Hi John C, For a long time philosophers have wondered why mathematics, a purely human creation, has proven so useful in uncovering nature's secrets. That there appears to be a harmony between man's mind and the physical universe is just another chink in the armor of subject-object metaphysics -- a chink Pirsig has exploited with vigor along with other chinks such as how the mind of science and reason emerges from a congregation of mindless brain cells. It's high time the Church of Reason is challenged as viciously as the Church of God. Pirsig began the assault in ZAMM, then backed away in Lila, probably because hitting reason's "wall of prejudice" again and again caused him to conclude that discretion was the better part of valor.
Platt On 15 Oct 2010 at 9:32, John Carl wrote: Ok, I came across something in my travels that finally explained what so many on this forum have been trying to get across about uber-control of all-knowing mind or whatever... "If we can reason, it is because our thoughts can obey the order of the logical relations among propositions-- so here again we depend on a Platonic harmony.... I call this view alarming... [because] it is hard to know what world picture to associate it with, and difficult to avoid the suspicion that the picture will be religious, or quasi-religious. Rationalism has always had a more religious flavor than empiricism. Even with God, the idea of a natural sympathy between the deepest truths of nature and the deepest layers of the human mind, which can be exploited to allow gradual development of a truer and truer conception of reality, makes us more at home in the universe than is secularly comfortable." The Last Word, Thomas Nagel 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
