Hi dmb, Well put! I am not satisfied to put things such as Truth on some kind of static continuum, where one truth is judged relative to another truth. That is two dimensional existence for me. They way I use Relationalism is more a three dimensional approach, which I believe is what Quality does. If we get stuck in reading terminology literally, then we are stuck with words.
I am sure that Marsha means well, but basing ones view on quotes misses a lot, in my opinion. Quality is an attitude; from that come the words, almost as an after thought. Arête is not a goal, it is a manner of living. Mark On Oct 23, 2011, at 11:31 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]> 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
