LS Re: Pirsig's present

From: Jonathan B. Marder (marder@agri.huji.ac.il)
Date: Sun May 23 1999 - 20:56:48 BST


Dear Ken, Keith, John B. and others,

Ken wrote to Keith:-
>You seem to be saying that the universe would not exist without
>sentience.

Ken, I sympathize with your frustration with the "human centered" view
of Quality, but in the end, I can't see where any any of our scientific
theories have any meaning or value EXCEPT to humans. Reality is a set of
patterns which mean something to me personally, and by extrapolation, I
assume to other humans as well. I can't really extrapolate much further
than that. The Big Bang at the start of the universe doesn't come
"before" my perception of reality, but comes WITHIN that perception, as
does time itself.

This may sound like word games, but I'm deadly serious. Let me rephrase
Ken's statement and say ... The universe AS WE KNOW IT would not exist
without (human) sentience.

The only universe we can discuss is the one we know, and describe in
common language and/or scientific theories - nothing else has any
MEANING.

Yet, John B. writes:-
>They are human inventions. They
>are therefore not real. And they keep changing. So what is real?

No John, there is no contradiction. They are human inventions *and*
real. . Let me repeat what I have repeated many times. What is real is
what is REALIZED.
Anything beyond our realization is unreal, or to put it another way,
MEANINGLESS.

I still think the most profound question on the nature of reality was
one by my son who had just been told a fictitious story. He asked,
"Daddy, was that a real story?", and I naturally answered "Yes!". Had he
used the word *true* instead of *real*, I might have answered
differently.

Jonathan

MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 17 2002 - 13:08:44 GMT