Hi Ham
I never replied to this one, sorry about the delay.
[Magnus]:
I mean, is it
really feasible that mankind have separated those
scientific fields of research for so long (ok, I guess it really
isn't *that* long, but anyway), without good reason? Why would
everybody agree that physics, chemistry and
biology are different, if they metaphysically aren't?
Because they ARE different fields of investigation, established for
different objectives.
The question was rhetorical. I know they are, I was trying to hint that
a metaphysics should respect that.
The physicist is looking for basic principles of
dynamic interaction--the "mechanics" of the universe, so to speak. The
biologist studies life forms to learn the properties of organisms that
lead to evolutionary change and complexity. Since the time of the
alchemists, the chemist has been interested in categorizing the elements
and their behavior in reactiive processes such as compounding,
metallurgy, and polymerization. Of course there are cross-overs, as in
biophysics, genetics, geology, archeology, anthropology, etc., so that
man's exploration of nature need never be segregated strictly by "kinds
of substances" investigated .
I don't view these differences as "metaphysical", however. Nor, in my
opinion, are the four levels posited by Mr. Pirsig anything but an
arbitrary classification of observed phenomena. According to the
paradigm, anything that involves knowledge, thought or feeling is
assigned to the "social level", while inanimate and animate phenomena
are attributed to the "inorganic" or "biological" level, respectively.
(The so-called "intellectual level" remains in limbo, depending on
whether one regards reasoning as a "subjective" or a "social" function.
I have also been doubting certain aspects of the four levels for quite
some time, such as the pretty unspecified border lines. But other
aspects are still very appealing to me, such as the dependency and
discreteness, and I've been trying to work around my doubts by starting
with the appealing aspects and work from there.
Just what is "metaphysical" about such a classification, and how is it a
more "enlightened" worldview than the subject/object duality which it
was designed to replace?
The metaphysical aspect of it is actually starting to be useful now. As
you may have seen, in the computer thread, Andy and I have been talking
about different stacks, or instances, of the levels. It seems there
isn't just one universal instance that can be used for every thinkable
occasion. There is of course one originating from the physical universe
we see around us, the one physicists is trying to make heads and tail
of. But then there's another one inside a computer for example. No
gravity there, or electromagnetism, there are only ones and zeros and
digital operations like "and" and "or" for the programs and computer
viruses living in that universe. Also, it seems Bo is using a human
instance, where the first level is simply how a human (or possibly some
lower animal) perceives the inorganic world around it.
If we can learn to move about between those different stacks freely,
with our language, then we might really start getting somewhere here.
I would also like to point out that the subject/object world view does
not put any real value on biological experiences like taste and smell.
According to SOM, the only realness in a smell experience is the
underlying inorganic reality of it. The problem I see with such a view
is that an inorganic reality is only real until we find a new, lower,
reality that explains the inorganic reality. So for example when we know
how a smell experience works inorganically, the only reality of it is
the inorganic event, but when we later learn how that is supported by
quantum physics, we only accept that explanation as really real, and so on.
Did you read the link Marsha sent us a few days ago about gravity?
That's a good example of that. We've always been pretty sure that
gravity is real and it keeps us on the ground, we formulated formulas
for it and so on. Gravity is real by itself. But now this guy has
explained what gravity is in terms of lower processes. In SOM-land, that
means that gravity would lose its status as real, but in the MoQ, it
doesn't. We can still treat gravity as inorganically real, even though
we now know how it is connected, or depends, on the level below.
I think that is good.
Regards,
Magnus
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