Hi Marsha, That is fine. At least you can place yourself within context that way. Perhaps there is another way to look at it too.
Mark On Oct 23, 2011, at 11:58 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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 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
