From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 00:18:51 BST
Hi Ham,
This won't be any fun if you continue to be so darned polite. But
you've shamed me into being less antagonistic.... :-)
msh:
> Muslims faithfully believe propositions which directly contradict
> propositions faithfully believed by Christians. Both claim their
> beliefs are based on factual religious experiences. Can you not
see
> the philosophical problem with faith-based belief systems? THIS is
> what Pirsig means by patterns of low intellectual quality.
ham:
I'm not aware of any "direct contradiction" between theistic belief
systems;
msh:
Christians believe Jesus was the son of God; Jews don't. What could
be a more direct contradiction? But since you seem to be conceding
my point...
ham:
but you're right that there are differences. Leaving
Pirsig's "patterns" metaphor aside for the present, I not only
understand that religion causes problems for philosophers, I posit
Essentialism as an example of how to accommodate the "spirituality"
missing in most philosophy.
msh:
But why do you feel it's necessary to inject "spirituality" into
philosophy, that's the question. Whose void other than your own are
you seeking to fill? Perhaps I misread your tone, but in an earlier
post you mentioned Bertrand Russell with what seemed to be
admiration. It's hard to imagine a philosopher less concerned with
philosophy's misssing "spirituality" than BR, yet he lived a long
productive life full of spiritually fulfilling political activism.
ham:
It does this by offering a plausible ontology in place of pagan-
derived dogma which is a palliative designed largely to 'control the
masses'.
msh says:
Well, so far, to me, and unlike the "pagan derived dogma," the
ontology of Essentialism isn't even understandable, so I can't
arrive at the question of its plausibility. You've mentioned in
other posts that you'd be willing to expound on your theory of
Creation. I guess I'll have to wait for that.
msh asks, in re Ham's Challenge:
> Why sugar-coat the question with jargon? You are asking whether or
> not most people would like to believe they are immortal. It should
> come as no surprise to you that the answer is yes. The primary
> function of religious belief systems is to facilitate the denial of
> personal annihilation upon death. If the majority of people were
> comfortable with the notion of their own mortality, the need for
> religious dogma would have gone extinct long ago.
ham:
May I then note YOUR answer to my challenge as "Yes"?
msh:
No. I guess I wasn't clear. To me the idea of returning to nothing
after a long and useful life brings with it a profound sense of
peace. If answering Yes to your question means I'll spend eternity
wrestling with the logical disconnects of people who, say, work
themselves into a lather over their government's euthanization of a
single woman while remaining oblivious to that same government's
policies of exterminating hundreds of thousands of living, vibrant,
INNOCENT people around the world, well then.... back to the
beginning of this paragraph...
ham:
Did you really mean to say "the primary function of religious belief
is to facilitate the denial of personal annihilation"? I would say
the opposite -- that the purpose is to engendor hope for the
continuance of personal awareness.
msh:
That's because, for you, the continuance of your personal awareness
is of primary importance. For you, and many others apparently, any
hope, even false hope, is preferable to none at all. For me, every
second stolen from focusing on the indisputable fact of THIS life,
THIS here and now, and on how what we do affects the lives of others,
is a second wasted in egocentric reverie.
ham:
msg continues:
> You value philosophy and you are desperate for religion. This is
> obvious in your attempt to place religion and philosophy at the
same
> intellectual level. You're right in claiming that this craving for
> personal survival beyond death is at the core of religion; but to
> suggest that it is at the core of philosophical inquiry is
> ahistorical nonsense.
msh:
I had to laugh at your "msg continues" above. I guess, like
monosodium glutimate, I have a tendency to put people to sleep. :-)
anyway, ham continues:
That's not an unfair characterization, although I cringe at the
notion that I may be "desperate for religion". I think we, as
philosophers, have lost sight of our core belief -- what might be
called a 'credo' in traditional religion. Restoring that core value
is what Essentialism is all about.
msh says:
I addressed this above.
ham:
If philosophical inquiry has no core value for the individual, it is
pointless.
msh says:
This only makes sense if you believe value is external and must be
"attached" to things and ideas, I think we discover and enhance
our core value through the application of ideas derived from
philosophical inquiry. Philosophical inquiry is pointless only if we
make it so.
ham:
Incidentally, my cosmology does not support the view that the
individual *per se* is immortal, which is why I couched my challenge
question in terms that you called "jargon". It is the valuistic
Essence of man -- not the individual self -- that survives finite
existence. I think the word "immortality" may be misleading in this
respect, and therefore chose not to use it.
msh says:
Ok, But you do say "continuance of human awareness." I assume this
means something more than the breakdown of chemicals into the ground
and back into the trees and air. In what, other than an individual
sense, may human awareness be said to continue? Telling me it's the
"valuistic Essence of man " that survives, is telling me nothing, and
is what I refer to as jargon.
msh continued:
> DMB touched on this earlier, so here's a question for you: Why is
> it that the folks who find death most fearsome are the same who
> adamantly believe in Heaven, and their own ballistic acceleration
> thence? Seems like the transition would be a cherished upgrade,
no?
ham:
Perhaps such folks are lacking a personal philosophy that "makes
enough sense" to support their cherished core belief. (Does the MoQ
have that distinction?)
msh says:
I don't think so, no. I don't think the MOQ was developed to make
people feel better about their chances for personal immortality.
Much of the recent heavy-duty philosophical debate about the MOQ is
somewhat misguided, IMHO. The debaters seem to be trying to
establish whether or not the Metaphysics of Quality is "right."
Pirsig himself said a metaphysics isn't right or wrong, it's merely
more or less useful in describing reality as we perceive it. For me,
the usefulness, and uniqueness, of the MOQ derives from its expansion
of the notion of empircism to include value awareness, right or
wrong, good or bad, right along with the power of scientific
observation.
msh continued:
> And, since I'm asking questions, is it possible to have a a design
> without a designer? A creation without a creator? You apparently
> believe the universe was designed and created, and yet you don't
> call yourself a theist. How does that work, exactly?
ham:
No, I believe a design presupposes a designer; creation presupposes a
creator. William James asserted that we can't have "truth or
falsehood" without a physical world. [I'll quote you the passage
from "Varieties..." if you wish.] These are the extremes of a value
system, and his statement implies that we cannot have value without a
primary source of value.
msh says:
I certainly agree with the first two sentences above. But I don't
see how his statement in sentence 2 implies that we cannot have value
without a primary source of value. Maybe it's the word "primary"
that bothers me, suggesting as it does a first and independent cause.
We, every last one of us, are the sole determinants of value. IMO,
of course.
ham:
Concerning the "theist" allegation, I'm still on the fence in the
sense that it depends on your definition. I do not believe in a
personal (i.e., existential) anthropomorphic god. I do believe in an
anthropocentric Essence. Does that make me a theist? You tell me.
msh says:
Well, yes. I think you're a theist, I said so the first time we
swapped emails, and have reiterated several times since. Your theism
doesn't bother me, though your reluctance to claim it is a little
annoying. Anyway...
Since my own awareness of design followed by creation has so far
ALWAYS involved a human agent, I tend to discount the notion of a
non-human designer. I mean, I can imagine some non-human being like
a Clingon designing and building some nifty new battle cruiser And I
even see that this commonality of creativity, between Humans and
Clingons, might be well described as anthropocentric Essence. But to
suggest that this Essence exists independently of Humans and
Clingons, like some sort of stardust or etherous vapor, that it could
exist without any human-like agent at all, is, well, to put it
politely, incomprehensible.
And this is where jargon comes in, BTW. Jargon is a linguistic
attempt to disguise incomprehensability.
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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