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Old 03-16-2007, 10:36 AM   #117
Erick Mead
 
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Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
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Re: Aikido as External Art -or- Where's the Chewy Center?

Quote:
Fred Little wrote: View Post
Even in the case of Budo Renshu, the work was ... approved by Ueshiba for distribution to yudansha.
So, if this report is accurate, he was editor and reviewer of their notes of his own statements. He adopted them by approving them for publication. How is this evidence, on the specific point I laid on the table, that he did NOT believe that scientific inquiry was warranted, or that it was, in any way, incompatible with his more classical, metaphorical view of describing their operations?

Quote:
Fred Little wrote: View Post
In such a circumstance, the only definitive statement that is reasonably sound is that no definitive statements are terribly sound.
Respectfully, that's a cop out. Knowledge can never be perfect. We should not therefore abandon the hope of its relative perfection or to disregard information that fails to meet some pre-conceived arbitrary test of validity.

The evidence is what it is, and until better evidence comes along we are all stuck with it in drawing our conclusions from it. Challenge the conclusions drawn form the evidence, certainly, but the evidence you have is all you have, regardless of its provenance, and stating that one would hope for better evidence does not rebut a valid conclusion from the evidence that you do have.

Giving all due weight to your concern, his students took definite meaning from what he said and preserved it. He reviewed their understanding of his meaning and approved it for purposes of informing and directing his successors in their defintion of the art. The translators should similarly not be impeached without some reason. It does nothing to change my conclusion on that basis. The statement itself was definitive -- I take it definitively.

Regardless of that quibble-- I concur whole-heartedly that nothing which is not useful in practice or demonstrable through practice survives an empirical test of its relevance to Aikido.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 03-16-2007 at 10:41 AM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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