Greetings,
Horse,
For the record, I reject your criticisms and will continue to respond in
whichever way I please to insults directed at me, regardless of your
displeasure. Your disappointment in me is matched only by my disappointment
in your use of every tactic other than philosophical argument to silence me.
First, straight contradiction, now a transparently hypocritical appeal to
rules which are never applied to anyone else. When governments of any sort
use their laws in such arbitrary ways (against dissidents, women, blacks,
Jews, for example) they are guilty of discrimination and are quite rightly
denounced by all reasonable people. With that in mind I find your stance
offensive, cowardly and insulting to the best of human values. You should be
ashamed of yourself and, if you are not, I shall be ashamed for you.
Here goes another rule as I cross over between the MF and the MD with no
qualms and two fingers stuck up to the establishment, Hurrah!!:
BO on the MD:
"While the S/O dichotomy split runs between mind and matter the
QM split runs between dynamic/static, so at the static side no
dichotomical abyss must be crossed. The static levels - from
inorganic to intellect - is a UNITY, no interaction across borders is
needed. Look at the spatial dimension for an analogue; discrete yet
one, we move in all dimensions simultaneous."
Bo, you seem to have forgotten that I (together with most of the rest of the
world) am a monist. Mind and matter are a UNITY, no interaction across
borders is needed. Why you have to continuously invent a problem in order to
solve it I don't know. But let us go to the 'solution':
BO on the MF:
"The said brain-prodding experiment's seen in a Quality context
(and in the dimensional light) is of course that (the patient's)
biology transformed the inorganic (electric pulse) into social-
coloured memories and that intellect decided that these were
(subjective) memories and not (objective) happenings. A weaving
through the four levels admittedly, but no time-consuming process."
Firstly, I suggest that the rest of the world's solution - that mind and
matter are one and the same, therefore if you 'prod' one, you also, by
definition, prod the other - is more simple, more in accord with experience,
backed up by science and just plain rational. By contrast, you have
'social-coloured memories', intellect deciding between subjective and
objective happenings and a weaving through four levels. Specifically,
'socially coloured memories' worries me as it doesn't show mediation through
the social level at all, unless you want to claim that memories themselves
are social level patterns, rather than merely 'coloured' by the social
level. Overall though, this is irrelevant as your 'solution' is, like all of
Pirsig's solutions to invented problems, just plain convoluted and ugly.
3WD. I am not sure which points to answer as you yourself admit that your
logic is shaky. That being the case, is there any point in me pointing out
that it is, indeed, very shaky? Well OK:
1)I congratulate Pirsig (once again) on having brought philosophy to more
people (with ZAMM) than any other author this century and he deserves to be
well known for it. The old argument that I somehow resent this is crap and
one of those continuous personal attacks upon my character which Horse
couldn't care less about simply because it is directed at me rather than
emanating from me. Or do the more subtle, yet equally vicious, attacks not
even register? In any case this particular red herring does not deserve a
longer response.
2) Strawson did not say that no-one holds Pirsig's position. He said that
no-one holds a SOM. Read your critique with that correction and you will see
it collapse.
3)A conclusion without the 'working out' is not a conclusion. It is a
pontification and as such is worthless unless justified.
4) What do you care why I bother?
5) Your Rorty/James examples simply serve to show that many modern
philosophers are concerned with how language relates to the world. Thanks, I
knew that.
Also for the record. I view philosophy as a adjunct to science, in the sense
that it has a similar relationship to science as art criticism does to art.
Science is undoubtedly the driving force and the foundation. Claims to the
contrary simply misunderstand science and demonstrate only ignorance. (Diana
used that insult without rebuke, so it must pass Horse's acceptability
test - Phew!) Oh shit, that's let the cat out of the bag. Oh double shit,
there goes rule 8 again. Twice. Bollox. Three times. . . . . . . . . . . .
Incidentally, did you hear about the Buddhist who refused anaesthetic for
his wisdom tooth operation. He wanted to transcend dental medication.
Sorry, that wasn't relevant. There goes rule 2.
Bugger it, I shall stop before I offend a few more Victorian sensibilities.
Struan
Struan Hellier
<mailto:struan@clara.co.uk>
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