Hello Dan,
Matt said:
I think the endgame of the ZMM ghosts passage is more complex
than you're allowing here, because I think Pirsig in the end would
argue that while it is silly to think that gravity existed before Newton
made it up--because intellectual patterns are incumbent upon
people making them up--on the other hand it is internal to the
correct functioning of that intellectual pattern that it be true for all
previous time, in the past. Not all intellectual patterns have this
flavor, but a lot of the one's out of the natural sciences do.
(Principally, I think, because a lot of the stuff in "nature" was
around before we personally were.)
Dan said:
Now, I see that [i.e., the parenthetical] as a problematic statement.
While I think it is a high value idea that lots of stuff in nature was
around before we personally showed up how do we know that with
any certainty? Isn't this idea a culmination of social and intellectual
patterns informing us as to the nature of the world we inhabit?
Matt:
Yes, the idea is a "culmination of social and intellectual patterns."
I'm not sure why you thought my parenthetical statement implied
that it needed a Cartesian-like certainty as opposed to high value, as
I thought we were judging everything by. It is the interlocking of the
high value idea that lots of stuff existed before human civilization and
the high value idea that some ideas about stuff should extend the
length of the stuff's existence that produced my "because," not a
Cartesian-like certainty.
Dan said:
The point is, creationists will write the history of rocks much
differently than a person who believes in the theory of evolution
might write it. There is no one history of rocks that is any more true
than another.
Matt:
There's something weird in your formulation here. I'm not sure why
you think that "no one history of rocks is any more true than another"
because on Pirsigian grounds, either you don't judge according to the
notion of truth you just used (which is Platonistic*) but rather
according to their highness or lowness in value, or you redefine
"truth" in Pirsigian terms, which might be something like "a high level
of intellectual value," which means some histories of rocks are more
true than others.
Matt said:
So how could evolutionary history not be the same as personal
history? Two distinct reasons. 1) one should make a distinction
between "persons" and "not persons": rocks have histories, too,
which means that though persons write the rocks' histories, persons
should make a distinction between their own history and rocks'
histories. 2) one should make a distinction between one's "I" and
everyone else's "I," with the recognition that a lot of previous,
now-dead I's have been around. The point here is that the current
crop of I's we see walking around are the inheritors of the evolving
intellectual patterns created by people like Newton. So we should
make a distinction between _my_ personal history (born in
Wisconsin, 1980, etc., etc.) and the histories of _groups_ of persons
that extend beyond the range of a single person's lifespan (like the
US, born in Pennsylvania, 1776, etc., etc.).
Dan said:
I think that the MOQ views those histories as the same. What we as
living beings have inherited is the culture in which we are born and
which informs us as to the nature of the world. If for example I had
been born in a South American rain forest to a tribe of Indians who
had never had contact with the Western culture, I imagine my ideas
of the world would be quite different.
I would still be informed by ideas that I inherited from those who
came before me, however. I take those inherited ideas and make
them part of who I am as a person. I may not realize that it is
happening but over the years I am gradually indoctrinated and
educated into believing there exists a separate and distinct history of
the world quite apart from my own personal history. It makes sense.
It is a high value idea to be sure. But still, it is an idea.
Matt:
I'm afraid I don't see the difference between what you said and
what I had said. Except that you saw yourself as articulating an
alternative view.
Dan said:
I believe the MOQ says that the relationship exists in our heads
though, not out there in the world apart from us. So I am unsure
there is a right way of distinguishing between them.
Matt:
I no longer believe that "correctness" needs a notion of "out there in
the world apart from us." I no longer think that using it necessarily
implies that someone is using that notion of "out there," though
some uses of it do require one (for example, the one in my footnote
below). I'm not sure mine did.
Matt
*The notion of truth in "no one history of rocks is any more true than
another" is Platonistic because it assumes that truth is determined by
its accuracy to a reality against which the histories can be checked.
And because, according to this statement, this reality doesn't exist or
can't be checked against, that is why "no one history of rocks is any
more true than another."
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