Greetings Jon, Glenn, and all,
The other day I started out to write to Jon on his wonderfully intriguing
post about the Sci Method vs Spirituality. Got sidetracked into responding
to Struan instead, so I thought I'd try again. My thoughts seem always to
be colored by whatever I'm reading at the time (perhaps I'm a little too
impressionable?) but I can't seem to get over the points made in Neil
Postman's book "Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century". They seem
directly applicable to this current discussion. We already know much of
this, of course, but it bears repeating I think.
As I read it, the period of the Enlightenment, which the 18th century is
called, was born of a direct reaction to church authority. It was man's
first attempt to deny the power of the Church to define our world for us.
Several ideas were implicit in this, some directly stated by thinkers of the
time; others more subtly expressed as underlying assumptions. The
importance of this to our present age can be seen in the implicit beliefs
many hold today. Our entire western culture is directly based on the ideas
promulgated at that time, and have descended as an inheritance to us almost
unchanged over the course of 200 years. When we think about the scientific
method, then, we must remember where it came from - that is, as a direct
*response* to Church authority. It was never intended to meld the two
together, instead, it was a refutation. So, when scientists tell us that we
should believe in gravity but not believe in God, that is only to be
expected. It is here that we see the fundamental weakness of the scientific
method, for it seems to me that any set of ideas formulated merely for the
purpose of refutation by their nature must be incomplete.
Of course, the scientific method has a lot going for it. For one thing, it
works. Though it fails miserably to provide answers to the fundamental
questions, it does a marvelous job of describing the particulars. The basic
error many Enlightenment thinkers made, however, was in thinking that
technological innovation was synonymous with moral, social, and psychic
progress. Postman says, "...to many 19th century Americans, technology was
clearly the engine of spiritual progress". Rousseau, who was the romantic
standard-bearer in the classic/romantic split, pointed out that reason, when
unaided and untempered by poetic insight and humane feeling, turns ugly and
dangerous. But he was on one side while the technologists were on the
other.
We are left with the legacy of two competing sets of values which the
Enlightenment was never able to meld into any kind of coherent union. As an
aside, even politics was affected by this, since America, the first nation
founded with a direct affirmation of the freedom of religion, was a product
of the Enlightenment (in a theocracy, everyone is a fundamentalist). Then
along comes Pirsig. As I see it, the MOQ is the first real Western attempt
to merge the obviously successful ideas of the scientific method with
spirituality. He is deeply conscious of the inherent shortcomings of both
ideas when adhered to exclusively. One of my favorite beliefs (which I
usually fail to live by) is toward moderation in all things. One could
characterize the MOQ as an attempt at moderation. The middle path between
two seemingly competing sets of ideas.
Just some thoughts...
Wishing you happiness,
Mary Wittler
eBay id: moq
http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/moq/
mwittler@yahoo.com
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