Arlo,
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 8:46 AM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <[email protected]>wrote: > [John] > From a Theism that is rejected by science, we turn to human explanations > for the world and the faith I'm talking about, is faith in intellect. > Faith in intellect is not scientifically supported. > > [Arlo] > If you reduce everything to equivalent "faith", the term is meaningless. I > know this is a common tactic about those who advocate things like > 'creationism' and 'evolution' being both 'faith-based' and equal 'theories'. > J: I think our dialogue would go better, Arlo, if I wasn't lumped in with the bone-headed reactionary right. But perhaps that's partly my own fault for not making myself more clear. I'll try and explain myself better. > > [John] > For instance, scientifically speaking, it's impossible to measure the age > of the universe - except that you pretend time is uniform and absolute to > human perspective. You have to put man as the center of the universe, to > come up with that - it's a religious teaching - some simple catechism we > give to the kiddies. Not much different from Sunday school really. > > [Arlo] > Not at all, on either point. First, although yes, all time as we measure > it is (tautologically) a reference to 'our' (and hence 'human') experience, > no one is claiming that its anything but this. When I say "last year" of > course I mean "year" as socially understood and defined by our shared > experience. Its ultimately arbitrary, to measure rotations around the sun > (although historically its easy to understand why the species has done this > nearly ubiquitously across culture and history). Second, the estimation is > one that allows us to build ever-improving models of understanding > experience. Much different from Sunday school, these numbers changes as > better numbers come in, as models improve, as intellectual patterns evolve. > To claim that this is a "religious teaching" is just absurd, John, really, > really absurd. > > J: I'm not really speaking about colloquialisms, I'm speaking cosmologically. You can't measure the age of the space-time continuum. It's metaphysically obtuse to try. > [John] > Since there is no more God, it's all ours and we can do what we want with > it. > > [Arlo] > "But suppose you do just what you like? Does that mean you're going to go > out and shoot heroin, rob banks and rape old ladies? The person who is > counseling you not to do "just as you like" is making some remarkable > presumptions as to what is likable. He seems unaware that people may not > rob banks because they have considered the consequences and decided they > don't like to. He doesn't see that banks exist in the first place because > they're "just what people like," namely, providers of loans. Phædrus began > to wonder how all this condemnation of "what you like" ever seemed such a > natural objection in the first place." (ZMM) > > If you need "God" so that you don't 'shoot heroin, rob banks and rape old > ladies', I think that says more about you than humanists. > J: I wasn't speaking of personal morality - I was speaking of "what is your frame of reference" It used to be a divinity but now it's humanity. BOTH are incorrect, for ontological reasons. And sure, I'm speaking of SOM humanism because that's the only kind I know in experience. > > [John] > But the "arrogance" of humanism is that we think we've got all the final > answers. Now we know what is actually objectively true through the working > of our human reason, forgetting that the universe is a lot bigger than we > are. > > [Arlo] > You've made an ipso facto comflation here of 'humanism' and 'SOM' > ("actually objectively true"). I'd argue that 'humanism' is, like any other > sub-metaphysical view, dependent on the over-arching metaphysics. If you > want to challenge 'SOM' ("final answers... actually objectively true"), > that's good with me, but if you're creating a dichotomy where 'theism' and > 'SOM-humanism' are the only options, you're barking up the wrong tree. > > J: They are the two options as viewed by the political bodies in play. That's the way the world is. It's not an attempt at construction, it's a critique of our society - the majority of all our experience in the world today. SOM is of course, humanism - a sub-philosophy that relies upon underlying metaphysical foundation that remain unexamined. Humanism is the face of SOM. Exactly. > [John] > From a larger perspective, it's impossible to say who is revolving around > whom, really. It's all just a twirling in space. But the human perspective > says the moon revolves around the Earth because we're ON the Earth. > > [Arlo] > Yeah, this is the story about William James and the squirrel. J: Interesting. No, I've never read that. I was thinking about what I learned in the hard science of astronomy. Sierra College had a plaentarium and a smart teacher who gave us the facts of life. All the universe is revolving. Nothing revolves especially around anything else, except the universe