Jonathan B. Marder (marder@agri.huji.ac.il)
Sat, 4 Jul 1998 11:12:53 +0100
Hi Magnus and Squad
>> All DESCRIPTION is in the intellectual level. Description is an
>> intellectual process. [snip]
>But they're nonetheless real. And a metaphysical framework should
>make room for all real things, not just their intellectual shadows.
>
I'm not convinced that metaphysics can make that distinction.
>Hmm... Do I understand you correctly if that means that "the law
>of gravity" is an intellectual description, SQ. Actual gravity,
>on the other hand, would be DQ?
No, actual gravity is SQ too. I'm being deliberately pedantic here. As
soon as one describes something, or even gives it a name, it becomes
conceptualized (SQ). Nevertheless, I believe that both the word
"gravity" and the law of gravity are expressions of something real.
Furthermore, they both describe the same phenomenon, though Newton's law
does it in much greater detail.
>
>I would argue that "gravity" is inorganic SPoV, whereas "the law of
>gravity" is intellectual SPoV.
And I would argue that both are intellectual conceptions of something we
place in the inorganic level.
>> That's SQ too (the Heisenberg uncertainty principal)...
>It's the same difference here too, or as a semi-Swahili friend would
>put it, "same, same, but different." :)
>We're talking about two different things. You're talking about the
>intellectual description of HUP, intellectual SPoV. I'm talking about
>the HUP, the dynamic part of inorganic quality events.
I'm not talking about a description of HUP, but about HUP itself being
an
(intellectual) description.
[snip]
>You said the other week that the question whether a tree that falls
>in the forest without anybody hearing it actually falls, was pure
>semantics. ... I'd value
>a more elaborate description of possible interpretations...
I always thought this to mean that if you define sound as "something
heard" then sound can only exist with a listener. On the other hand, if
you describe sound as pressure oscillations, then the falling tree
always makes a sound.
>Anyway, if there's no observer to hear the tree, the tree might
>as well not have fallen you mean? And since there was no observer
>on prehistoric earth, it might as well not have existed. And since
>there were nobody present at the big bang, it might as well not
>have happened. There's a bootstrapping problem here somewhere.
>Our existence requires these events to precede us, and these
>events require our existence to precede them.
But we have EVIDENCE of prehistoric earth and possibly the Big Bang. We
can observe phenomena that result from past changes. It's more a
question of a tree falling, and there being a tape recorder running
nearby. So, to be more specific, I would say that something doesn't
exist if it leaves no evidence for its existence.
>
>One more thing, you used parentheses around "description of" in
>the sentence "It is not part of our (description of) reality.".
>Why? It looks like you don't acknowledge the difference between
>reality and the intellectual description of it. Don't you buy the
>difference between "gravity" and "the law of gravity"?
>
My understanding of Hindu philosophy is that our (intellectual)
understanding is "Maya" - magic or sorcery, a result of "Lila", the play
of "Brahman" (God) which is the true reality. On the other hand, Maya is
the only reality we know. We have no evidence for any other. I
understand Pirsig's DQ tbe synonymous with Lila. Where Pirsig departs
from Eastern Mysticism is that he make no reference whatsoever to God,
and instead starts with Lila.
Now, I face something of a dilema. If there is "reality" distinct from
our description/perception of it, that seems the same as Plato's
"Truth". On the other hand, if our perception IS reality, then there is
no absolute reality. We constantly strive to improve our understanding
of reality. If there is an absolute reality, we may approach it. If not,
we'll keep striving anyway. But we may never know the difference. This
to me is what Pirsig is about - the search for betterment.
I hope this clarifies my position somewhat.
Jonathan
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