Platt:
You are a good spokesman for MOQ and I'm enjoying this exchange.
GLENN:
Discussions on moq.org have stressed this important aspect as
a caveat (that the social level supports the intellectual level).
Frankly, Pirsig doesn’t stress it all that much. He’s more
interested in putting the social level in submission to the
intellectual level, which is in direct conflict with this important
caveat. (Parens added.)
PH:
If you are saying Pirsig is anti-religion and pro-science and pro-
individualism I agree. But, just as a safe environment underlies
our well-being, so a healthy social level supports intellectual
freedom. I think Pirsig stresses the point well enough.
He's against organized religions but he's spiritual. He admires science
but he attacks it. He's pro-individualism for sure. But none of
these is what I meant.
What I'm really saying is he's anti-social. He's an intellectual. He's
above all that social stuff. Every moral conflict he cites between the
intellectual and social level has the intellectual side winning.
GLENN:
The resolution to this conflict requires another moral decision, for
which the MOQ gives no guidance. The most difficult moral issues
of our time, like abortion and gun control, exhibit this very conflict.
And we’re right back where we started.
PH:
No guidance? Seems to me that “Lila” is full of moral guidance,
based on Pirsig’s theory of an evolutionary moral hierarchy which
explains in rational (rather than emotional) terms why, for
example, it’s better to kill a germ than a scientist. Abortion and
gun control issues are more complex to be sure, but the rational
framework is there for those who care to pursue it.
Maybe you missed my point. Whenever there is a moral issue between the
intellectual and social level, the evolutionary moral hierarchy says
to side with intellect. However, if siding with the intellect undermines
the social level to the detriment of the intellectual level, you should
side with the social. Depending on the issue, there may be compelling
arguments for either course. What guidance does MOQ provide for this
predicament? None.
You don't need MOQ to decide the "germ" example. It's not a
controversial moral problem. He's stacking the MOQ deck with trivial
examples as existence proofs for his moral hierarchy. Try a harder one
and you'll find it's not like "doing math" or "connecting dots" as
folks around here are fond of saying.
PH:
Sorry that I failed to make myself clear. I didn’t intend to refute
empiricism. As Pirsig says, it’s a very high quality intellectual
pattern, one he fully supports. My point was simply to illustrate that
all attempts to explain the world begin with a leap of faith. As John
Barrow, author of “Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate
Explanation” put it: “If religion is defined as belief in truth that
cannot be proved, then math is the only religion that can prove it is
a religion.” (Godel’s Theorem). Likewise, the confidence
scientists have in the creative power of chance is an article of faith,
as are their beliefs in causation, mechanisms and a rational,
orderly world.
Faith yes, but you're not comparing apples to apples here because
science and religion deal with beliefs that live in vastly
different levels. Physics and biology figure out the inorganic and
organic levels, social science makes educated judgements about the social
level, and philosophy and religion speculate about the intellectual level
and mystic realm.
The former have had a lot more success than the latter but
this is only because the physicist has easier subjects to study. And I mean
easy in the sense that the subjects sit still when you poke and prod them
(without moral controversy), and it's easy to control variables and do
careful experiments. When you move up to studying human cultures, you find
they don't fit into a petri dish. There are too many variables in a
culture, and you can't make all of them sit still long enough so that you
can change one variable to see the effect it has. And even if you could
force variables to sit still it wouldn't be an accurate culture, because a
culture is dynamic by nature.
I haven't read Barrow's book, but it sounds like he has a game plan for his
"Theory of Everything" similar to Pirsig's, and that's to discredit science
enough to allow for explanations of reality that are unscientific. He
points out math and science depend on faith, with the implication that
scientific theories are no more credible than religious speculations.
While the premise is true, the implication is not. Science depends on
much, much, less faith than religion does, and indeed, much of the
inorganic level *is* rational and orderly because when experiments are
repeated they give the same results.
PH:
Seems to me that “logically consistent” takes care of the
examples you cite. Shouldn’t take long to figure out that pink
elephants go away once you sober up. I will concede, however,
that most people act emotionally rather than logically. Pirsig is
careful to use the phrase “legitimate knowledge” in his description
of empiricism.
This begs the question: how do you know what's legitimate if there's no
verifiability?
PIRSIG:
The Metaphysics of Quality varies from this by saying that the
values of art and morality and even religious mysticism are
verifiable, and that in the past they have been excluded for
metaphysical reason, not empirical reasons.
GLENN:
Unless he is using a definition for “unverifiable” I’m not aware of,
or he has come up with some experimental techniques he has
failed to divulge, these things are indeed not verifiable. I don’t
know if he is confusing verifiability with simple experience here? I
just don’t know.
