Glen, David P, All
David
Good link, thanks.
Glen
> Lila is first and foremost about a metaphysics.
3WD
I prefer to say that Lila and ZaMM are stories about an individual's
quest for metaphysical understanding. But if you go to the link that
David posted down near the bottom of the second page we read "What then
is metaphysics? Evidently it is the ART of wondering...... Further is it
an ART in which...."
This is the ART of which I speak. Metaphysics is not the "science" of
"wondering" because the very nature of sciencific inquiry is to use
hypothesis to limit the field sufficiently to make it testable.
Metaphysics does not have this luxury. That is not to say that methods
of science have no value to metaphysics just that that value has limits.
Glen
> I'm the only vocal "science critic". Struan has only
> taken on the mantle of science since he's rejoined, and the extent to which
> he runs with it remains to be seen.
3WD
How are you sure that Struan is not one who rejects metaphysics
completely? There have been and continue to be large numbers of
philosophers who do.
It is obvious "Lila is [not] immune to criticism" because that is what
we are doing here. But it is a matter of what "attitude" we bring to the
inquiry. I can accept that Pirisg's SOM position is, from a technical
philosophical point of view, a"strawman". Then rather than concluding
that this makes everything else he says either suspect or null and void
go on to ask. How could he miss this? And if he didn't then, Why did he
purposely create it, or create the appearance of one? These questions
lead or 'point' to a broader field of inquiry. I now view both books as
a kind of fable or morality play with stories of several characters
intertwined which can lead one towards a better understanding of the
nature of metaphysics and reality. And for me at least this is both
interesting and good. Now that Pirsig believes that there are
metaphysical insights or "truths" to be found there is obvious. But the
view that everything between their covers must be or should be
scientifically or literally true for them to be of value is not only
impossible within the framework of the metaphysics he proposes, it
really is just plainly impossible within any philosophy. That is why
without rejecting the importance of the metaphysical question, "What
is?" he suggests that "What ought to be?" is of metaphysically equal
importance because the hypothesis we hold today, false or true, in part,
determine "What is" tommorrow. Being is Becoming, and it is rooted in
fact and fiction.
3WD
aka: ME
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