From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Fri Oct 29 2004 - 02:16:00 BST
On 28 Oct 2004 at 13:10, Erin wrote:
msh says:
When you say you prefer the painting to the wall, you are not saying
Quality exists, you are demonstrating it. You are making a Quality
judgment, which is in itself evidence that Quality exists. There's
no need, and no way, to investigate further.
Erin: I agree in the direct experience of value of the painting but
I don't know about demonstrating. If another person thought the
painting was so ugly the bare wall did look better, how was it
demonstrated?
msh says:
This is a different question. Why do people sometimes disagree about
the objects in which Quality resides? In ZMM Phaedrus says something
like there's disagreement about Quality because some people react to
it emotionally, while others apply their overall experience and
knowledge. He wasn't happy with this answer because he thought it
would mean there are now two kinds of Quality, Romantic and
Classical. As I recall he never quite resolves this problem, but
instead goes on to say that Quality is neither subjective nor
objective, but something different. That reality is made up of a
"holy trinity" of Quality, Subjects and Objects.
But I think his answer has some promise. As I mentioned earlier...
Well here's what I said:
"...people often fail to see the value in valuable things for a
variety of reasons, one of the most common being discomfort with the
unfamiliar. Though we often appear to be far apart in our value
estimations, we need not be. If everyone's ground of experience was
equally broad I'd expect the discrepancies to all but disappear. We
share a common humanity, after all."
So one way to solve the problem might be to try to broaden our ground
of experience. Maybe the person who likes the painting and the one
who likes the wall should get together and talk it over. It may be
that the wall guy sees walls as a kind of found art. Maybe he likes
the texture, or values the way a certain crack ripples and spreads
into a subtle off-color stain. Or the painting-person might point
out some beautiful but subtle effect in the painting that the wall
person had missed. In sharing, their bases of experience become
broader, and their chance of quality agreement more likely.
msh said before:
However, I guess if you choose to accept the strict scientific sense
of the word "empiricism", that "observation" means "measurement" and
there's no other way to arrive at knowledge, and reject the broader,
philosophical sense, you won't be convinced by my arguments.
erin said:
I don't reject the experiences you are talking about I just prefer to
call them experiences rather than empirical evidence
msh says:
No way I can argue with a preference! ;-)
Best,
msh
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