Dmb, I might remind you that the quote you provided from Chapter 29 of ZAMM was written before long before LILA and the MoQ.
Marsha On Oct 23, 2011, at 3:31 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > Marhsa said: 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. > > > dmb says: > Yea, I know. You still don't see any reason to give up relativism. No > worries. I was talking to Mark. Maybe he'll see the reason. > > > > > > >> 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 > > 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
