Hi Glenn
GLENN:
I love wrenches too and I have special sentimental attachments to mine because
I inherited my grandfather's tools. He hung them up and took good care of
them and now
so do I, and I get pleasure out of using them because it brings back memories
of him.
JON:
This is Quality. I'm glad to hear it.
GLENN:
But suppose someone doesn't care about their wrench. He leaves it out in the
rain and let's it rust, and then curses the thing when he can't find it. Now
you're
blaming this man's immorality on the scientific method, which drives the
amorality
of science, right?
JON:
I don't blame that man's immorality on the sci-method. His *attitude* toward
the wrench is the real issue in this hypothetical situation you've presented.
And yes, I think the sci-method is partially responsible for his attitude.
GLENN:
But this is a little harsh when you consider the scientific
method was indirectly responsible for the invention of the wrench in the
first place.
It's like biting the hand that feeds you. That wrench is a special
gift from science, and when someone mistreats it, you go and blame science.
JON:
The sci-method is, as you said in a previous post, a Quality idea. I don't
think science is the enemy. The problem is our attitudes, and science IMO has
inadvertently influenced our attitudes regarding reality.
GLENN:
I guess it's too late at this point in history; we're probably stuck with
SO thinking for good. But perhaps you'd feel better if we started imbuing
science with moralistic terminology, as Pirsig suggests. We could say "the
yin and yang subatomic patterns of value prefer to be together", which is
equivalent to "the positive and negative charged particles attract each
other". This sounds promising at first, but you start running out of moral
vocabulary when you have to describe such things as energy, velocity, and
momentum.
JON:
Attacking science isn't the key; attacking our own attitudes is the key. It's
about change on an individual level. Changing the way science works or adding
needless terminology such as "yin and yang" would not fix anything; it would
just call for people to conform to yet another system. The change needs to
come from within, not forcefully yanked out of us because some new system
calls for it.
GLENN:
And then there's the even harder challenge of making mathematics,
a whole amoral language of its own, sound moral. But suppose somehow you
could do it.
JON:
Well, numbers don't exist in reality. I don't think physics can prove that
numbers exist, yet they rely on numbers anyway. Numbers are just imaginary.
GLENN:
Now if you want physics to declare morals real, it's not enough to just
fix up the language, cos people will see through this little charade. The
dials must detect it. MOQ, which is based on empiricism, demands this as
well.
JON:
I don't want or expect physics or the scientific establishment to declare
morals real. I just wish more people would have faith in morality. Whether
the dials detect it or not.
GLENN:
Morals, at least at what was formerly called the subatomic
level, have to be taken on faith.
JON:
Exactly. Faith.
GLENN:
At this level at least, you might as well
give morals a special name like phlogiston or ether, because it ain't
experienced here. People can experience morals at the human level well
enough, through a special instrument called mind, but down at the
micro-level, it's hypothetical.
JON:
The word "reality" usually applies to everything. Literally everything.
Ether, molecules, energy, toothpicks, wildcats, and chemistry professors. I
contend that the word "morality" can apply to everything also, but unlike
amoral "reality," it infuses everything with Quality in some unknowable,
undefinable way.
Hypothetically, of course. Must have faith.
GLENN:
Jon, now do you see the problem with your problem? You are asking science
to do the impossible, and then blame it for not pulling it off.
JON:
I'm not asking science to do it, I'm asking people to do it. The tool itself
is ultimately never to blame. It's the hand that uses it.
Jon
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