Krimel: Yes, these are exactly the kind of irrelevant responses I'm talking about. Your replies only demonstrate that you don't understand what reductionism is or why it's a problem. In fact, you cite reductionists in your uncomprehending answers. (Wilson and Dawkins) In that case, at least, I already tried to explain how and why it's irrelevant. All you do is repeat the assertions being challenged without actually address the challenge. There's also a lot of attitude but that doesn't mean anything. Putting a sneer in your voice doesn't constitute an argument. And citing Wikipedia against actual philosophers like Rosenthal and Putnam is weaker than weak. It's foolish. It also shows that you're searching the net to find out what I'm saying. One day, when you think systems theory is an answer to reductionism, you claim it as your own constant companion. Then when you find out that's a form of reductionism too you say, "hey, I'm not an expert". Man, what a weasel. Here is one of my favorite recent examples of your empty sneering... Krimel said to dmb:You make this extraordinarily lame point that the narrator in ZMM is a literary devise. Perhaps but have you been reading Strauss or something. Like the book is code and sometimes it means what it says and sometimes it doesn't. Are we now to start looking for hidden messages and determining that for more than half of ZMM Pirsig is talking backward talk?
dmb continues:This is fairly typical. While striking a pose as the tough-minded scientific type you characterize my assertions as "lame" or "romantic" or "new age" or cultish" or anything you can think of that sounds insulting. Meanwhile, the assertion itself is simply dismissed without being addressed. You have so far failed to grapple with the explanation that Pirsig himself gives in the introduction to the 1999 version of ZAMM, which I posted in reply. In fact, you haven't mentioned it or even made reference to this contrary evidence. The worst thing is, you're constantly taking my complaints about reducing experience to physiological processes as if they were a denial that such processes exist or as a suggestion that the biological sciences are worthless. Man, that's just stupid. That's not even close to what I'm saying. Let us start with the basics. You tell me what you think reductionism is and why it would be considered a problem. I mean that generally. Set aside my complaints and the MOQ and just focus on reductionism itself. What is it, Krimel? You can even use Weakipedia if you think that's a good idea. But as I see it, that's like trying to understand "art" by looking the word up in the dictionary. It's not a bad place to start if you're completely disoriented and need to grasp the most basic ideas but it's not gonna help much in a philosophical debate. And that's another thing. I keep talking about radical empiricism and you keep talking about the physiology of experience, as if a theory of truth could be found in the body. That's fundamentally confused as well as being a conspicuous form of reductionism. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009 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/
