----- Original Message -----
From: hamishtmuirhead <hamishtmuirhead@netscapeonline.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2000 10:08 PM
Subject: Re: MD Many Truths-Many Worlds
Glenn, PH et al. :
<Glenn>
> Well, it's not a specific moral conflict so much as a general
condemnation.
> But you are correct that this *is* a case where Pirsig sides against the
> intellectual for the social.
</Glenn>
<Hamish>
The specific point is that if intellect attacks social quality in the same
manner as criminality, then it attacks its own basis of existence.
Intellect *requires* the social values of fairness and objectivity in order
to get along. This is the difference between discussing whether or not a
person should believe in God and a person discussing whether or not it's ok
to molest children. The *social* point of view *may just* turn around and
say that if you don't believe in God then paedophilic activity is
inevitable. I hope that this is risible enough for me not to have to
comment any
more...
</Hamish>
<Glenn>
> This is the kind of attack on objectivity, rationality, and science that
> got me started in the first place. In the quote above, he loses me when he
> says "In its [objectivity's] condemnation of social repression as the
enemy
> of liberty...", because you can't condemn anything and remain amoral. If
> he means people who admire objectivity are doing the condemning, it would
> make more sense to me if he'd said "truth" instead of "liberty".
</Glenn>
<Hamish>
Firstly it's a debate - even if [accepted] the tone is polemic. Secondly,
you seem to see this as an attack of a clique of individuals against the
well-being of the rest of the planet? The real point is that quote
intellectuals and scientists unquote [and yup there are a whole load of
fundamental
differences of attitude therein] tend to have, *irrespespective of their own
personal opinions as members of society* and attitude that essentially
says morality is bunk, or relative, or essentially beyond the bounds of
discussion. Morality therefore becomes *just what you like* and you end up
not being able criticise in a social context *e.g.* some Moslem families for
pursuing their children to near the point of death because they don't
happen to accept their extended families choice of spouse.
</Hamish>
<Glenn>
> Beyond this blooper the argument is just lame. He doesn't blame
> politicians, clergy, parents, the media or Hollywood for the country's
> moral decay.
</Glenn>
<Hamish>
*Exactly* : these criticisms pertain to the mode of thought in question and
not to the people pursuing the mode of thought. To blame these people for
social malaise is not too dissimilar to blaming people who get measles for
blotchy red faces. There is supposedly an element of free will involved but
the Subject-Object virus tends to get in the way of cure a lot of the time.
</Hamish>
<Glenn>
> No, instead of these suspects, he says science and
> objectivity are the guilty ones. I've argued this case already with Jon,
> but notice, if he isn't saying that science declares morals "illegal", he
> will puff up his argument some other way. Here he makes the outrageous
> claim that amoral objectivity is the "champion" of the common criminal.
> How can he say this when the clearest criteria for sealing a criminal's
> fate are objective evidence like finger prints and DNA? In fact, jurors
> will be dismissed from sitting on a case if they don't think they can
> be objective. By definition, no moral principle can spring forth from
> amoral objectivity, but the moral principle of fairness requires it, and
> fairness plays a huge role in mediating moral conflicts.
</Glenn>
<Hamish>
Glenn, I hope that you *never ever* sit on a jury because you obviously have
a complete inability to objectively examine the forensic methods which
supposedly present 'irrefutable' evidence to court. If you come from UK
then this might only mean 15 years out of someone's life, but in the US ...
?
</Hamish>
<Glenn>
> Pirsig has a personal vendetta against science. It's a bonus for him if
> his personal beliefs can be justified by appealing to the tenets of the
moral hierarchy. This is all too easy to do. He just shows, by a colourful
> rhetorical argument, that an intellectual pattern has undermined an
> important social one. I, on the other hand, admire science so I can use
> the direct tenets of the moral hierarchy to justify my point of view. We
> both feel secure knowing we each have the full backing of the moral
> hierarchy on our respective sides, and we feel comforted knowing we
> arrived at our decision based on a "rational" framework and not some
> morally relativistic criteria. The irony, of course, is we have arrived at
> opposite conclusions.
</Glenn>
<Hamish>
Er. Ridiculous. He's trying to puncture some very basic assumptions which
probably lends to a certain rhetorical flavour. These might be attacks
against your choice of ontology, which is the reason you take it so
personally, but in fact he's not saying that science is invalid - in terms
of
building computers, particle accelerators, microwave ovens, bridges,
hospitals, ... it's just that the zeitgeist no longer believes in cultural
values
that made science possible. Science tries to expand into the social
sphere - and all 'hard' scientists, or people that have degrees in those
disciplines, that I know [physics, chemistry, engineering] regard the social
sciences as lunatic *but fail to make any comment on a social level,
barring consensus, themselves*. So we end up with the oxymoron of saying
that disciplining our children is 'wrong' but having no method to discipline
our children [or anybody else] should it be necessary. This is heavily
quoted throughout Lila - according to Pirsig, the freedom exercised by the
survivors of Victorian morality could cope with the resultant freedom
precisely because they were brought up to be good mannered in a Victorian
sense. They had no idea how to bring up *their* successors though. I
repeat that this is Pirsig's argument - I have a slightly different one, but
in
this instance I'm defending Pirsig's MoQ for a useful way forward.
