Donny, responds to ken:
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.
lithien:
donny, where were you all weekend? i've been trying to make that point to
no avail. diana made it too and it seems to be in vain. we are up against
a brick wall of understanding here.
i think it is because they are not really listening or processing
information since theyre resistance is so great.
donny continues:
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...
lithien:
me too. i love science but it is just as SO thinking as anything else.
donny adds:
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.
lithien:
thank god or else we'd go mad. what is good about Lila is that it shifts
our reality and we become aware of SOM. but i dont think we can discard it
either.
donny explains:
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.
lithien:
i suppose if i didn't know anything about zen or hadn't read and experienced
it that would be my assumption too and perhaps i would be as close minded to
it also. but where is the sense of exploration gone?
Lithien
http://members.tripod.com/~lithien/Lila2.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Donald T Palmgren <lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
To: moq_discuss@moq.org <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Date: Monday, December 14, 1998 9:40 AM
Subject: Re: MD Universal Quality.
>
>
>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
>
>
>
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