Re: cudiments

From: patty (pattyNO_at_SPAMicyberspace.net)
Date: 12/05/04 

Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 18:24:26 GMT

cantueso wrote:

> patty <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net> wrote in message news:<10jsd.610708$mD.278220@attbi_s02>...
>
>>cantueso wrote:
>>
>>>patty <pattyNO@SPAMicyberspace.net> wrote in message news:<pd0sd.435482$wV.311517@attbi_s54>...
>>>
>>>
>>>>cantueso wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>you cannot use biology to talk about everyday events.
>>>>>
>>>>>when the dumbest guy on the block bought himself a BMW and picked up
>>>>>the nicest girls in town, those poor dumb illiterate villagers also
>>>>>thought that this was a living proof of Darwin's theory.
>>>>>
>>>>>the principles discovered by Darwin only work over millions of years.
>>>>>as humans we have not had a history long enough to see those
>>>>>principles at work among ourselves.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>... maybe not upon our own physiology; but we can certainly watch it at
>>>>work in our culture and upon our cudiments.
>>>
>>>
>>>but that is very very superficial and completely reversible, so much
>>>so that the term "evolution" becomes metaphorical or mythopoetical,.
>>>they turn biological facts into allegory and fables. there is this
>>>emotional attachment to the word "real" that ought to give us all the
>>>goose pimples.
>>>
>>
>>Well you should talk about your goose bumps. But when i look around all
>>i see are cudiments. Everything in sight in my room is a cudiment. Oh,
>>but lookie there, just a hint of blue sky peeking through yonder
>>curtain. What is real to this city girl is just what i can do, and how
>>i can interact with my cudiments ... which new ones that i can buy ...
>>which old broken ones get consigned to the trash. I don't make anything
>>now, not even my own food. Now you tell me what's real !
>>
>>patty
>
>
> even at google's there was only 1 result for "cudiment". I saw that
> you explained it as a neologism, but google suggested that you meant
> Rudiments.

Google was wrong. Their suggestions are usually right on, yet contain
the assumption that you are being normative ... err ... at least i think
that assumption is in there ... is it? I almost always take Google's
suggestions, it is one of the best spelling suggesters around, except of
course when i know i am being a bad girl.

>
> as to the definition of "real", it cannot be just matter. maybe
> something about "agent of change" ought to be included in the
> definition.

Yes definitely, reality is relative to the agent. This distinction,
"real" or "not real", is a judgment. If it was manufactured and sold,
then it is a cudiment, otherwise it is real. My bias should be clear in
that sentence.

> consider for instance the collapse of the towers there in New York.
> for most people it was just a picture and a concept and yet just as
> real. or a computer virus. or "Christmas".
>
> I think the term is useless.

I think it is useful. Ask your child if he thinks this or that is real.
  You get important information that way, information that may surprise
you. Ask anyone what things they think are real and you will obtain
useful information about that person.

patty