they produce useful and interesting artifacts across a whole slice of human endeavors.

No, I don't notice it. It's a myth invented by some hackers (ESR comes to mind) to feel good, and is a tired form of self-praise.

I know some hackers etc that dabble in music, painting etc. Nothing to write home about, and no great artist (as in, someone in the canon of western arts) was at the same time a great math, physics or hacker (DaVince comes to mind as the exception that proves the rule). To put it in another way, you might find 5 such cases. You won't find 10.

Richard Feyman, for example, was just a guy that could play some bongos (nothing to write home about) and could write amusing personal anecdotes in clear prose (again, no Hemingway).

Or you mean different fields in sciences? Again, I don't much see that. There are some cases, but most are few and far between. Take the great Physisists -- not much of a contribution to mathematics, if any (when they were not even quite mediocre in that field, like Einstein). Now, mathematicians doing well in Computer Science (like Turing and others) is mostly because Computer Science is just an ad hoc domain of applied Mathematics.

Re: Jacques Derrida Interviews Ornette Coleman (1997) [pdf]

#53

Post by TheMagicHorsey » Tue, Dec 09, 2014, 3:46 AM UTC

martingoodson wrote: post #46

hblanks wrote: post #38

What a pleasure this interview was to read. And plain spoken, too. Many here have complained that Derrida is hard to read, or worse, simply makes no sense. You may take a side in this, if you like. But I would encourage you to read some short piece of his instead. In so doing, and as the interview itself remarks on reading, you may make your own interpretation. @mbrock has listed several items. To these, I add what m…

I took your advice and read a "short piece of his" ( http://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Derrida/Di... ) I found this monstrosity in the third paragraph: "I will speak, therefore, of the letter a, this initial letter which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate, here and there, into the writing of the word difference; and to do so in the course of a writing on writing, and also of a writing withi…

I agree with you. Every time I try explaining this to people, there will be at least one guy who will claim he has read Derrida and understood all his great mysteries, but that plain language can't explain those mysteries ... you need some powerful new language to do so.

Its so ridiculous. Its like this self-contained world of hysteria. They have no useful output that effects the world outside their narrow hysteria. No one outside the hysteria can criticize the hysteria because by not praising the hysteria you are immediately one who doesn't possess the sophistication to produce critiques.

Its pretty much indistinguishable from some sort of fundamentalist religion where the proponents just live in a sealed chamber and are immune to reason. Imagine physicists talking in really technical garble, but never producing any models that actual predict real phenomenon. That's what its like.

Post modernism seems to produce nothing useful but documents for other post modernists to study.