Hello Platt, I started this earlier, and got side-tracked a bit, and it goes on a bit, but then, that's me!
> John: But according to the most eminent of scientists, philosophy is dead. > How would one address this conundrum? How can they be persuaded > otherwise? > > [Platt]: > I would ask the eminent scientist if he values his conclusion. John: Right! This ties in to something I've been pondering of Royce's Loyalty to Loyalty metaphysical stance. That's its very similar to Pirsig's caring about Quality. And what is Quality but caring? So caring about caring, loyalty to loyalty, same thing. Platt: But, what I think he really means in saying > philosophy is dead is that religion is dead because a Creator isn't needed > to > explain the universe. It arouse spontaneously from nothing. To which I > would > say, "Then nothing is really something." > > John: Well fundamentally, I think there is an effort being made, that has moral roots. There was this whole dominance of culture by religion, for so long, that needed to be opposed, that science evolved a pragmatic way of dealing with that whole mess . Basically by positing a values-free cosmos. But in a way they've gotten blinders put on by their enemy. And science is supposed to be about removing blinders. So they're sort of stuck. The poor dears. > [Platt] > I think the primary reason knowledge is social is because it's coded in > language which is social. John: I got fascinated with goat keeping for a while. I picked up a book called "goatwalking" at the Nevada county fair one year, there was a booth from a school I'd heard a lot of good things - John Woolman School, a Quaker school, but liberally sprinkled with hippy children so prevalent in the this area in the 70's. Anyway, a teacher at that school had written a book about survival in the wilderness with goats. He said it was possible to live off the land in deserts, with no water, with just two milk goats per person. The man gets his water and nutrition from the goat, the goat gets hers from the browse and the desert morning dew. He was a very good writer. He'd also been instrumental in founding the sanctuary movement of the reagan era, which had been a pre-cursor to the pain in the ass immigration problems of today, but the whole concept of people who are uncontrollable, he called it, "going cimmaron" because they are mobile and self-sufficient and thus autonomous, stuck with me to this day. He had many interesting insights to share in that book. One was the reflection that the first religious impulse of man, concerned his offering to God from two differing perspectives. Cain was a gardener, a tiller of the soil. A grower of things and a developer of real estate. Abel was a lazy-ass dreamer, a follower of sheep and did nothing to "earn" his sustenance except leach off the benefits of mammalian ungulates. And this dichotomy, offer the only two ways we can be fed on this world- agriculturally or hunter/gather/herder. And the interesting sting in the story, was that God prefered the lazy shepards to the industrious tillers of the soil. That bible! What a joke! But where were we? Oh yeah, the other thing I remember he said is that goats follow the herd leader. They browse on what the herd queen shows. He's had experience of goats marching past rose bushes, ( a goat favorite) on their way to the place that the herd queen showed them. This is socially transmitted knowledge, with no language except body- language necessary. But this is herd knowledge, not individual knowledge. Here's the thing with knowledge. Until it's communicated, any knowledge or any word is meaningless. For a word to be meaningful, there must be a speaker, and a hearer. If "in the beginning was the word" means what I think it means, then relationship itself, is fundamental to reality. Platt: > But, truth is tricky. At one time the social > construct was that the earth was flat. Not true. Today, the social > construct is > that values are subjective. Not true. So I don't believe in the collective > wisdom of individual ignorance. > > John: And I agree completely, of course. There's something about truth that compels past popularity. But there is social agreement apart from popular crowds, as well. A small community of consensus and reinforcement must be there to keep any individual with excellent ideas going. In fact, it seems for full quality to be realized, the balance between popularity and obscurity has to be just right. An almost impossible task in today's media-frenzied feed-back loops and why we see so little true Arete in our leaders. > [Platt] > The problem I have is one man's idea intellectual quality is another man's > claptrap. John: Well you have to make value judgments about men. Men might all have been created equal, but they don't turn out that way. A low quality person's ideas about "intellectual quality" don't matter as much to me as a person I'd deem high quality. It seems to me that a sort of "jesus loves everybody" bland religous teaching has permeated our secular culture in unhealthy ways. We have equal rights, but that's not the same as being equally right. Platt: > Science thinks it has a monopoly on intellectual quality, but what > scientific theory tells us freedom of religion is an individual right? John: It is particularly infuriating because of the self-confidence. Science should rather be honestly uncertain, than dogmatically attached. Platt: > Here on > this site there's a lot of what might be called intellectual quality that > strives for agreement but fails, like the MOQ's intellectual level > belonging > to SOM alone. John: Well I am encouraged to think of it as an infinite process. Royce has been a help there. And there are places in my thinking that I've adapted and changed because of arguments presented here, and I'm sure you can say the same. So if you're getting somewhere, you can take the eventual destination on faith somewhat. As a shared given. For me, it's plain that the 4th level represents something special - man's thinking prowess, however you want to define it, is a unique phenomena in our wide-ranging explorations of the universe. A Subject/Object metaphysics just isn't big enough to contain all we know and understand of the world as we find it. "No serious thinker holds the view for long." Says Royce, and yet you hold it Platt. And you are obviously a serious thinker. How can you hold this view for so long? I'm guessing, just to get a reaction. Your specialty, imo. Platt: > Anyway I'm suspicious of establishing truth by poll. I think > social agreement often gets in the way of DQ. New ideas have a hard time > getting accepted. The brujo, for example, took a beating from his society. > History is moved forward by one man with an idea,. like Ghandi and King. > But > you're right about social change ultimately needing social approval. > John: I've been thinking about this since I read part of a book called, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, the first battle mentioned was Marathon. I started to describe it to you, but decided to do that in another thread. Besides, it's fairly well know book and you might have already read it. It's even got it's own wiki page<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifteen_Decisive_Battles_of_the_World> . The author makes an awfully interesting point about the way intellect influences social changes in that book. Hopefully I'll expand on this a bit sometime. > [Platt] > "Objectifying the subject" strikes me as still being SOM. John: I agree, if any stopping place is conceived. As an ongoing process, however, I think it transcend's SOM. For one thing, as I think Borge's reference to the self-referential map problem points out, any reference to the territory must include itself, and thus the need for an ongoing new map. A problem of infinite regress. that we can't ultimately objectify ourselves - that "know thyself" is an infinite process - does not detract us from engaging in that process and realizing that that process, IS us. Platt: > "Valuing the subject" > is transcending SOM. But, by being "glib" I think you're on the right > track. > When Pirsig writes stuff like "Quality has Lila." he's being glib, but > profound > at the same time. Maybe I'm just partial to glibness, like "Science can't > explain why it is good," "Feelings won't feed the baby," and "No one is > obliged > to understand anything." Most "intellectual" prose has too much popcorn > surrounding the nugget of knowledge it offers. My motto: "Tell me quick and > tell me true, otherwise, the hell with you." > > John: You got good mottos, Platt. why I love you, no doubt. > > [Platt] > Not a tricky dance to me. I just remember that every new regulation is > another > chink out of individual freedom to choose. Now it's gotten so bad they are > starting to tell us what we can and cannot eat. Little by little, step by > step, > freedom is eroded. Of course, it's always for our own good. Authoritarians > always know best, whether parents, professors or politicians. John: There's a trend, it seems. The trend has to do with technological power. The more technological power man has, the more he has to be regulated. Man's technological power is constantly increasing, (moore's law, et al) so the regulation of man has to keep pace. And yeah, it gives me the shivers too. But what are ya gonna do? Live on the land and ignore the bastard's rules? Hey, I'm tryin' Platt. I'll let you know how it works out. John > 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
