KARL JASPERS FORUM
Short Note 31

RESULTS OF OPINION POLL
(see TA15 R12)
Posted 10 August 1999


I have received two letters in response to the inquiry.

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Chris Hooley
7 June 1999

I was distressed by the tone of your response [12] to TA 15. The Karl Jaspers Forum is unique. It offers us an opportunity to examine the framing of our stories. Can't it be said that we are all living through complex stories that reside between unstuctured life and experience? Aborigines, Buddhists, American Indians, constructivists, Cartesian scientists, and each Forum member experience life through a story. It is our world view and it has a frame, a context, which is normally unexamined.

The Forum, under your leadership, holds only, as I see it, that there may be common denominators among our stories, and that there may be applicable science, at least in the sense of falsifiable measures of a story's self-consistency or of its 'as-if' utility within limited domains.

I encourage you to exempt no story's framing. The Forum is special, but, if the salt loses its saltiness it is good for nothing.

Chris Hooley
e-mail <chooley@idnsi.net>

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Hugh Bone
8 June 1999

I certainly agree with your basic policy of open-ness. Clarity and brevity are valued by most of us; and its more difficult to write concisely; but in a friendly environment spontaneity is respected and new ideas may be aired and so-qualified with mutual benefit. Short paragraphs should be encouraged - they may help the writer as much as the reader.

Among all the names listed for this Forum, surely I am not the only one who would profit from definition of at least three words in the following sentence:

>Hylozoism is the recognition of semovient experiencing in nature; the ancient hylozoism supposed it fungible and the contemporaneous hylozoism recognizes it eclosional.<

Rather than trying to constrain the length of each posting, why not suggest that writers of long articles, introduce the subject, describe and post a first installment plus a description of installment(s) to follow.

Sincerely,
Hugh Bone
e-mail <hughbone@worldnet.att.net>

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Beside these responses, I have had some informal communications which seem to be in general agreement with the mentioned editorial policies as well. I am always open to suggestions concerning these matters.

Concerning the point raised by Chris Hooley, I see the common point for contributions in a wish to understand experience and our own dealings with it; that is to say, to comprehend our mental tools and techniques, and the benefits as well as problems which result from their use. Surely no one would go through the trouble of participating in this Forum unless he were interested in these questions.

Herbert FJ Muller
e-mail mdmu@musica.mcgill.ca

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There has been further discussion of the topic of 'openness', in connection with responses to TA 19 (Nunn/Frieden). Some people have commented in detail on a book which they had not read. Furthermore, some of the ensuing discussion became heated and personal. In general discussion, it was felt by various participants of the Forum that openness should be maintained but that in order to make this possible, personal attacks, and in particular abusive language, should be avoided. It was also suggested by one contributor that some of these exchanges might be considered as entertaining rather than offending.

Herbert FJ Muller
12 October 1999