Hey Magnus,
1) Metaphysics is the general framework, or understanding, or set of assumptions, that people unconsciously (with various degrees of self-consciousness) interpret, or see, or live in the world. As an activity, it is the attempt to make the unconscious self-conscious (this activity is also known in some circles as "philosophy"). 2) Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that attempts to display the basic, universal, ahistorical underpinnings of reality (this activity is also sometimes known in some circles as "Platonism," and in a few circles the acronymic "SOM"). Magnus said: You say that SOM is more or less implied by M2, and I would still disagree, but that may be me failing to remember Pirsig's critique in ZMM sufficiently. Are you saying that, given the "scientific method" from ZMM, you *will* end up with SOM? Matt: No. I'm getting the picture, with what comes after this, that we have different views of what SOM is. For instance, I was caught totally off guard by your question here. I don't find it useful to conflate science with SOM. In my view, one very general way to recapitulate the movement of ZMM is 1) Pirsig got caught in problems in the philosophy of science: what is a scientific theory? His solution was to say that a theory is a ghost generated by our evaluation of reality. 2) Pirsig got caught on the horns of the S/O Dilemma: is value in the subject or in the object? Pirsig's solution was to wonder how everything got split into subject and objects in the first place. 3) Pirsig trails the source to Plato: Plato thought there was a method, dialectic, that could detect Truth wherever it was. Pirsig sided with the Sophists who thought that Truth was an interplay of opinions, i.e. evaluations, between people. With regard to Pirsig and your question, Does science lead to SOM?, there are two manifestations of what I call "Platonism" that I would hold distinct: 1) scientific materialism and 2) Kantian realism. The first is the idea that science is a) the only route to Truth and b) everything can be reduced to physical descriptions. The second is the idea that a) Truth needs a foundation and b) both the mind and the world can only exist because of the other. I've been talking a lot about 2a, and 2b should look enough like the S/O divide to make sense of the schematic. I also have been making use of 1b, but I haven't been talking much about 1a. My thoughts are this: 1b and 2b are fine when they aren't attached to any of the a's. Everything can be reduced to physical descriptions, but that doesn't mean that physical descriptions are the only useful ones (this is the bland kind of physicalism I talked about). Science isn't the only Truth. In a certain manner, the mind and world can only exist because of the other, but that manner is like the one I suggested earlier: "There are a few problems with transcendental philosophy, but the broad thought--what _has_ to exist for us to be able to do all of the things we are doing--is largely something that can be done. But there is an infinite regress problem that arises if you aren't careful: unless you are going to posit a non-physical kind of existence--which is a dangerous proposition--when somebody asks you what kind of existence the DQ/SQ split has, one of the few routes people feel comfortable anymore with is "it has the existence of a metaphysical proposition," i.e. it's something stated by people (which is Pirsig's answer with "Western ghosts"). This, it is true, creates a circle that some people think is damaging--people need to exist for metaphysics to exist, which needs to exist for physics to exist, which needs to exist for people to exist--but some of us think that the circle becomes damaging and silly in equal measure: only by taking it too seriously. Part of what the word "univer se" means is "that which would exist whether people do or not" and the only sense in which the universe is dependent on people is the sense in which "universe" is a word, and only people use words." I think we need to keep separated scientific materialism and Kantian realism because only talking about the former will usually lead you to neglect the latter, which will go on persisting (though if you go after the second, you usually ipso facto eliminate the former). If we limit "science" to 1b, then there aren't any pernicious philosophical problems like the ones Pirsig ran into at the front end of ZMM. Magnus said: I realize that the scientific method would hardly produce something like the MoQ, not at first anyway. But hasn't the scientific community already realized that SOM is K-O:d and past the count of 10 by now? Matt: My view of "scientific method" and "science" is that they are simply a different area of discourse from, say, common sense. Science wouldn't produce the Metaphysics of Quality because "science" is its own entire area (with smaller ones like "physics" and "chemistry") and the MoQ is a species in a different genus, philosophy. I don't think science emits philosophical problems by its nature. There are only philosophers (like scientific materialists) who construe science in a certain way that create them. But most scientists, I think, have either 1) no philosophical views (and therefore aren't committed to SOM, which is a philosophy) or 2) are still scientific materialists. I don't think being 1 or 2 makes one a better or worse scientist, nor do I think believing the tenets of Pirsig's MoQ would make one better or worse. Nor do I think scientists necessarily make good