Ron: Enter MoQ, Pirsig heads in just this direction, this way of thinking metaphysically has no practical consequences in expereince. What he does focus on is how these metaphysical views effect response to the stimuli. Metaphysics does not effect what we expereince but how we view that expereince. This is what has consequence and should be the focus of metaphysics.
[Krimel] If what you are saying is that Pirsig is exclusively about phenomenology I agree. But I think the MoQ is about more than qualia. The fundamental analogue in the MoQ is the Tao and how it is apprehended primarily in terms of opposites. I think this is a metaphysical position but it is readily confirmed by everyday experience and through detailed study of humdrum world we live in. Leptons are particle/waves; causality is chaotic/determinism; we are mind/bodies. Adopting a metaphysical position does lead to consequences and those consequence can be assessed. Regardless of how esoteric one makes a metaphysic at some point it has to make contact with experience. It has to make predictions. It has to reduce uncertainly about our experiences; it must be meaningful. If not, what distinguishes metaphysics from fiction or from bullshit? ------------------------------------------------------------ [Krimel] I actually am somewhat sympathetic to the 'eastern' spin on this. What I experience is the stimulation and response of my nervous system. That's it. I have no direct experience of anything outside of my nervous system. What I make of this, the order I see in the world, the static patterns are of my own making. When "I" look at anything in "my" visual field "I" make sense of it. "I" see the patterns and impose the order and in this sense it seems very right to conclude that "I and that." It is me and of my own making. But I think it is utter rubbish to conclude from this that my senses and the sense I make of them is all there is. "I" am a process and part of that process is interaction with an external other. I can and do question the nature of that other. Whether it is material "substance" (materialism) or mental "substance" (idealism) or neither becomes in some sense a matter of metaphysical speculation. But that speculation must eventually account for what is observed and experienced. When I bang my thumb with a hammer certain things have to be accounted for regardless of metaphysics. I experience pain. Is it caused by the interaction of a material hammer impacting a material thumb or is it the idea of a hammer in relation to the idea of thumb? Unless the distinction has consequences that will matter whenever hammer contacts thumb in the future, then any discussion of the difference between materialism and idealism is just hot air. 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/
