[David] When two people discuss a concept intellectually - naturally there will be disagreement. What do we do then?
[Arlo] It depends on the context; not just of the disagreement but of the larger activity system of which the disagreement is part. And it depends in large part on the nature of the disagreement. Consider two people disagreeing over "Pirsig is a good author" and two people disagreeing over "Pirsig wrote LILA", then consider these disagreements occurring in a pub or in a classroom. Instead, ask these questions. Are all intellectual positions ipso facto equally valid (are all disagreements simply a clash of preferences), and under what contexts should lower quality arguments be constrained by higher quality arguments? [David] Why does Marsha value the idea that static things change? Why does dmb value the opposite? [Arlo] Were this a therapy session where I cared about whether or not DMB and Marsha "got along", these questions might be important. I could not care less about "why" Marsha values "constantly changing static patterns", the argument is whether or not such a view is representative or consistent with Pirsig's ideas (the MOQ). I can "value" the ideas that the intellectual level consists of pancakes and bacon, or that "static patterns" are little green men from another dimension, but so what? The larger question here is the purpose of the forum. If its really just for anybody to say that whatever it is they "value" is "the MOQ", and nobody can be "wrong" about anything they say about "the MOQ", and "the MOQ" is whatever *I* want it to be, and that's fine, then I think we really need to stop pretending this is a philosophy forum and just be honest that its more like an AA meeting. "Hi, I'm Marsha and I think static patterns constantly change." "Hi Marsha." "Hi, I'm Arlo and I think the intellectual level is made up of butterflies and candy apples." "Hi Arlo." Is that what we want? Because, more and more, that's what it seems like. [David] But this is true not just of their discussion but of all discussions - everywhere. Why do people value the things that they do? Why do some people call one thing moral, while another group call something else moral? [Arlo] There will always be clashes among activity systems (or cultures of use), because they have different histories and different structures/artifacts and different goals. But again, the real questions are about the nature of the disagreement, the context it occurs, and whether or not we want some way for higher quality 'values' to dominate lower quality 'values'. The MOQ gives us a structure for which higher level patterns should have preference over lower level ones. But what about intra-level disagreements? As above, are all 'intellectual' patterns equally 'moral'? The Academy uses "peer review" as one structural technique for prioritizing higher quality intellectual patterns (its not perfect, but I've not seen anything better proposed). And that, I think, are the main questions here. (1) Are we advancing the idea that all views being offered here are equally valid? and (2) If not, should anything be done so that lower quality positions are constrained in any way? 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
