Dmb, We have been through this before in the 'Humanism' thread November 2010. I do not mean an "anything goes" absolute, ethical relativism. Conventional (static) truth is relative; relative to an individual's static pattern history and the dynamics of the particular event. Truths may be judged within the MoQ based on their placement within the evolutionary, four-level, hierarchical structure.
Marsha On Oct 23, 2011, at 2:31 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > > Marsha said to Mark: > > I am quite comfortable with conventional (static) truth being relative. It > is a word comfortably used within Buddhism and I see no reason to reject. > > > Pirsig gives us lots of reasons to believe that truth is more than merely > relative, Quality is track that guides the formation of both facts and moral > truths: > > What guarantees the objectivity of the world in which we live is that this > world is common to us with other thinking beings. Through the communications > that we have with other men we receive from them ready-made harmonious > reasonings. ..And as these reasonings appear to fit the world of our > sensations, we think we may infer that these reasonable beings have seen the > same thing as we; thus it is that we know we haven't been dreaming. It is > this harmony, this quality if you will, that is the sole basis for the only > reality we can ever know. > > Poincaré's contemporaries .. presumed that "preselected facts" meant that > truth is "whatever you like" and called his ideas conventionalism. ..What he > neglected to say was that the selection of facts before you "observe" them is > "whatever you like" only in a dualistic, subject-object metaphysical system! > When Quality enters the picture as a third metaphysical entity, the > preselection of facts is no longer arbitrary. The preselection of facts is > not based on subjective, capricious "whatever you like" but on Quality, which > is reality itself. ..To leave the impression in the scientific world that the > source of all scientific reality is merely a subjective, capricious harmony > is to solve problems of epistemology while leaving an unfinished edge at the > border of metaphysics that makes the epistemology unacceptable. ..But we know > from Phædrus' metaphysics that the harmony Poincaré talked about is not > subjective. It is the source of subjects and objects and exists in an > anterior relationship to them. It is not capricious, it is the force that > opposes capriciousness; the ordering principle of all scientific and > mathematical thought which destroys capriciousness, and without which no > scientific thought can proceed. > > From chapter 29 of ZAMM: > Man is not the source of all things, as the subjective idealists would say. > Nor is he the passive observer of all things, as the objective idealists and > materialists would say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a > relationship between man and his experience. He is a participant in the > creation of all things. The measure of all things... > > How are you going to teach virtue if you teach the relativity of all ethical > ideas? Virtue, if it implies anything at all, implies an ethical absolute. A > person whose idea of what is proper varies from day to day can be admired for > his broadmindedness, but not for his virtue. > > Lightning hits!Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were > teaching! Not ethical relativism. Not pristine "virtue." But areté. > Excellence. Dharma! Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before > form. Before mind and matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been > absolute. Those first teachers of the Western world were teaching Quality, > and the medium they had chosen was that of rhetoric. > > > ...we advanced organisms respond to our environment with an invention of many > marvelous analogues. We invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, > gods, music, arts, language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and > science. We call these analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize > our children in the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We > throw anyone who does not accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But > that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the > continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in > which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it. > > Men invent responses to Quality, and among these responses is an > understanding of what they themselves are. You know something and then the > Quality stimulus hits and then you try to define the Quality stimulus, but to > define it all you've got to work with is what you know. So your definition is > made up of what you know. It's an analogue to what you already know. It has > to be. It can't be anything else. And the mythos grows this way. By analogies > to what is known before. The mythos is a building of analogues upon analogues > upon analogues. These fill the collective consciousness of all communicating > mankind. Every last bit of it. The Quality is the track that directs the > train. > > > > > 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 ___ 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
