Jon,
> JON:
> Pirsig says the fundamental "groundstuff" of reality is Quality/Morality. I
> find this to be a very practical idea. It all comes down to caring. When we
> view something in an amoral light, I think it's not a stretch to say we don't
> care about it as much as we'd view something in a moral way. There's so much
> about the world that we don't care about because it's inorganic, like the
> wrench on the cover of ZMM. That cover has a very powerful message about how
> Pirsig views life. Care more about that wrench in your hand. Caring more
> about the wrench will spill over into caring more about the job you are doing
> with the wrench, and naturally the Quality will permeate into other, more
> clearly human aspects of your life. I'm kinda tired as I write this, and it
> may be a tad clumsy, but I think you get my general idea here.
I love wrenches too and I have special sentimental attachments to mine because
I inherited my grandfather's tools. He hung them up and took good care of them and now
so do I, and I get pleasure out of using them because it brings back memories of him.
But suppose someone doesn't care about their wrench. He leaves it out in the
rain and let's it rust, and then curses the thing when he can't find it. Now you're
blaming this man's immorality on the scientific method, which drives the amorality
of science, right? But this is a little harsh when you consider the scientific
method was indirectly responsible for the invention of the wrench in the first place.
It's like biting the hand that feeds you. That wrench is a special
gift from science, and when someone mistreats it, you go and blame science.
I guess it's too late at this point in history; we're probably stuck with
SO thinking for good. But perhaps you'd feel better if we started imbuing
science with moralistic terminology, as Pirsig suggests. We could say "the
yin and yang subatomic patterns of value prefer to be together", which is
equivalent to "the positive and negative charged particles attract each
other". This sounds promising at first, but you start running out of moral
vocabulary when you have to describe such things as energy, velocity, and
momentum. And then there's the even harder challenge of making mathematics,
a whole amoral language of its own, sound moral. But suppose somehow you
could do it.
Now if you want physics to declare morals real, it's not enough to just
fix up the language, cos people will see through this little charade. The
dials must detect it. MOQ, which is based on empiricism, demands this as
well. Trouble is, according to MOQ, morals (DQ) are undefinable - they're
not any kind of thing that can be detected by an instrument. To do so
would mean scientists could trap it, analyze it, and figure out its
properties - in short, define it. It turns out DQ must not only be
pre-intellectual but also pre-instrumental. So there are no quantons or
morality waves. Morals, at least at what was formerly called the subatomic
level, have to be taken on faith. At this level at least, you might as well
give morals a special name like phlogiston or ether, because it ain't
experienced here. People can experience morals at the human level well
enough, through a special instrument called mind, but down at the
micro-level, it's hypothetical. Now, except for changing the language,
isn't this basically the current state of physics?
Jon, now do you see the problem with your problem? You are asking science
to do the impossible, and then blame it for not pulling it off.
Glenn
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