[Mark]
Here we try to separate "belief" from "faith". "Belief" would be
something that we continually need to justify, whereas "faith" we do not.
[Arlo]
This is interesting, would you say then that 'doubt' is a part of
'belief'? That is how I read this, that 'certainty' would be 'faith',
whereas anything 'uncertain' would be 'belief'. Am I reading that right?
[Mark]
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.
[Arlo]
This would indicate a process/content distinction, or one where
'science' becomes a verb rather than a noun (I like that, personally,
the same way I think 'art' is better thought of as a verb rather than a
noun or, worse, an adjective).
Given the above, this would suggest to me that as soon as we achieve
'certainty' in our thoughts, the content of those thoughts become
religious? You can likely guess my next question, and that is does the
'certainty' which we hold our beliefs differ in kind? Is there a
distinction (in this scenario) between 'psychological certain',
'pragmatic certainty', etc. I hold, for example, that the 'moon orbits
the earth' and I don't actively investigate that, so I'd assume you see
that as 'faith', something I hold 'religiously'. And yet this
'certainty' is never far removed from doubt as new experiential data
comes in (whether from personal experience or trusted authority).
I guess what I'm saying is some forms of 'certainty' are entrenched so
deeply that they are inflexible even in the presence of conflicting
data. Other forms are more 'loose' in that they can change rapidly as
experience changes. Peirce (if I read him correctly) believed that on
the one end, tenacity, belief was fixed very rigidly, it was very
difficult for a person to move from belief to doubt (a state he believed
was a necessary transitional state to change), whereas beliefs fixed on
the other end, scientific methodology, were more apt to change (enter a
state of doubt) when confronted with contradiction.
Do you see this axis as irrelevant to something being 'faith' or
'religion'? Or would there be no fundamental distinction between the
beliefs "God hates fags" (Wellsboro religious faith) and "the moon
orbits the earth" (Arlo's religious faith)? Are they both examples of
religious faith?
I think Peirce may have argued that 'religious belief' is a function of
both non-experientiality and inflexibility to experiential data. Thus it
is not 'certainty' that would define something as 'religious', but
whether or not it the basis for it is rooted in experiential activity
and whether or not it is adaptive to changes that arise from
contradictory or conflictional experiential activity. Thus a book about
astronomy would not be a 'religious' text, and my understanding that
Pluto is a sub-planetary body that orbits the sun at the reaches of our
solar system would not be a 'religious belief' as it is rooted in
experience and flexible to ongoing experiential contradictions (Poor
Pluto...). I take it you would disagree?
[Mark]
That policies are made based on such book readings in order to control
human behavior is not different from the inquisitions of old.
[Arlo]
Are you suggesting that policies derived from the constitution are
fundamentally similar to the inquisitions?
A further point, if I (a policy maker) conduct an experiment (defined
any way you wish) and find clear evidence that roadways without enforced
central lines demarking directional flow leads to greater death, injury
and damage, and implement a policy to 'control' driver behavior by
enforcing adherence to directional flow, would this- at this point- be
no different than an inquisition?
Now, a few years later, after I leave office, someone reads my research
findings and decides that this law is worth renewing, does it at this
point become an inquisition (because this person is deriving his policy
from reading my words rather than carrying out his own empirical study)?
Would you say here, in the same vein as above, that there is no
fundamental distinction between a law enforcing driving regulations and
a law enforcing that women are not to be schooled? They are both
'inquisitional'? (Would you say Pirsig might characterize one as an
intellectual pattern, and the other as a social pattern, and draw a
moral distinction there?)
I'm not trying to be overly-hyperbolic, but I'm trying to see if what
appears to be a pretty absolute charge you're making has nuances or
distinctions, or if you genuinely mean them as absolute as they read.
[Mark]
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).
