From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Thu Jun 09 2005 - 14:25:52 BST
Ham, Platt, Paul, Matt and the other visitors to the Fair,
Thanks to all of you for the interesting discussion recently about “Primary
Reality”. Here’s a few comments on one of Ham’s & Paul’s recent exchanges
which just required a couple of expansions, here and there.
>From: <hampday@earthlink.net>
>Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 17:48:34 -0400
>
>Paul --
>
>Somehow I get the feeling (low Quality?) that you are evading my
>questions -- or, at least, the meaning of them. I also suspect that you
>are
>aware of this.
You might not be surprized to learn that I think it is Ham (rather than
Paul) who is evading the questions or has at least overlooked the various
subtleties of the MOQ. As far as I can see, Paul is just very carefully
laying out the MOQ without falling into various rhetorical traps.
>Yes, I know what a consensus means. What I asked was why we need one
>to form a personal belief system.
What about “to become socially active agents and therefore by doing so
improve the quality of our lives?”
>Again, you deliberately miss my point. One is aware of the concept of
>linear time and can reason that such events as the Big Bang occurred
>millions of years ago without having been there. It seems to me that
>either
>you believe it happened, or you don't.
This is one of those occasions where the MOQ’s subtlety is being overlooked.
According to the MOQ, it is just a high quality idea (at the moment) that
the Big Bang happened. I certainly remember that until the mid-1970s that
the highest quality idea in the scientific community was “steady state
theory” (i.e. the idea that the universe contracts and expands in a cycle).
And it is certainly possible that the scientific evidence may point towards
the latter being the most likely occurrence at a later date.
This “believe it happened, or you don’t” type of binary logic is also open
to question. You only have to look at the tetralemma (the four pronged
logic of Nagarjuna highlighted by Scott earlier this year) and Bart Kosko’s
theory of “Fuzzy Logic” to realise that many aspects of modern life are
better understood outside the classical true-false dichotomy. For instance,
fuzzy logic perceives the world in a continuum of grey shades rather than in
black or white. It has improved the technology of motor vehicles (enabling
a PC to reverse juggernauts, anti-lock brakes, engine management), steady
held cameras (which reduces handheld shaking) and washing machines (adjusts
washing strategy based on sensed dirt level, fabric type and water type.)
Other applications are numerous and include photocopiers, dishwashers,
elevators, air conditioning, factory assembly lines, golf swing diagnosis,
ovens, showers, televisions, toasters and vacuum cleaners.
The application of fuzzy logic (rather than binary logic) to modern
technology is a great example of (an MOQ type of) pragmatism in action.
>To say that "experience which is not
>valued is not experienced" is not to say that events that are not
>experienced did not occur. That's semantic nonsense!
>
>Paul:
> > There is idiosyncrasy in one's beliefs but to develop your own truly
> > personal belief system you would first have to develop your own personal
> > language system. I guess you may argue that you are free to do that
> > (although Wittgenstein would have disagreed).
>
>Whether Wittgenstein agrees or not, the English language suffices for me to
>explain my belief system
Only if there is enough social consensus (and ability on the part of the
users) to make it useful. For instance, it wouldn’t be much use in a group
of French-only speakers and many English speaking
non-philosophers/philosophologists would also look at you blankly if you
started to describe your Essentialist system to them.
>and I don't need any language to formulate it. You seem to be arguing for a
>"semiotic" universe rather than one founded on Quality.
Paul obviously isn’t and it is misleading to accuse him of that.
>What I hear you saying is that reality is symbolic, hence has
>neither substance, nor sentience, nor value. I don't think MOQ’s author
>would approve of this brand of nihilism, and I don't think you do either.
>
>Paul:
> > Instead of an innate function of some "organ" called mind, one may
> > say that reason is just an acquired and/or learned skill of using
> > conventional symbols within a set of rules to predict and help control
>one's
> > experience.
>
>Mind, as I'm sure you know, is not an "organ"; it is the cognizant locus of
>the cerebro-nervous system (its biological instrument). Without individual
>consciousness you would have no experience,
Ham, I think you have things backward here. For instance, would you have
individual consciousness if you had no experience? Moreover, I think you
will find (it is a higher quality idea) that experience (from the basic
experience of lower organisms to the higher mammals) was around a lot longer
than human consciousness which eventually developed from it.
>let alone a "consensus" to formulate rules or language.
>
>Paul:
> > You don't need a consensus or an authority to have a belief but
>nevertheless
> > most of your beliefs are "common sense," which is mainly a mixture of
> > consensus and authority. Or are you going to tell me that you reasoned
>it
> > all out for yourself?
>
>Yes, I reasoned my philosophy out for myself, although influenced of course
>by a variety of thinkers who had the same objective. Does that surprise
>you?
Well, Ham your statement surprizes me. From what I can gather
“Essentialism” is just a clichéd mixture of various SOM & Christian
philosophies. To be harsh, there doesn’t seem to be anything original in it
and is probably why it remains beyond even being considered a cult system.
No one else can see a reason in using it instead of established philosophies
(or religions) that at least have some degree of limited practical success.
>Paul previously:
> > In the sense that "states of events" are the current highest quality
> > conception of things then I would agree that "ideas formed
> > collectively at any time determine the state of events at any time."
>
>Paul recently:
> > "In my world of empirical reality, propositions are either true or
>false."
> > A simple statement. Let me ask a simple question -- what makes your
> > propositions true or false?
>
>Fair enough. To the extent that it can be verified by scientific proof, a
>proposition is true for the physical world. This applies to what we would
>call "facts".
