Howdy MOQers:
In the "perceptions" thread, Marsha said:
DQ is "indivisible, undefinable & unknowable"; the term 'indivisible' pointing
to monism, non-dualistic: indeterminate. [and later said:] Directly
perceiving Dynamic Quality, seems to me, makes all "things" and even patterns
false: illusions and phantoms (ghosts). That does not translate into
meaningless. Patterns exist as value.
dmb says:
Let's take a look at the concept of "indeterminacy" in relation to philosophy
in general and in relation to the MOQ in particular. I think that Marsha
doesn't really understand this concept and that she has been misapplying it to
the MOQ - with vacuous relativism and nihilism being the tragic results of this
misapplication.
Generally, the term "indeterminate" just means "uncertain" or "unspecified" but
in philosophy it's used to describe certain epistemological positions (certain
views on the nature of knowledge and truth). The most obvious thing to say
about these "indeterminate" positions is that they oppose the positions which
claim that truth and knowledge can be specifically determined. What are those
positions, exactly, and who ever made such claims?
The prime example would be SOM, with its correspondence theory of truth. On
this view, there is an objective reality that determines what's true and is the
reality about which we can have knowledge. "If subjects and objects are held to
be the ultimate reality," Pirsig says, "then we're permitted only one
construction of things - that which corresponds to the 'objective' world."
Plato's Forms, those fixed and eternal Ideas, are very different from the
objective realities of science but they still serve to determine truth and
knowledge in a very exclusive way. In both cases, there is only one way to be
right, only a single-exclusive truth that is determined by the ultimate reality
beyond appearances. Kant's Noumenal realm, the reality of things-in-themsleves,
is similar to Platonism and Objectivity in this sense. The thing-in-itself is
the real object of knowledge and determines what's true. These are examples of
the position that Pirsig rejects.
By contrast, the MOQ “does not insist on a single exclusive truth," Pirsig
says, and "one doesn't seek the absolute 'Truth'. One seeks instead the highest
quality intellectual explanation of things with the knowledge that if the past
is any guide to the future this explanation must be taken provisionally; as
useful until something better comes along." On this view, truth and knowledge
are not determinate, they are indeterminate. Truth and knowledge do not exist
in relation to a realm beyond our experiences, they do not correspond to a
fixed and eternal reality. Instead, truth and knowledge are human constructions
derived from experience and they are expected to grow and evolve just as we do.
Basically, Marsha uses the concept of "indeterminacy" against the MOQ's version
of truth and knowledge, thereby giving a double dose of indeterminacy to an
already indeterminate position. She uses Pirsig's critique of Plato and SOM
against Pirsig himself. This is just the most recent example of often repeated
misapplication of the concept: "Directly perceiving Dynamic Quality," Marsha
said, "makes all 'things' and even patterns false: illusions and phantoms
(ghosts)."
Somehow she thinks this error can be explain away by simply contradicting
herself: Even though she concludes that even static patterns are false,
illusions, phantoms and ghosts, she also insists that this conclusion "does not
translate into meaningless," she says, because, "patterns exist as value."
Pirsig's "ghost" story is not intended to undermine his own conception of
intellectual static patterns, of course. His aim is to undermine the "law of
gravity" insofar as it is conceived as an eternal feature of the one only
objective reality. When it is taken like that, then there is only one exclusive
truth about gravity and Newton was the guy who discovered what was always
there. Instead, Pirsig says the law was not discovered but invented. It is a
very powerful, useful and otherwise valuable concept, i.e. it works as a
concept. So long as it is understood to be a humanly constructed tool rather
than an eternal reality, it is not false or illusory. Pirsig's ghosts,
analogies and static patterns are ways of understanding physical laws prevent
the false illusions. Pirsig's patterns prevent the reification of concepts like
gravity. Plato was the super-reifier wherein goodness was not just a concept
that refers to any number of good experiences but was a fixed and eternal
reality unto itself. Truth, Beauty, Justice and just about any noble-sounding
abstraction was treated as an actual thing somewhere beyond time and space -
like the law a gravity.
To use Pirsig's critique (of determinate positions like Platonism, objectivity
or any kind of essentialism) against Pirsig's MOQ is like trying to melt water
because you've mistaken it for ice. The ice-melting task has already been
preformed and yet Marsha foolishly tries to liquidate the liquid and so the
whole thing is overheated by about 100%. She wants to loosen the already
loosened, thereby leaving everything so slippery that there's no grip or
traction anywhere. Instead of a hierarchy of value, we get a picture of
ever-changing soup wherein intellectual quality and nonsense are
indistinguishable.
Notice how much work it is just to untangle her use a single term? This same
sort of exercise could be conducted on every term she uses. Can you imagine how
long it would take to deal with the rest of the mistakes? I guess it would take
at least 100 hours to clean up the mess. Even if I actually took the time,
she'd just start spilling the same mess all over again the next day.
Sigh.
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