Marsha, You really are incorrigible. Have you no shame? Mark
On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 3:23 PM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Nov 19, 2011, at 5:12 PM, david buchanan wrote: > >> >> Marsha said to dmb, >> >> Would you please present your definition of relativism? >> >> >> dmb says: >> You're changing the subject and asking me to give an answer that's already >> been given several times. It's in the archives, I'm sure. You could find it >> by searching the quotes, which I've already responded to several times. >> >> Here's the idea in a nutshell. Relativism is the view that truth is relative >> to the culture or the individual, that there is no way to say that one truth >> is better than another. > > Marsha: > But this has been refuted. Of course an individual, a group, a community can > choose ways to test truth. The MoQ, for instance, uses a evolutionary, > hierarchical structure by which to judge truth. > > >> dmb: >> This is the kind of relativism we saw in Franz Boas. It is a result of >> scientific objectivity, which says that morals and values are just arbitrary >> social constructions. The MOQ says that some truths are better than others, >> that these harmonious reasonings are formed on the basis of quality and they >> can be judged on the basis of coherence, logical consistency and agreement >> with experience. > > > Marsha: > You are conflating cultural relativism with an epistemological relativism. I > do not need to check the archives because you have never presented the > definition of 'relativism' that you use. This allows you to over and over > again misrepresent the term and associate it with solipsism. > > >> dmb: >> Pirsig's intellectual autobiography begins when he's just a teenager, when >> he's tortured over the endless proliferation of hypotheses. Science was >> supposed to get you closer to the truth, he naively thought. But he >> discovered that science was going in the opposite direction. There were an >> infinite number of explanations for any given data set, so how do you know >> which one is right? > > Marsha: > Poincare making a choice based on insight does not obliterate all the other > possibilities, and it does not guarantee the Best choice was made. > > >> dmb: >> That's the context in which Poincare's insights came as such a relief. He >> could see that Quality is what takes the arbitrariness and capriciousness >> out of it. > > Marsha: > I don't get this statement. There is Quality(Dynamic/static) in every event. > The less static the event, or process the more Dynamic possibilities are > possible. > > >> Dmb: >> "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. ...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." > > RMP has stated: > > "The reason there is a difference between individual evaluations of quality > is that although Dynamic Quality is a constant, these static patterns are > different for everyone because each person has a different static pattern of > life history. Both the Dynamic Quality and the static patterns influence his > final judgment. That is why there is some uniformity among individual value > judgments but not complete uniformity." > (RMP, SODV) > > Is this the 'subjective" you are talking about? Different evaluations > dependent on "static pattern of life history"? Relativism does not > necessarily point to a subject/object point-of-view. Isn't James's pragmatic > truth relative to an individual or group's interest. Satisfaction and > success determined on 'how it works'. What you are protecting is criticism > against James. Criticism like the post I recently sent regarding RMP's > criticism of James pragmatism. The static quality (truth) is relative. In > the MoQ, though, it can be evaluated on the basis of its evolutionary level. > As Anthony writes: > “Intellectual values include truth, justice, freedom, democracy and, trial by > jury. It’s worth noting that the MOQ follows a pragmatic notion of truth so > truth is seen as relative in his system while Quality is seen as absolute. > In consequence, the truth is defined as the highest quality intellectual > explanation at a given time." > > >> We see the same idea in Lila, at the end of chapter 29, wherein Pirsig says >> that Quality is at the "cutting edge of scientific progress itself". All our >> concepts (analogues, ghosts, static patterns) were formed on the basis of >> Quality. People and ideas and cultures grow and change in response to >> Quality or, to put it another way, evolution is guided the track of Quality >> so that arbitrary and capricious truths don't long survive. > > Marsha: > The possibilities at the "cutting edge of scientific progress" are relative > to the history of the ghosts, analogues or static patterns and the Dynamics > in the present. > > > For the sake of "taking words seriously' please present an exact definition > of 'relativism' as you are using it. > > > > > ___ > > > 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
