Hi David, and others...
Pirsig and you wrote:
> "Today we are living in an intellectual and technological
> paradise
> and a moral and social nightmare because the intellectual level of
> evolution, in its struggle to become free of the social level, has
> ignored
> the social level's role in keeping the biological level under
> control."
>
> DMB:
> Again, this ignorance of the "social level's role" is the failure that
> I
> want to discuss. That's why I started the thread in the first place.
You mean the Failure of the Enlightenment, not this thread, I assume.
I think it's an interesting notion that moral has everything to do with
the social level.
In a Newtonian, Cartesian world, which I take as impliciting the
worldview of the Enlightenment, we are individuals who have no place in
the bigger scheme of things. We are our only judges, and we create our
own values. Add with that our sexual, violent and other feelings that
are the products of Darwinian evolution; that is, totally accidentally
created with no further meaning.
A billiard ball, or a classical atom cannot intrinsically be moved by
another, the ball or atom stays the ball or atom for ever: We can only
change its momentum and position. That is, only external relations can
be established. I understand less of the mathematics of Quantum
mechanics that I'd like to, but I know that in the quantum world things,
atoms can intrinsically share their identity with other things, and be
part of a bigger being and process. I don't want to be associated with a
certain vague, popular quantum mysticism, but I think we shouldn't throw
out the baby with the bathwater. I've argued before, in line with people
such as David Hodgson, that there are strong reasons to think that the
quantum world is not 'far below' us in the very small world, but that we
live in it. We are quantum beings, with wave and particle aspects.
Please don't take that as a metaphor, but as literal as you can, in a
very precise, quantum mechanical sense.
Okay, let's assume we're not newtonian robots, but quantum beings. What
does that imply? We are selves (particle aspect) with an own identity,
but through real contact our wave-functions (feelings of empathy, e.g.)
can overlap and merge our experience in an intrinsic way. We can change
from within, we can make contact from within with other fellow men (and
animals, pets). We are no nihilistic, isolated selves. We REALLY stand
in a bigger relation with the world and all people. It's REALLY true
that by our large, but maybe more by our small actions, we influence the
development of the universe. Sounds esoteric crap? I thought so too,
some years back, but not anymore. We are no appendix of the universal
Clockwork, we're co-creators of the world.
So far my interpretation of Zohar's Quantum Self, which I'm reading now.
"Co-creators of the world" sounds a bit too grand, maybe. But my point
is, meaning is something of the world, not of a lonely, accidental,
isolated self. Pirsig has tried to formulate a metaphysics who puts
moral and value in front. That's good. He's tried somewhere to mirror
the implications of the new physics with his thinking. I think that's
very good. Physics, or it's metaphysical implications, was the failure
of the Enlightenment with Newton. Over two centuries later a different
physics has seen the light, but it's metaphysical implications are only
beginning to be uncovered, let alone influence our everyday attitudes
towards ourselves and others.
'Leave it at this. I think I see the failure of the enlightenment and
the deep influence it has on our culture. But the twentieth century has
seen something new. Something better. I hope.
Sorry for the bit too grand tone I take, I dislike it myself. But it's a
grand matter... With friendly greetings, Patrick.
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