Dear Platt,
I agree with your 21/6 16:33 -0400 pragmatic approach of (in my words...)
defining intellectual quality in terms of survival. I don't agree to call
this '"adopt or die" reality', however, unless metaphorically: you skip the
social level between intellectual and biological. To live or to die is a
question on the biological level. To adopt or to deny is a question on the
intellectual level. In between, on the social level, counts the question
whether to belong or to be expelled.
Intellect serves the survival of social patterns of values (apart from
serving 'purposes of its own': the survival of the intellectual patterns of
values themselves). So we can define 'facts' and 'truth' in terms of their
contribution to the survival of social patterns of values and of the groups
that are held together by these social patterns of values.
(Society in its turn serves the survival of biological patterns of values.
Intellect serves biology only very indirectly. This very indirectness shows
itself in the sinking of the Titanic: believing in its unsinkability gave
status and preserved Victorian social patterns of values, as did the
mucisians stoically playing on. Homo sapiens, the relevant biological
pattern of values, was not threatened by the sinking of the Titanic.)
I agree that the 'MoQ myth' doesn't need the Wilberite addition 'across the
greatest span and depth'. It is just about the possibility of defining the
direction of evolution. I won't repeat here my reasons for hesitating to
agree with your addition 'towards greater freedom' (instead of 'towards
DQ').
You also wrote 21/6 16:33 -0400:
'We agree that no rational pattern of values (metaphysics) can prove its own
validity based on its own assumptions. That's shown in Godel's Theorem.
Their legitimacy comes from one's sense of a truth that lies
beyond a finite set of axioms. Some things are not provable, but we know
them to be true, like being and/or existence. Are we saying the same thing
in different ways? As mentioned here many times by many people, intuition
often works to establish one's "truth."'
I think we are indeed saying the same thing in different ways. For my
interpretation of 'intuition', see my 22/6 22:40 +0200 posting to Scott:
Sensation and intuition are alternative ways of perceiving reality (=
quality). Sensation is a conscious process leading to conscious conclusions
(perceptions) and intuition is an unconscious process leading to conscious
conclusions (perceptions). Both thought and emotion are ways of organizing
our perceptions (conscious resp. unconscious processes with conscious
judgements as conclusions).
If you are right with:
- 'Not only does postmodernism challenge the progression of knowledge, it
challenges the notion of knowledge itself.'
and Scott is right with his claim that
- at least a postmodernist like Rorty recognizes 'that he finds some things
of more value than others'
than postmodernism (in some variants) may be closer to a MoQ than I
suspected...
I haven't read any postmodernist philosopher in the original, however, so I
don't think it is very fruitful to continue discussing postmodernism.
'Truth' being 'relative to a culture, situation, language, ideology or some
other social condition' may come close to my idea that pragmatically
speaking 'truth' can be tested by its contribution to the survival of social
patterns of values only (and not directly by contribution to survival of
biological or inorganic patterns of values)...
Maybe I'll write more about my ideas about astrology some other time...
(Those who understand Dutch can find some on
www.antenna.nl/wim.nusselder/astrologie/intro.htm.)
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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