[Arlo]
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to understand. To me, its part of the 'if
everything is purple, then the concept of purple (and color!) is
meaningless'. If we say 'everything is a religion', then the concept of
religion has no meaning as it has no contrast. Does it completely
trivialize 'religion' to say that when I open my 'fridge and take out
some milk, my faith that that milk is not spoiled (prior to opening it)
is religious faith?
I'd argue that for 'faith' to have any meaning, there has to be a
'non-faith' condition, for 'religion' to have any meaning there has to
be something that is a 'non-religion', and I think you've answered for
me how you see that (although I might have misread your meaning).
[Mark]
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.
[Arlo]
I'm not sure how we could function at all without some recourse to
fixing our beliefs via authority. I think for Peirce a critical point is
maintaining a 'pragmatic certainty' (not his term). Using Pirsig's
terms, to be open to Dynamic Quality even as one acts within unavoidable
static confines. It is the matter of degree we hold onto static
structures that is of concern, not that we hold onto static structures
as we necessarily must.
[Arlo had asked]
what would be the value of using 'God' instead of 'Dynamic Quality'?
[Mark]
I would simply say that by doing so, we get a better understanding of
what others think of in terms of God.
[Arlo]
Let me ask you another question, would you say that everything that is
undefinable is interchangeable with the term 'God'? It seems, from your
answers and posts, that non-definability is the point of contact that
makes 'Quality' and 'God' synonomous, and that because 'Quality' is
indefinable it is therefore the same as 'God', is that right? Therefore
any concept that is indefinable is 'God'? Yes?
[Mark]
I would see the value added when we try to interpret older texts (such
as the Gnostic Gospels) and think in terms of Quality.
[Arlo]
I think such an interpretation would please the Gnostics, as esoteric
systems tend to be unconcerned with formalizing their structures.
Indeed, the are esoteric by virtue of suggesting that there are no
'literal' truths behind the 'metaphors' that point to the "the one,
shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story" (Joseph Campbell), or no
literal hands upon which the fingers pointing at the moon are connected.
But I think when you move into the realm of exoteric structures, this is
more problematic, as built into these is deliberate literalness which
the adherents' concepts derive. It won't help you understand them to
revision their words esoterically, even though it may help you,
personally, in painting your diorama of human existence.
[Mark]
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.
[Arlo]
See, I read the above as "by distributing [his ideas], he relinquished
control over how [his ideas] would evolve." I'd word this instead, "by
distributing [his ideas], he relinquished control over the evolutionary
trajectory that would emerge from [his ideas]".
A lot has grown from Peirce, for example, but I don't think I'd say that
Peirce's ideas evolved. Unless Peirce changed them, his ideas are his
ideas. But the body of dialogue of which those ideas are, perhaps,
foundational has certainly evolved. People have taken his ideas, in
parts or in whole, in agreement or in disagreement, and rebuilt
structures according to their ideas.
This is, I'm sure to most, a semantic issue, but my point was only that
it, at times, has been a source of tension-confusion in the dialogue.
The central question (in seeing this division) is asking 'Can Pirsig
have been wrong about the MOQ?' If you answer 'yes', then 'the MOQ' is
not Pirsig's description of Quality, the MOQ *is* the object of
description itself. Does this make sense? Whereas if you answer 'no',
then 'the MOQ' is Pirsig's description of Quality. (This may make more
sense if you consider the other question, 'Can Pirsig have been wrong
about Quality?', and see that these are very different questions).
Say I propose that Pirsig was wrong, that animals do exhibit social
patterns of activity. Let's say I convince half of you that I am right.
Now, which side of this forum is arguing for 'the MOQ'? Both? Let's say
I convince everyone but you. Would you cede that 'the MOQ' has evolved
to account for animal socialization? If someone was reading an entry on
Pirsig's ideas in a philosophy book, should it read "In deny non-human
social patterns, Pirsig was incorrect about the MOQ?"... Are you
following me? Or am I now beating a horse that died sometime around the
end of the Incan civilization? :-)
This is what I get for ordering a large coffee this morning...
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