On Fri, 11 Dec 1998, Ken Clark wrote:
> Further, I can see no requirement for a mystical interpretation of DQ in
>this view. I dislike the idea of a universe based on mysticism because I
>prefer to live in a universe over which the possibility exists that I might
>possibly have some control, however slight, but mainly over which i might
>have some predictive power.
Who says you can't. When I put my door key in the latch and turn
it I have no doubt the door will open. A smple, mechanical process will
make it do so.
>Mysticism throws this out the window and we are
>just rattling around in a completely unpredictable universe.
No it doesn't.
>Such a
>situation demands that we invoke a God with whom we can plead for favors
>and possible manipulation of the physical forces.
No it doesn't.
You seem to making the same mistake as Mary and equating
"mystical" w/ "supernatural." I won't repeat all of that.
The main point here is still that you insist on making
philosophy/mysticism a compeating opponant to science. I don't see it that
way. I can see how you can easily have both -- just as you can have
natural science and political theory, or liturature and visual art...
they're not compeating; they're just different. Does painting
"contradict" poetry? THIS is the fundamental difference in our points of
view. I'm just as attracted to science as you... but I don't feel like I
need to throw-out philosophy in favore of it -- or visa versa.
>Donny writes:
> Something is hydrogen or helium by NOT being something else (like
>>oxygen, zinc or just empty space). Hydrogen as-opposed to
>>not-hydrogen. That's still relativly defined -- defined relative to
>>something. Everything w/in the world of "daylight consciousness" and
>>aristotilian logic (A is not not-A) exists relativily
>
>Clark writes:
> Does this mean that if we want to identify hydrogen then we have to
>compare it to everything that exists is the universe to be sure we do not
>have another match.
No, it means if I knw what hydrogen is I also know (by that same
act of definition) what it is not. If I refer to zinc as "hydrogen" I am
in error. If I refer to warmblooded vertebraets w/ hearts who bere live
young as "hydrogens" then I'm making an error.
As Wittgenstein says: "Knowing what a word means, means nothing
less than knowing how to use a language."
> Seriously, this is a perfect example of SO thinking and one with which I
>agree.
> In my view SO thinking is necessary for an understanding of our position
>in the universe and does not violate Pirsig's ideas.
> In my view, SO thinking is not incompatible with Dynamic Quality.
I don't think SO thinking = DQ! I don't think DQ can be subsumed
w/in SO thinking's hierarchys. "By definition" it's what you have before
you have anything -- before you have any hierachys of thought, any
definitions and any language structre. DQ is grasped through direct
experience. Pirsig talks about zen monks undergoing their practice for the
purpose of getting in tune w/ DQ -- "knowing" it as much as it is "known."
I don't think those monks are after an understanding of the univers's
force for information or any other "mechanical" process at work w/in the
physical structure and process of the universe.
Like philosophers, monks are also -not- trying to re-create or
compeat w/ science. It's, again, a diferent enterprise.
> Apropos of nothing, your thinkers stretching back through the years were
>not playing with a full deck because they did not have the benefit of the
>still limited understanding which science has given us. I think that any
>attempt to construct a coherent picture of our situation in the universe
>must be based on the reasonably firm knowledge that we have amassed through
>the years. Still lots of room to grow.
This is the kind of shallow view of intellectual history that (a)
really frosts my potatos, and (b) is why you have such a block when it
comes to understanding philosophy in general and mysticism in particular.
You're like my high school chemestry teacher who used to make fun
of Aristotle because of how "dumb" his physical theories were... what an
"idiot" he must have been. Ha, ha ha.
You're missing the fundamental point: SCIENCE is a means of
comunication; spicifically it is a type of proof -- a way of setteling
arguments. But these people in the past didn't say this stuff because
they were bad scientists, for crying in the ever loving beer! They had a
completly different definition for what COUNTED as proof! They had
different moral/social perameters for setteling their debates.
And here is the difference between 1st Philosophy (metaphysics)
and "2nd philosophy" (for us: science): Scientists prove things;
philosophers ask what counts as proof. A historian will give you an
answer to, "What caused the colapse of the Roman Empire?" and a
philosopher will consider what could possibly count as an answer to that
and why.
> Again, I do not wish to turn my intellectual freedom over to an
>unpredictable mystical entity.
"Unpredictable" has nothing to do w/ it.
What your saying is, "I don't want your philosophy to undermine my
natural science," and to me that sounds like, "I don't want your literary
criticism to undrmine my agracultural technique."
...sigh...
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
homepage - http://www.moq.org
queries - mailto:moq@moq.org
unsubscribe - mailto:majordomo@moq.org with UNSUBSCRIBE MOQ_DISCUSS in
body of email
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:43 BST