John said:
... "cause and effect" are human tools of understanding, correct? Tools that
work reliably most of the time. But don't take the concept fundamentally.
That would be bad metaphysics, no? Or as dmb likes to put it (prolly cuz he
thinks it makes him sound cool) "reify." ...I mean, everybody does, right? ..
Even tho it's admittedly degenerate, we all reify. Ironically tho! See? That
makes all the difference.
dmb says:
If all conceptualizations were reifications and if everybody does it, then
reification is just another word for conceptualization. If reified concepts
include any and all concepts, then the word "reify" has no meaning.
Take the law of gravity, for example. The reification of that idea means that
we mistake the idea for a concrete reality. That does NOT mean that gravity is
then conceived as something physical or as something made of cement. But the
law of gravity is reified in the sense that the law is considered to be the
"real" reality behind all the falling and orbiting objects. This is also true
of causality. As ideas used to predict what will happen in future experience,
these are extremely good ideas. But reification means believing that these
forces really exist, somehow, apart from the experiences they describe. That's
reification. That's Platonism. That's scientific objectivity. And that's NOT
how we have to take it. We can say that such an understanding is an error. And
that's how Pirsig begins. From ZAMM, page 40:
"What I'm driving at is the notion that before the beginning of the earth,
before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of
everything, the law of gravity existed. Sitting there, having no mass of its
own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone,
not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere-this law of
gravity still existed? If that law of gravity existed, I honestly don't know
what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity
has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single
attribute of nonexistence that the law of gravity didn't have. And yet it is
still 'common sense' to believe that it existed.
Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself
going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one
possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity
itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense. And
what that means is that the law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's
heads! It's a ghost! We are all of us very ignorant and conceited about running
down other people's ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious
about our own."
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