Is that right? Again this throwaway assertion of “facts” isn’t precise
enough for me. If you want to know why, please read what F.S.C. Northrop’s
(“Logic of the Sciences & Humanities”,1947, p.35-36) observes about “facts”
in the following section:
“The second stage of inquiry comes to an end when the facts designated by
the analysis of the problem in the first stage are immediately apprehended
by observation, expressed in terms of concepts with carefully controlled
denotative meanings by description, and systematized by classification. The
important thing to note is that the second stage of inquiry begins with
immediately apprehended fact and ends with described fact.”
“Fact in these two senses must not be confused. Only fact in the former
sense is fact independent of all concepts and theory. Described fact is fact
brought under concepts and to this extent under theory. Furthermore,
described fact is not a mere aggregate of atomic data. One inspects
relations as well as sense data. Consequently, described fact takes on the
form of propositions. Propositions are expressions of which it is
significant to say that they are true or false. The importance of
propositions is that they possess formal properties and thereby provide the
type of material to which the formal methods of formal logic and
mathematical calculation can be applied.”
“It cannot be too strongly emphasized that if one wants pure fact, apart
from all theory, then one must keep completely silent, never reporting,
either verbally or in writing, one's observations to one's colleagues. For
the moment one reports or describes what one has observed, one has described
fact rather than merely observed, or immediately apprehended, fact. In
short, one has observed fact brought under concepts and propositionized. And
to have concepts and propositions is to have theory.”
What I am pushing at here is Northrop’s caution that it is only too easy to
keep using various philosophical terminology (such as “mind”,
“consciousness”, “metaphysics”, “truth”, “fact”) which get bandied around on
this Forum as if there was a clear consensus of what these various terms
mean. Unfortunately, if a term isn’t properly defined in the first place
(by the particular users) then confusion, talking past each other and
nonsense are the results especially as, for example, terms such as “truth”
are understood fundamentally differently by SOM and MOQ perspectives. I
think if you want to better understand Paul (and in consequence) Pirsig then
(as ever!!!) I recommend that you read Northrop whose ideas underlie many of
those found in ZMM and LILA. You might take care to note that Northrop’s
academic credentials are impeccable and the fact that the MOQ is an original
development of Northrop’s work undermines the falsehood that the MOQ is some
sort of cult system.
“F. S. C. Northrop was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on November 27,1893.
He was educated at Beloit College, Yale, and Harvard, where he received his
Ph.D. degree in 1924. He also studied at Freiburg, Germany, and Trinity
College, Cambridge. Professor Northrop began his academic career as an
instructor of philosophy at Yale, where he has been Sterling Professor of
philosophy and law since 1947. He has also been a visiting professor at the
universities of Iowa, Michigan, Virginia, Hawaii, and Mexico. The author of
numerous journal articles [AT LEAST ONE HUNDRED!!!], Professor Northrop has
also published four books besides The Logic of the Sciences and the
Humanities: Science and First Principles (1931), The Meeting of East and
West (1946), The Taming of the Nations (1952), European Union and United
States Foreign Policy (1954).” [NORTHROP ALSO PUBLISHED A NUMBER OF
BOOKS
ON LAW & PHILOSOPHY BETWEEN 1955 AND 1985]. (Biography found in the front
of some later editions of “Logic of the Sciences & Humanities”).
Don’t take my word for it though. Note the following from Henry Gurr, an
Emeritus professor of physics at the University of South Carolina (in a
recent e-mail to me and Ian G.):
“Since your [i.e. Ian’s] blogs reported your reading one of Pirsig's pivotal
books, ‘The Meeting of East and West,’ by F S C Northrop, I took up the
task and have completed about 60% of this most interesting and valuable
book. When Pirsig mentions Northrop's book on ZMM page 108 (Bantam
paperback), the ZMM riders are on the way to ‘the source’ in the ‘high
country of the mind’(the first set of mountains in Montana). He has just
finished his discussion of Phaedrus's ‘lateral drift’, and by implication
Northrop's book was part of the lateral drift.”
“Northrop's book is a compelling overview of global culture and how to think
about the East and West (also ancient and modern) cultural mixings about to
happen in 1946. His use of photographs to illustrate his major points is
impressive! Overall he has proper and very important things to say to us,
even 60 years later!”
“I am happy to report that Northrop mostly escapes my previously stated
reservations re academic philosophers…. I would have read this book much
sooner had I realized Pirsig based some 20 - 30% of ZMM on Northrop's book.
Indeed some very very important (and key) ZMM assertions have evidently come
from Northrop and probably would not have been discovered by Pirsig in any
other way. Therefore a ‘must read’ for Pirsig Pilgrims/Fans.”
>Let me try something new here, Paul -- simplicity. I'm really a very
>simple
>person who is impressed by great ideas expressed simply. We are all
>literate MD participants, but we all tend to get carried away by specious
>terms that fail to communicate. Simple answers are refreshing because they
>can inform with a minimum of effort on the readers' part.
Well Ham if you can’t understand what Paul states about the MOQ then I don’t
think anyone else will be able to help you either. I don’t know of a
clearer and more straight forward writer than Paul as far as the MOQ is
concerned.
>In simple terms, then, precisely what is your reality? Is it the reality
>of
>scientific materialism, or the reality of Value as proposed by Mr. Pirsig?
>(And please don't tell me that they are the same.)
I highly doubt that Paul would ascribe to this conflation though it will be
interesting to see how he responds to your request.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
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