The Genealogy of Specious Dualisms (was: Platonist Chomsky?)

[Dace]

>Ted:
>
>You wrote:
>
>> Yes, language changes over time, but do the rules
>> that generate it change over time?  Can we express
>> these rules as equations?  Isn't an equation
>> ideal and atemporal?  You stated that the
>> algoorithms by which we understand statements are
>> stored.  In other words, they exist as an
>> arrangement of molecules.  So, here's my question:
>> Is it Platonic Chomsky or Atomic Chomsky?
>
>I find it surprizing that after all the attacks you
>mount on traditional categories and oppositions, i.e.,
>matter/spirit, body/mind, you now insist that Scott --
>who isn't even a Chomskyan, for heaven's sake --
>choose between these two.
>
>There is a great deal to be silent about on this
>topic.
>--
>Curtiss
>
It wasn't a very good question.  I seem to recall learning in college that
Chomsky locates the generative rules of grammar in DNA, but I thought I'd
make sure before moving on to my main point.  What I really wanted to get at
was the question of whether it's possible to escape idealism through
materialism.  Since Newton synthesized these two schools of thought in order
to create mechanistic science, anyone who theorizes in the confines of this
paradigm is equal parts Plato and Democritus, like it or not.  What
difference does it make if algorithms are encoded in molecules?  This is
just a sleight-of-hand.  Even if you write it down on a piece of paper, an
equation is still ideal and eternal, and this is what's supposedly governing
matter.

Ted