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]
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.
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