On Sep 21, 2010, at 2:37 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > > Marsah said to dmb: > I have never said any old thing is right. > > > dmb says: > You weren't quite that pithy, but that does seem to be what you're saying. > You said, for example, "Reality is whatever you think it is, there's no way > you can lie about it, and if you change your understanding of reality, then > reality changes too." > > Do you think there is any real difference between saying "any old thing is > right" and saying "reality is whatever you think it is"? I don't. Do you > think there's a big difference between "there's no way to lie about it" and > "there's no way to be wrong"?
Marsha: Yes I do see them as differen. As I pointed out your reality changed with the reading of ZMM and LILA. And I also state it was more a personal opinion and not a MoQ interpretation. I might see it being related in Quantum Physics with the 'measurement problem'. > dmb: > I don't. They sound more like infantile wishes than philosophical assertions. Marsha: And I think I've mentioned to you that you are not my standard of measurement. Pleasing you or getting your approval is not one of my goals. > And this mindless whateverism is so obviously NOT what Pirsig is saying. It > is as if you've taken the ideas about the personal and aesthetic factors in > our rationality, about multiple truths and the provisionality of those truths > and put them all in a blender with two cups of marshamallows and set the > thing on high. You wrote of putting feelings and passion into rationality. Those are words that should be served on your toast. > > Now who's gonna clean that up? > > >>> Andre quoted Pirsig: >>>> 'Poincare then hyposthesized that this selection is made by what he called >>>> the 'subliminal self', >>>> an entity that corresponds exactly with what Phaedrus called >>>> pre-intellectual awareness. >>>> The subliminal self, Poincarre said,looks at a large number of solutions >>>> to a problem, but only the >>>> INTERESTING ones break into the domain of consciousness. Mathematical >>>> solutions are selected by the >>>> subliminal self on the basis of 'mathematical beauty', of the harmony of >>>> numbers and forms, of >>>> geometric elegance. 'This is a true esthetic feeling which all >>>> mathematicians know',Poincare said... >>>> It is this harmony, this beauty that is at the center of it all'. >>>> >>>> Poincare made it clear that he was not speaking of romantic beauty, the >>>> beauty of appearances which >>>> strike the senses. He meant classic beauty, which comes from the >>>> harmonious order of the parts, AND >>>> WHICH A PURE INTELLIGENCE CAN GRASP, which gives structure to romantic >>>> beauty and without which life >>>> would be only vague and fleeting...'. My emphasis.(ZMM, p261) >> > "Mathematics, the cornerstone of scientific certainty, was suddenly > uncertain. We now had TWO contradictory visions of unshakable scientific > truth, true for all men of all ages, regardless of the individual > preferences. This was the basis of the profound crisis that shattered the > scientific complacency of the Gilded Age. HOW DO WE KNOW WHICH ONE OF THESE > GEOMETRIES IS RIGHT? ...And of course once that door was opened one could > hardly expect the number of contradictory systems of unshakable scientific > truth to be limited to two. A German named Riemann appeared with another > unshakable system of geometry which throws overboard not only Euclid's > postulate, but also the first axiom..." Marsha: I agree beauty and harmony should be included, but they are not absolute. And you stated feelings and passions should be put back into rationality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passions_(philosophy) ___ 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/md/archives.html
