ROGER TO GLENN (with PS to Jonathan)
ROG:
The short version of this reply is to read what I just sent to John. I am
just repeating below.
GLENN:
Pirsig clearly says that the law of gravity and gravity itself did not
exist before Isaac Newton. He's not talking about mere word coinage here.
Not only has he demoted the law of gravity to a human concept, but
*gravity itself*. He doesn't bother to explain what must have held the
sun, solar system, and galaxies together before gravity came into being,
circa 1600 AD.
ROG:
Reality is dynamic and flowing and beyond such concepts as the law of gravity
or even gravity itself.
GLENN:
I think Pirsig would say that stars, galaxies, and supernova simply did
not exist back then. These "concepts" were invented after that and static
reality shifted toward these as they became accepted. In short, according
to Pirsig, no static reality exists beyond what we invent and subsequently
brainwash ourselves into believing, and indeed, one of these beliefs is
gravity, another is a rock we hold in our hand, and another is objective
reality itself.
PIRSIG: (McWatt paper)
When we speak of an external world guided by evolution it's normal to
assume
that it is really there, is independent of us and is the cause of us. The
MOQ goes along with this assumption because experience has shown it to be
an
extremely high quality belief for our time. But unlike materialist
metaphysics,
the MOQ does not forget that it is still just a belief - quite different
from
beliefs in the past, from beliefs of other present cultures, and possibly
from
beliefs we will all have in the future. What will decide which belief
prevails
is, of course, its quality.
GLENN:
In this quote it appears Pirsig does an about face and flatly admits that
objective reality exists. (No wonder that even the long-timers argue to
this day about what he truly means.) But let's not be too hasty. He will
only go so far as to say that it is an "extremely high quality belief of
our time", but like any other belief, it's future prevalence is unclear.
So while he can understand why other people would believe in objective
reality, and indeed the MOQ levels suggest an objective reality, his
personal position remains unclear.
While Pirsig is quite right in pointing out that world-views change and
that different cultures have different beliefs, he is dismissing the
obvious. Some cultures are more technologically advanced and know more
than others. If your culture does not have telescopes in big observatories,
and is isolated from cultures that do, then your culture is not going to
know what the stars are made of or that other galaxies exist. And the
world-view in Aristotle's time was indeed invented. It was guess-work,
conjecture in an ignorant time. They never bothered to test their ideas.
How can he compare this to what we know and have accomplished now and make
similar conclusions? NASA just landed a space probe on an asteroid only 8
miles long and millions of miles away. What are we to say about this? We
have a pretty good grasp of our beliefs? Sure, all that science claims is
still a belief, but what's it gonna take to turn this into "I believe"?
ROG:
He said it was a very good "high quality" belief. I concur. I think Popper
would concur. I think Anthony would too. Pirsig has such high praise for the
intellectual level and its poster child SCIENCE that he moves it to the top
spot among static values.
GLENN:
Pirsig is saying that evolution of static reality is correct and the
ability humans and cultures have to create reality is also correct and he
bundles these two notions under the MOQ. But I think I've shown that the
two notions are not compatible and cause internal contradictions within
the MOQ. You can have one or the other, but not both.
ROG:
I see none at all. The "evolution of static reality" itself is created by
men, and it would be more appropriate to say we create models derived from
reality than to say we create reality. (though I recognize Pirsig may have
oversimplified his teminology somewhere in his novels).
Sorry if I cut something essential out of your post in abbreviating it, but I
see no contradiction in anything that Anthony, Pirsig, Elephant, several
others or I have said.
Roger
PS -- I must admit that Jonathan threw me for a loop with his computational
apples though! Do you suppose Chinese apples have little abacuses built into
the stems? We demand an explanation!!! :^)
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