[Arlo had said]: When you change your assumptions, if you feel the new form of knowledge has Quality, you accept both it and the assumptions underlying it.
[Ham] I don't understand the logic of this assertion, which seems to contradict Arlo's own argument. What does "feeling a form of knowledge has Quality" mean to Arlo? [Arlo] Well, fault me for using vernacular in a rigorously defined dialogue. Let me refine my statement to: When you change your assumptions, if the new form of knowledge has greater Quality, you accept both it and the assumptions underlying it. Then the question becomes "how do we know if the new form of knowledge has greater Quality"? While each of us has our own way of "fixing" belief, there are a few I can point to. Does it conform to our experience? Does it conform to the views held by the larger community we see ourselves as a member of? Does it allow us better results in our actions? Does it fulfill our psychological needs? Does it bring us power (symbolic or actual) over others? Does it "feel" good (aesthetics)? I'm sure you can add a few more. As for "feel" in particular, we are human beings after all and not Vulcans. We are emotionally-active beings, and our sense of aesthetics should not be divorced from our sense of reason. Isn't that part of the theme of ZMM? Of course the more we know about form, about premise, about context, about relationships, about classifications, all these inform our sense of aesthetics. 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/
