(2002-11-22) Ishmael General Semantics

Essay on Daniel Quinn's Ishmael and General Semantics. To state this point in logical language, I say that any organism, from bacterium to human, survives in the midst of its in-principle-unknown environment by acting like a self-correcting system - by acting in accord with the patterns described in (at least one version of) the logic of science... In Quinn's novel, when Ishmael and his pupil disclose the myth enacted by the members of the currently dominant world culture - by us - they show that our story includes, and indeed, rests upon, the rigid belief that we have found "The One Right Way To Live". In light of these epistemological considerations, I suggest that that belief amounts to a special case of failing to distinguish between "map" and "territory" - a special case of the archetypal error of pretending to "absolute certainty". (Absolute Truth, Monoculture)