Hello Marsha,
Sorry about my joke--I'd sent the response post before reading your
catch of the mistake. (And it hardly needs apologizing for--we all
make trivial mistakes like that.)
> Hello Matt,
>
> On Oct 25, 2011, at 6:57 PM, Matt Kundert wrote:
>
> > Hello Margie,
> >
> >> Hello Mark,
> >>
> >> On Oct 24, 2011, at 7:38 PM, Matt Kundert wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Matt said:
> >>> I'm wondering what it even means for science to reject, say,
> >>> biological values.
> >>>
> >>> Marsha said:
> >>> Science might reject the physical responses accompanying jealousy,
> >>> fear or hate from biasing the interpretation or presentation of data.
> >>>
> >>> Matt also said:
> >>> When did biology reject sex?
> >>>
> >>> Marsha also said:
> >>> Biology includes the study of sex.
> >>>
> >>> Matt:
> >>> The first response construes Pirsig in a useful way, but the second
> >>> walks into why the formulation is odd: science _studies_ stuff, but to
> >>> say it _includes_ it without the "study of" bit is to think that biology
> >>> includes having scientists having a lot of sex with each other ("in the
> >>> name of science," they keep telling their spouses). The answer to
> >>> the rhetorical question doesn't rebut the premise in the right way in
> >>> order to clarify the issue. Science rejects jealousy and fear as
> >>> appropriate responses in the "study of" bit, but in the same way the
> >>> answer to the second question could've been "biology includes the
> >>> study of fear." Biology doesn't reject sex, and it doesn't reject fear,
> >>> in toto: rather it rejects fear and sex in terms of their relevance to
> >>> the "study of" stuff. Which is why I find the Pirsig formulation a
> >>> little lop-sided.
> >>
> >> Marsha:
> >> Since there is no absolute by which to reckon whether RMP's
> >> formulation is a little lop-sided or your head is a little lop-sided,
> >> I'd have to wonder what are you trying to grasp? Do you know?
> >>
> > Matt:
> > Why on earth do we need an absolute to be able to make value
> > judgements? Did I not relativize the judgement properly enough to
> > my self and its perspective? Oh, I see that I did.
> >
> > What on earth are you looking for, Margie?
>
> Marsha:
> Make all the value judgements you deem necessary. That doesn't mean
> I need to accept or reject them. That was the meaning of my response.
> Didn't you get that? Maybe you should have tried a more careful reading.
>
I never said you had to accept them. I figure everyone makes those
judgements as they read along, and that my job is rather to lay out
the arguments (or whatever) that I find convincing.
What I find very odd is that this is the second or third time recently
that you've made your point that you don't need to accept or reject
my reasoning or whatever by invoking the lack of an "Absolute." I
have no idea why you do this. Invoking an "Absolute" either as a
lack or a presence seems to me so much a version of SOM-thinking
that it surprises me. It seems exactly the _wrong_ way for a
Pirsigian to make the meaning of such a response. That's why I
never catch that that's what you're doing.
You wondered earlier about what it is I'm trying to grasp, and
whether I even know, but how about this as an answer: I'm trying to
grasp the inner workings of my own thought-processes while at the
same time trying to see how they fit other people's. That's a way of
describing philosophical conversation. What's mind-boggling to me
about conversing with you is that sometimes it seems like you're just
trying to flout being pinned down as thinking X or Y. Like, every time
someone tries to approach your thinking in order to understand it, in
fact. It's as if you interpret these communicative approaches as
attempts to dominate you, but sometimes that's just not what's
going on.
Matt
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