Hi Matt, I'm not saying SOMism contains a paradox, I'm saying it doesn't work because it can't handle paradox (logical inconsistencies), and therefore everything it can't handle objectively, logically is relegated to some mystical, unreal or inexplicable realm to be subject to further unrelenting reduction until it submits or we give up and leave it there.
Ah yes, "all too predictable" was the wrong world-weary tone ... all I was really saying is that it can model moral behaviour (how sentient beings actually make decisions about good and bad actions) - and hence we can make plans and predictions based on such behaviour. (IMHO natch) Is the word irradicably paradoxical - yes in the sense that a SOMist view will never reduce the whole of metaphysics and moral philosophy to some logical explanation based on simple (closed, comprehensive, consistent) causal logical chain ... MoQ allows things that look like causation but rather arise from patterns that cross levels, and emerge "as if" caused, but without needing to reduce arguments to some meaningless unbroken causal chain. The level crossing frees us. I'm not saying MoQ contains a paradox (logical inconsistency) either - just saying it looks that way if we apply SOMist intellect to explain it reductively. The apparent fault with MoQ is still with SOM in fact. I doubt that helped ... but I tried ;-) Ian On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Ian, > > Ian said: > My view is that this "ambiguity" - a paradoxical aspect - is > its strength. When the "as if" telos is added to a more > reductionist Darwinian take on causation, then moral > behaviour is all too predictable, now and in future - that > doesn't make it uniform. The problem is most people still > look to SOMist arguments to justify their predictions - and > are surprised when they fail, as any SOMist argument > containing a paradox will. > > Matt: > A good illustration of the aesthetic attitude towards > metaphysics. I'm curious, though: if both the MoQ and > SOM contain paradox, as is suggested by the above, why > in the MoQ is it a strength and in SOM a cause for failure? > Is that the big moral lesson in the MoQ--live with paradox? > Why do we need to live with paradox? What view of the > world suggests that the world is irradicably paradoxical, > suggesting to us that nothing but a paradoxical > metaphysics will please us or prove useful in describing it? > Indeed, what's so paradoxical about ambiguity? > > Matt > > p.s. I don't know what you mean when you say that > moral behavior, once the telos is added back in, "is all too > predictable." > > _________________________________________________________________ > Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. > http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222986/direct/01/ > 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/ > 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/
