Hi Arlo, I will do my best to answer with my opinions. You can take them with a grain of salt.
On 4/9/12, Arlo Bensinger <[email protected]> wrote: > 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: Here we try to separate "belief" from "faith". "Belief" would be something that we continually need to justify, whereas "faith" we do not. Therefore, I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow and never have to think about it. I also have faith that my body will continue to breath. If I only "believed" in the continuity of breath, I would be an extreme hypochondriac always resorting to doctors to bolster my belief. If one needs to go to church for "faith", it is instead "belief". We have science, which is done when one puts his hand in the shower to see if it is hot enough. Then there is Scientism which is a religion. Scientism is not based on direct experience, but on reading from a book. This is no different from biblical reading. That policies are made based on such book readings in order to control human behavior is not different from the inquisitions of old. > > [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? I have no problem with the manner in which Pierce uses his scalpel. You are correct that my statement about people and faith is a bit construed. As I explained above, faith is never questioned. Until perhaps a crisis is upon one. Therefore in terms of authoritative abuses, there are those who utilize this faith in science towards their own ends. This is no different from the church controlling the faithful, and must be seen for what it is. Scientism is a bewitchment of our day and age. What you term the "scientific method" is no more than trial/error and learning. We do it every day. This method has been elaborated and extrapolated to bring great good (and bad) to humanity. But there is nothing special about it. We add salt to taste. Adding salt is the experiment, taste is gathering the data. I would say, in answer to your question, that faith is a result not an underlying premise. We certainly have faith that knowledge derived from direct experience is real (otherwise we would be considered insane). However I am not sure this can be turned around and stated that faith is the bedrock of everything we are. This would make the concept of faith useless (and perhaps this is also what you are saying). In terms of Value, we tend to divide it up into little values. This is the same thing we do with Quality, that is dividing it up into little qualities. In fact, this world of appearances is simply those qualities that we have differentiated. Therefore the whole thing is Quality. I would put the three principles in the following order of importance: Tenacity>science>authority. I am using tenacity in the positive sense of Will. As you know, I cannot stand authority, but it is sometimes necessary. > > [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'? I would simply say that by doing so, we get a better understanding of what others think of in terms of God. This is tricky since we do not want to succumb to the dogmatic religions. However, when reading many texts that deal with the subject of God, and converting that term to DQ, we can learn from the past. Doesn't work all the time though. I prefer DQ to God. > > 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'? The term God has been abused. Gone is the original intent of the term, and it is replaced with some kind of dogmatic religion's "man with a beard". Again, I would see the value added when we try to interpret older texts (such as the Gnostic Gospels) and think in terms of Quality. It is hard to drop a term which is the basis for many metaphysical arguments, and mystical thoughts. We cannot erase the past, nor should be attempting to rewrite history. It would seem to be closed minded to disregard any writings that use such a term because of personal prejudice. Having said that, I do not believe it appropriate to use the term God as part of MoQ except where we can draw similarities in terms. > > [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'. In answer to that, I would say the following: A metaphysics is an objectification of a subjective awareness. It must be objectified so that it can be exchanged in discussion. Therefore, MoQ is a thing which imparts a "no thing". I would see MoQ more as a trend. It has direction and guidance. One hundred years from now it may appear different, but it is still about Quality. Any belief structure is simply a landscape. How one travels that landscape is different from everyone. Since we like to talk about these things we point out different scenes from the landscape. This MoQ landscape is very different from the hellish landscape that would would find in a Bosch painting. > > 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? In my opinion, much more can be achieved through harmonization. All philosophies and belief systems are the same thing, the difference lies in the words used to express these systems. We get caught up in the words used, and think we are talking about completely different things. As I see it, bringing other belief systems into the vernacular of MoQ is doable. There is no need to create incompatibilities. Of course MoQ belongs to Pirsig, he made it up. However, by distributing it, he relinquished control over how it would evolve from personal pressures. This is not to say that it does not have some fundamental ground which Pirsig is working from. We all stand on that fundamental ground. > Thanks for the opportunity Arlo, Mark> > > 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