philosophers. Matt said: So, Magnus, the question that will help elucidate what you think metaphysics is is: what kind of existence does the metaphysical distinction DQ/SQ have? Magnus said: First of all, I certainly do *not* think it's just what people feel comfortable with, "a metaphysical proposition". I think it's very much like "Gravity" vs "the law of gravity". "The law of gravity" is what people have stated to be able to transfer the physical "Gravity" into their models, i.e. representations of the physical world. In the same way, the DQ/SQ distinction has two forms, one as a metaphysical proposition to enable us to discuss it, and one as the primary existence, independent of people. Not sure if this tells you anything interesting about my thoughts about metaphysics. Matt: I'm not sure either. You say with great vigor that you'd like to go against what I dubbed the contemporary grain, that the DQ/SQ has more than an existence as "a metaphysical proposition," but your elaboration of what kind of existence it has doesn't help a lot: what kind of existence? Primary existence. What kind of existence is that? What is it made out of? How does it compare to other kinds of existence? Your analogy with gravity doesn't help much because it basically reduces to "the word 'gravity'" and "whatever the word 'gravity' picks out". I think that's great and perfectly fine. "Primary existence, independent of people" sounds like "the world" and I'm perfectly comfortable with saying that DQ/SQ exist as both a metaphysical proposition and as a set of phenomena in the world (which ones? whatever ones are picked out by "DQ/SQ"). And I think this was more or less your final answer: "It's implicit in any existence, but doesn't exist outside existence." As you said, that's true of a lot of things, but still, it is part of life's infrastructure, if you will. And none of this necessarily leads to Platonism, and Platonism is my enemy. Magnus said: We MoQers are sitting in the MoQ boat and are looking at the world from our point of view, philosophers are sitting in their boat and most of them are digging in intellectual history to make their boat bigger and better suited to withstand storms. However, I get the feeling some philosophers think they're on terra firma when they ask questions. I guess this is what you meant by your language paragraph above? Such people don't think they need any leap of faith. But, when we realize there is no terra firma, the original question loses its meaning, because there is no way to assert the correctness of any of the boats rocking in the ocean. However, it does make a leap of faith necessary. Matt: Well, I still think your "MoQ boat" vs. "philosophers boat" is spurious, but I'll leave off on it. And I'm afraid I don't quite see the connection between your sense of philosophers' "terra firma," my suggestion that since we created language, we created the questions, and so we can answer "mu," thus unasking them, and leaps of faith. I do see, however, the connection between terra firma and leaps of faith, but I think your falling into a very old trap set by Plato. Plato thought that if there were no terra firma, then we'd be adrift at sea, doomed. So he said there had to be a terra firma for the very notions of science and knowledge to function. Philosophers set off in their boats to find this terra firma, but have never found it. Some still think that it has to exist, and still look. Some, however, think that it doesn't exist, but still agree with Plato that science and knowledge need them, and so think that choice between boats, lacking the terra firma, is a willy-nilly leap of faith--you just gotta' leap into one, no way of knowing if it's the correct one. But some think that Plato's linking of terra firma and knowledge was bullshit. They think that, yeah, we aren't going to find the "correct boat," but the very notion of a "correct boat" doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and you can just look at the boats and see which ones are sinking and which ones are holding up, which ones are fast and which ones slow. There _are_ good boats and bad boats, though no correct ones, and we have all the instruments we need to tell the difference. You say your choice of the MoQ boat is a leap of faith. I say you made your choice based on reasons, reasons about why the MoQ boat is better than other boats. Not all reasons are good reasons, but at the very least, a trail of reasons is enough to determine your own rationality and reasonableness from your own point of view. Magnus said: So, if I do subscribe to M1, I can continue trying to convince other people about the correctness of my position? I could live with that. :) Matt: Though, as I think we just agreed, "correctness" doesn't make sense in this context. M2 is about seeking correctness. M1 is about seeking betterness. M2 philosophers always say, "Yeah, but wouldn't the correct answer be the best answer?" M1 philosophers need to respond, "Yeah, but what sense does it make say there is a 'correct apple'? There are good apples and bad apples, good dogs and bad dogs. We need to stop treating reality like a mathematical equation." Matt _________________________________________________________________ Use video conversation to talk face-to-face with Windows Live Messenger. http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/connect_your_way.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_messenger_video_042008 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