PH:
I don’t presume to speak for Pirsig, but it seems to me “simple
experience” is how we verify anything. It doesn’t take a
complicated experiment to verify the truth that it’s raining outside.
Reading a number on a computer screen as particles collide is a
“simple experience.” Your definition of “unverifiable” must include
criteria (like complicated experience?) I’m unaware of. Do you
mean verified by those “in a position to know?”
The quote refers to the verifiability of art, morality, and religious
mysticism, not inorganic things like rain or particle collisions.
PIRSIG:
They have been excluded because of the metaphysical
assumption that all the universe is composed of subjects and
objects and anything that can’t be classified as a subject or an
object isn’t real. There is no empirical evidence for this
assumption at all. It is just an assumption.
GLENN:
If he means “primary reality” when he speaks of “real” here, then I
could argue there IS empirical evidence to support the belief that
substance, or a distance cousin, is primary reality. The evidence
isn’t conclusive, but at least there is evidence. In contrast, there is
no evidence whatsoever that primary reality is composed of
morals.
PH:
I smell a whiff of rhetoric in the above. You introduce a concept of
“primary” reality, define it as composed of substance, then argue
that because morals are not composed of substance they’re not
primary reality. From what I read about quantum physics, the
evidence for so-called primary reality is that it’s nothing at all, a
vacuum, a diaphanous potential. Anyway, there’s lot’s of evidence
in “Lila” to support the contention that primary reality (what one
experiences first) is value, evidence that I corroborate every day in
countless ways. ( Ex: It’s better to be writing this than watching TV.)
I didn't mean to smell up the place. It's just that the only stuff around
to break up and study as elementary parts is substance. Morals don't break
up into simpler, more basic constituents. If we break up substance and find
morals then MOQ is on to something. Your point about quantum physics raises
hopes for this.
You also mention experiencing pre-intellectual feelings every day, and I
certainly know what you mean by this. But is DQ the only explanation for
these feelings?
GLENN:
Skepticism is healthy. (It would be nice to see a little more of it on
moq.org.) The important thing is that people eventually come
around to the better way of thinking.
PH:
Ah, you’ve introduced a couple of moral judgments. Perhaps you’ll
agree they are unavoidable, and that science, just like any other
discipline, is replete with moral values such as don’t fudge the
results of an experiment to prove a theory. Perhaps such values
necessarily come first—injunctions on how to “think better.”
Seems to me they do.
Of course scientists use morals in their work. Whether the morals are
first injunctions is less clear.
GLENN: (Commenting on Pirsig’s “solution” to the free will-
determinism issue.)
All he’s done is recast a nearly identical problem in MOQ terms.
Now the question becomes, “When am I free to follow the path of
DQ and when am I constrained to follow static patterns of quality?”
PH:
It varies with the individual and circumstances. Unlike science
which values stereotypical, repeatable behaviors, Pirsig
repeatedly stresses the uniqueness and value of individuals.
Fine, but how does MOQ illuminate this issue, as Pirsig claims it does?
PH:
As I’m sure you know, many scientists have wondered how the
laws of physics came to be. To claim they happened without
reason is to violate the most aggressively defended assumption
of science—that nature is rational at each step of a causal chain
all the way down to the bedrock of the laws of physics. To
suddenly flip-flop when the question of original creation is asked
is hardly reassuring. As Paul Davies put it, “Free-floating laws that
come from nowhere and have no purpose, reason or justification
fall into the same irrational category as miracles.” So it’s a matter
of taste or, as you say, “feel.” You can get your reality because
something went “oops” or because it’s “right.” Personally, I lean
to the latter, especially now that Pirsig has shown how it could
work.
Scientists don't claim laws happened *without* reason. Scientists, like
everyone else, can only speculate how the laws came to be, or if the laws
could only be as they are, or who the architect is or was.
Paul Davies' quote is rhetorical nonsense. Sounds like a strong case of
physics envy to me. If you can't beat 'em, bash 'em.
PH:
So where does that leave us? What can we base moral standards
on besides “culture” with resulting relativism. Are we set adrift
believing morality is anything you like?
The laws of morality don't appear to be like the laws of
nature. There are moral laws but they are often broken. Laws of
nature are not, or hardly ever, broken. Nature and morality operate
on different levels. The social level is complex and dynamic and people
must make moral decisions in this environment so it's not surprising that
moral standards are not absolute.
Glenn
----------
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Webmail account today at http://home.netscape.com/webmail/
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:46 BST