<quote>
We both feel secure knowing we each have the full backing of the moral
hierarchy on our respective sides
</quote>
Lucky person - so I suspect did Tomas de Torquemada. :-\
</Hamish>
<PH>
> PH:
> The difference is that most people today operate ONLY from a
> vague sense of political correctness rather than any rational
> examination of what's good and bad. Pirsig's sense of Quality
> comes into play as a last resort, like physicist Stephen Hawkings
> who said when asked how he solves a knotty problem: "I work very
> much on intuition, thinking that, well, a certain idea ought to be
> right." In fact, I would venture to suggest that when scientists of the
> stature of Hawkings come to an impasse, it's their sense of
> quality or beauty that points them towards a solution.
</PH>
<Glenn>
> I agree with your last sentence. Scientists don't really use intuition as
> a last resort but as a starting place for a hypothesis. A scientist should
> never say a problem is solved based on an idea gained intuitively without
> verification. And of course their intuititively gained hypothesis is built
> on a large edifice of previous knowledge and is not a wild stab in the
> dark. It's doubtful, for example, that Hawking would propose using dowsing
> rods to search for black holes.
>
> I find it interesting that you guys keep bringing up examples showing how
> scientists and mathematicians use intuition, creativity, and morals in
> their work. I keep agreeing and yet you find more examples and I still
> keep agreeing. What gives? Do you think scientists would deny using these
> things?
</Glenn>
<Hamish>
A lot of scientists I know do in essence deny these things as part of
reality and purely subjective because imagination and emotion are not part
of
the world as they know it but are just an evolutionarily concocted virtual
reality. The the implications of the fact that it's the only reality that
they can possibly know, and therefore was the only reality available to the
forebears of their disciplines touches them not one iota. Of course these
aren't the sort of scientists who have got into print and can afford to say
anything controversial - these are the ones who scrape from research grant
to research grant.
</Hamish>
<Glenn>
> Do you think scientists (and I) are out to prove creativity and
> morals don't exist? Do you think the proof is a secret goal of scientists
> and the only reason they are keeping mum about it is because they don't
> have enough evidence yet? Do you think their long range goal is to explain
> everything rationally and do you think this would be horrible because it
> would take away the very thing that makes us human?
</Glenn>
<Hamish>
Said it before : commonality within a view point and the consequences of
such vis a vis the personal motivations of members of that commonality may
not amount to much. It's a bit like convicting a single cell from Hitler's
gluteus maximus for the holocaust.
</Hamish>
<PH>
> PH:
> Speaking of beauty, I'd like to get in another pitch for my favorite
> subject-esthetic values. In many ways I join Glenn in his support
> of science and its methods, for without science and technology,
> especially medicine, I wouldn't be here writing this. And one of the
> most fascinating aspects of science for me is its reliance, not only
> on objective, verifiable data, but also on beauty. Here is how
> J.W.N. Sullivan, a mathematician, describes the "beauty" test:
>
> "Since the primary object of a scientific theory is to express the
> harmonies which are found in nature, we see at once that these
> theories must have an esthetic value. The measure of the
> success of a scientific theory is a measure of its esthetic value,
> since it is a measure of the extent to which it has introduced
> harmony in what was before chaos."
>
> Scientists from Kepler to Einstein have judged their theories not
> just by their success in accounting for data but also by their
> beauty, not just by their order but also by the kind of order they
> produced. From all I've read about the beliefs of the pioneers in
> math and science, beautiful design, as much as data,
> determines scientific reality.
>
> For me, that's where the MOQ fits best into the scientific paradigm.
> (Not that science doesn't adhere to many other values.)
</PH>
<Glenn>
> Scientists' main criteria for a beautiful theory is a simple theory that
> fits the data. It's a good thing to wish for because the theory will then
> be easier to understand and apply. But nature may have other
> plans. No one's proved that nature is describable by simple laws; it's
> just an assumption. Most theories are not simple, although the famous ones
> are. I agree however that most scientists *do* make this assumption,
> and it's the main reason physicists, for example, have been searching for
> ways to unify gravity with the other nuclear forces.
> Glenn
</Glenn>
<Hamish>
However most public statements of scientists that I have read seem to be
completely unable to fathom the idea that if *we* [human beings] are
composed
of protons, neutrons, electrons and the binding forces involved, then surely
the decision making and perceptive forces that we naturally perceive as
human beings evolve from the analogous behaviour of the universe at this
level.
And *yes* protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. are static intellectual
patterns, and *yes* human beings are static biological and social patterns.
Kall
it a koan.
</Hamish>
Regards.
Hamish
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