-----Ron, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 14:17----- Hello Keith, I agree, speculation is not useless. Although It does help to be reminded that this is what is happening. -----
Isn't speculation the whole purpose of this list? ;-) My point was only that speculation, to be useful and not harmful, needs to be grounded in something, somehow substantiated, empirically verified, logically validated, or an uncontroversial intuitive given, all tests of truth rarely met in everyday discourse! -----Ron, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 14:17----- I feel Pirsig terms moral as he terms Quality, not necessarily what is good, but what is observed to work. I believe the endless random colliding, bumping and grinding of molecules do not bond because of betterness but they bond because they just do. Something about the combo or the formation just sticks. After that is the perception of what works to be termed good or moral. I like Pirsigs term "value" personally, I feel it captures the process more accurately. But that's me. ----- I like "value" better than "quality" and "good", too, though they're all fair synonyms. Pirsig does believe, however, that molecules bond together because in the circumstances when they do it's "better" or of "higher value" or "good" for them to do so, since "good" or "Quality" is the sum and substance of reality. *Lila*, Chapter 8: "In the Metaphysics of Quality "causation" is a metaphysical term that can be replaced by "value." To say that "A causes B" or to say that "B values precondition A" is to say the same thing. The difference is one of words only. Instead of saying "A magnet causes iron filings to move toward it," you can say "Iron filings value movement toward a magnet." Scientifically speaking neither statement is more true than the other. It may sound a little awkward, but that's a matter of linguistic custom, not science. The language used to describe the data is changed but the scientific data itself is unchanged. The same is true in every other scientific observation Phaedrus could think of. You can always substitute "B values precondition A" for "A causes B" without changing any facts of science at all. The term "cause" can be struck out completely from a scientific description of the universe without any loss of accuracy or completeness. "The only difference between causation and value is that the word "cause" implies absolute certainty whereas the implied meaning of "value" is one of preference. In classical science it was supposed that the world always works in terms of absolute certainty and that "cause" is the more appropriate word to describe it. But in modern quantum physics all that is changed. Particles "prefer" to do what they do. An individual particle is not absolutely committed to one predictable behavior. What appears to be an absolute cause is just a very consistent pattern of preferences. Therefore when you strike "cause" from the language and substitute "value" you are not only replacing an empirically meaningless term with a meaningful one; you are using a term that is more appropriate to actual observation." If it were only the perception of what works that's termed good, as you assert, then we'd be back into subjective evaluations of truth and moral relativism, which is specifically what Pirsig seeks to avoid in placing good outside of the subject/object dichotomy. All of that said, you're still right that morality/Quality has to do with "what works", as Pirsig extends William James' philosophy of pragmatism. *Lila*, Chapter 29: "[The MOQ] is a form of pragmatism, of instrumentalism, which says the test of the true is the good. It adds that this good is not a social code or some intellectualized Hegelian Absolute. It is direct everyday experience. Through this identification of pure value with pure experience, the Metaphysics of Quality paves the way for an enlarged way of looking at experience which can resolve all sorts of anomalies that traditional empiricism has not been able to cope with." The difference is that Pirsig believes "what works" is not only a matter of subjective opinion, but also an "objectively", scientifically verifiable fact, since value is the ground of reality. -----Ron, Tuesday, May 29, 2007 14:17----- Thanks Keith, It is allways an honor to converse with an original member. ----- The honor's shared. It's a pleasure to be back. Cheers, Keith 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
