Ant/Mark,
Greetings. Since some of this touches on ideas I am interested in, I am
interjecting a few comments/questions.
[Mark]
This whole concept of "faith" is also one that tends towards
distortion. People have faith in science as well, to the point where
they believe what scientists tell them.
[Arlo]
Is there anything we believe that, in your view, is not faith-based? If
"science" is a religion, is there anything you could offer that is not a
religion? (I assume your argument is not that 'science' can become a
religion for some, but that science is always and everywhere a religion.)
[Mark]
People have faith in science as well, to the point where they believe
what scientists tell them.
[Arlo]
Peirce formulated four distinct processes by which we "fix" belief. The
first he called 'tenacity', the stubborn clinging to a belief because we
want or otherwise 'need' it to be true. The second he called
'authority', that is we derive our belief from what others tell us to be
true. The third he called 'a priori', which is like contemplative
reflection, where we sit and rationally try to reach that which is
'true'. And finally, scientific methodology, which he held as a process
of direct experimentation (I don't think I need to explain the
methodology to you).
Personally, I think we often 'fix' our beliefs by a range of these
methods. I've never been to the moon, or personally conducted
experiments to inquire into the makeup of the earth's core, so the
beliefs I hold on these are unavoidably (to some extent)
authority-derived. Of course, we select 'authority' along a similar
spectrum from tenacity to science-methodology (I'd argue), and that
creates an added component to this.
My question is, you seem to indicate above that 'faith' is a function of
'authority' (and possibly tenacity) based fixing processes. If faith
underscores them all, do you see any value distinction among them (or
any other belief-categorizations, not necessarily Peirce), and if so how
does that relate to 'faith'? In other words, if tenacity/authority/a
priori/scientific methodology are all equally and fundamentally
faith-based, how would you (or even, do you) differentiate among them
with regards to value?
[Ant]
Though Pirsig doesn’t like to interchange the words (because the former
term has a lot of distortive, traditional connotations from established
religions), “God” can be used as a synonym for “Dynamic Quality”.
[Arlo]
I think Pirsig uses the term "Godhead" in ZMM explicitly in one passage.
And his substitution exercise regarding the Tao Te Ching enforces this
idea. My question is, apart from the 'traditional connotations of
established religions', what would be the value of using 'God' instead
of 'Dynamic Quality'?
We use specific words to reference or 'mean' certain things. We mostly
adopt different words when at least some slight or differential
implication of that term has important value we are trying to
foreground. If we insist of using 'God', and say we are dropping all
that other stuff, then why use 'God' instead at all? Why not, as Pirsig
suggests, simply drop the term entirely? What is the 'value-add' of
saying 'God' rather than 'Quality'?
[Ant]
That's a difficult issue as the MOQ is just going to be incompatible on
some level with other philosophies and belief systems.
[Arlo]
This is a problem I have with the literary technique of saying "the
MOQ". I think this has come to, fundamentally, mean different things to
different people. I see some using it as analogous to "Pirsig says" (as
Pirsig implies in describing this technique) and others using it as
something independent of what Pirsig wrote, of which Pirsig was simply
trying to describe, and may be right or wrong about.
Think about it this way, if I ask "Can Pirsig be wrong about the MOQ?",
how would you interpret that? Do you see it as "Can Pirsig be wrong
about Pirsig?" or "Can Pirsig be wrong about how he's described the MOQ,
which exists as something for him to describe?"
Are Pirsig's writings "the MOQ" or are they simply a description (one of
possibly many) of "the MOQ"? This is not to argue that fields of inquiry
do not, or should not, or can not, evolve. They most certainly do
(whether we want them to or not). But, as the theory evolves, do we
argue that competing views are about 'which MOQ is the one-true MOQ', or
that 'my ideas are better than your ideas'?
In other words, if we broadly consider "the MOQ" akin to a categorical
label such as 'pragmatism' or 'existentialism', then we can come down
and talk about more specific variants such as Jame's Pragmatism or
Kierkegaard's Existentialism. We could talk about Pirsig's MOQ and
Arlo's MOQ, under an umbrella of core-similarities that does not deny
variance.
Or do we talk about 'the MOQ' as as single belief structure, akin to
saying that the only valid expression of pragmatism is James', and all
others are either 'wrong' or 'not pragmatism'? In this case, we would be
arguing for the validity of calling our beliefs "The MOQ" while variance
would be treated as 'not The MOQ'.
Going back to your question, if I rephrase it as "That's a difficult
issue as Pirsig's ideas are just going to be incompatible on some level
with other philosophies and belief systems", that sounds almost banal in
its truism, no? But if the MOQ is something Pirsig merely described
(sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly), then you can't really
make this claim, as the argument would be that incompatibility could be
seen as simply the current interpreter of the MOQ interpretting
incorrectly. In other words, it would not be that the MOQ is
incompatible with 'existentialism', but that Pirsig misinterpretted the
MOQ to describe it as such, and a 'correct' interpretation of the MOQ
could relieve this incompatibility. No?
By the way, nice to see you contributing again, Ant, in my opinion it
raises the Quality here considerably.
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