itself around its axis. Those are the facts. That the moon revolves around us, is the abstraction. I'm glad Mr. James made the same point and RMP picked it up. Arlo: > Its important, philosophically, to understand the relational aspects of > our ideas. But, importantly, saying "the moon revolves around the earth" > has allowed us to deploy satellites, understand (and provide early > warnings) of weather patterns, etc. Its a very high-quality > experientially-bsaed observation, much higher quality than 'everything > revolves around the earth' (which, I point out, is far more arrogant and > anthropomorphological, and was considered much more a 'final answer' and > 'true', than what we use today). > J: Of course, you hit upon the key. Treating human reasoning as all-powerful and is expedient. The main topic of Eherenfeld's book was a point repeated in the words of the Jeff Goldblum character in Jurassic Park - human reason cannot predict the outcomes of it's humancentric reasonings in conflict with Nature as a whole. In the movie it was for Chaos Theory mathmatical reasonings But in the book, it was logical argument from empirical experience. Sure we split the atom, but then we deal with the consequences. Our faith in human ability to deal with the technological fallout of our own industrial choices is a sadly misplaced faith. According to the author, this was a reaction from the overthrow of theism, and its true many people take up his arguments for that but the author himself makes it very clear that that's not what he advocates. He points out how traditional theology is all equally anthropocentric, and would be a huge backward step. He honestly admits he doesn't know where to go from here. But as I said, this book was taught in the context of ZAMM, which answers many of Eherenfeld's questions very well. I just have to wonder at those who advocate the same points that both he and Pirsig, thoroughly overthrew. > > [John] > Too often it seems that the MoQ focuses upon the aspect of resisting > social controls without doing anything constructive or coming up with > creative social patterns. > > [Arlo] > I think intellect has come up with a whole host of constructive and > creative ways to structure social patterns (freedom of assembly, freedom of > speech, e.g.) J: Excellent, and I agree. And that was under our old intellectual assumptions and constrained by certain patterns of objectivity and subjectivity but now we have a much bigger toolkit and you'd think we could demonstrate a bit more. Don't get me wrong - a few have. Tuukka, for one comes to mind. But MD? I dunno. I freely admit I am part of MD and therefor part of the problem, but it seems a big one to me. It's all criticism as opposed to creativity. Arlo: > We (should) live in an ere where, say, determining speed limits to improve > mobility and flow at the social level are based on intellectual inquiry and > reason. We are at a point where things like 'who can I marry' are being > answered, intellectually, with reason and intellect rather social > convention or 'god'. John: There, that's what I was looking for. What a fascinating topic. Thanks for bringing it up. What are our marriage patterns based upon? Once again, I'm not refering to any sort of pie-in-the-sky dream of what oughta be, but in the real world, do people marry based upon intellectual reasons? It seems preponderately a process of biological attraction with a great deal of social influence thrown in. I've never heard anybody in antiquity talk about it intellectually - it's the definable indefinable - love. Arlo: > It is intellectual dominance of social patterns that has created the > public art museums, green spaces in cities, and has improved farming > practices. Certainly, there are ongoing revisions that we need to attend to > (does this park work? how can this museum better serve the local > population? when does genetic manipulation of plants become intellectually > undesireable? should our social inheritance laws be revised? etc. etc.) > J: Ok Arlo, let me put it like this. We've finally got more intellectual control of society than any time in history, and THIS is the intellectual pattern we're gonna use? That's the way it is. Q-Intellectual patterns are not extant at the moment. Even our dialogue about it has degraded to social sniping rather than intellectual caring. > > [John] > I will just hold to the claim that the purpose of all this intellect is, > as you say, better traffic patterns - that is, a more successful, informed > and just society that bumps together more gently. > > [Arlo] > And I agree with this, perhaps with the caveat that this is one purpose of > intellect, or as part of a larger evolving understanding of experience. > > It is hoped that bumping together more gently would lead to bumping together more lovingly. I'd think that'd be the Quality path. But when I think of loving bumping, we're back down to the biological again. Damn that karmic cycle! Heh. Just kidding. I actually like it. John 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
