> [Ian]: > It's all language and all language is metaphors (dead or alive) > - you can approach understanding by using it but never > arrive at a destination called definition.
[Ron]: > Since SoM only deals with concrete terms MoQ ventures into, > co-habitates and emerges within SoM principles. [Marsha]: > It's all analogy, every last bit of it. So what is an > analogy? No-thing. Inside and outside, it's > no-thing. Individual=Subjective=no-thing. [Ham] Are linguistics and metaphors all that the MoQ is cracked up to be? If that's so, then how can anyone take it seriously? Why bother to understand it? I for one believe that Pirsig was on to something of philosophical significance, but never quite achieved his goal. Definitions are important, although not everything lends itself to a proper definition. On the other hand, refusing to define a fundamental term or principle used throughout a philosophical thesis is suspect. I've said many times that the essence of philosophy is the concept, not the word(s) used to define it. [Krimel] I agree that to the extent that the MoQ is broken, it won't be fixed by parsing parts of speech. But I think you are dead wrong about it's failing with regard to definition. The central undefined is the MoQ's greatest strength. It is a head on recognition that reality IS undefined. It IS uncertain at its core. Uncertainty and lack of definition is a _fundamental_ property of the world of TiTs and the world we construct internally. [Ham] Quality as value, moral goodness, or worthiness works well as primary sensibility, and I believe Pirsg was correct in his epistemology of experience. [Krimel] This is where that built in need to have definition fails. Quality is emanant in those things you list but it transcends them. Yes Value, moral goodness, worthiness and experience have Quality but they do not define it and it is not contained within nor constrained by them. [Ham] The problem is that experience is proprietary to an individual, hence cannot be assumed to be the fundamental reality. Whatever 'DQ' is supposed to represent cannot logically be quality or value as these terms are universally understood. Had the author not felt metaphysics too "restrictive" to his theory, he might well have come up with a less conditional (and problematic) term for his all-encompassing source. [Krimel] Certainly experience is subjective in something like the sense you say. It registers, is recorded and recalled within each individual but it is not wholly confined there. Experience requires interaction with an external world and with other subjects. Without those external stimuli all you have is solipsism. This is where the distinction between subjects and objects breaks down. A world without subjects is inert. A world without objects is solipsism. [Ham] Postmodernists deplore referring to 'God' as the primary source; yet the name is a contraction of 'Good' which is equivalent to Pirsig's Quality. Even Richard Dawkins, author of "the God Delusion", admitted to the possibility of a transcendent "intelligence" existing beyond the range of present human experience. St. Anselm defined God as "a being than which no greater can be conceived." The 10th century Arabian philosopher Ibn 'Adi postulated that since every definition mirrors an essence, God must also be one in essence. Five centuries later, Cusanus theorized that reason, plurality, and multitude allude to a unity to which neither otherness nor multiplicity is opposed. He called this unity The Infinite. I've stuck with Essence. [Krimel] The God that Dawkins finds acceptable is the God that Einstein, Weinberg, Sagan find acceptable. He is a pantheistic God. They all see in Nature an order and profoundly moving beauty. But it is not the cause or source. It is the result of Natural forces randomly working themselves out. It is new orders of beauty emerging as static patterns fall into constancy. In pantheism God is an infant growing up and out of the inorganic world. It is consciousness emerging from nature not causing and directing nature. God like everything else is not a Being but a Becoming. God's essence is emerging from his existence. [Ham] My point is that we all crave an answer to the enigma of existence beyond factual knowledge, and unless we are nihilists who believe that life is an accident of nature, most of us hold out for a transcendent source. That Pirsig chose to include DQ in his thesis demonstrates that he did, too. [Krimel] My point is that we should not let our "craving" dictate our answer. The nihilist may believe that life is an accident of Nature but in that "Oops" we see "Aha!" Rather than looking for meaning in an external source we admit that we must find it for ourselves. Purpose is not the gift of some transcendent source. It is something we negotiate with our fellows and adopt as our own. The acquisition of purpose is a personal responsibility not a divine gift. You can hold out all you want and turn blue in the process. Or you can believe that purpose is external to you and take what you get. But in the taking you are making it your own. You can try to evade personal responsibility by buying into ancient tradition but it is a shallow move and I agree with Dawkins that it is a delusion. [Ham] Let's not be such skeptics that we reject the insight and understanding that philosophy offers us. If. indeed, the MoQ is "paralyzed", why not determine the faults and fix it? Surely the author would prefer this to skepticism. [Krimel] Skepticism is the purest and most honest of philosophies. I would hope the MoQ like science embraces it warmly. 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/
