From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Nov 23 2002 - 16:56:21 GMT
Sam said:
The 9/11 example is just particularly graphic and (on one level!) very easy
to understand what happened. But in fact any disaster could qualify. My
point is that Pirsig gives a scale of values, that 'intellectual' values are
the top of the heap, and therefore the 'worst' thing about any disaster (ie
worst that we can talk about, so not including unquantifiable DQ) is the
loss of intellectual goods. Which I think is barbaric. As it happens I don't
think Pirsig would actually hold to that, if it was presented to him in
those terms, but it seems to be the logical implication of the MoQ. Are you
saying that it isn't a logical implication of the MoQ, or that it isn't
barbaric?
DMB says:
Murdering a human being is wrong on many levels and certainly not JUST
because intellectual values are destroyed. You seem to construe the MOQ to
say that the loss of intellectual values is the only thing that matters to
Pirsig, as if its no problem to destroy biological and social patterns.
Putting intellect at the top and insisting that its the most valuable thing
is not the same as saying everything else is worthless. So I think its not
accurate to depict this "logical implication" as barbaric.
Sam said:
'Choosing unit' was my phrasing, 'machine language interface' is Pirsig's,
but as long as you know what I'm trying to get at then they're doing their
work. My point is that the 'intellect' - understood as the manipulation of
symbols, understood even more specifically as something divorced from
emotion, so "Reason" - is incapable of choice. I'm not arguing that it is
incapable of judging itself, I'm saying that it is incapable of judging,
period. To discern 'truth' depends upon the development of moral character;
thus truth is one of a number of eudaimonic values. I've gone into the
technicalities of why I assert this elsewhere.
DMB says:
Divorced from emotion!? Are you talking about Pirsig or Spock? I think this
is a profound misunderstanding of the intellect. Pirsig points out in
several ways that intellectual values can only be derived from the social
level and so it INCLUDES emotion, but also transcends it. If reason were
incapable of choice there would be no way to distinquish a bad idea from a
good one. There would be no way to create a hypothesis and no motive to
search for truth and meaning.
Thanks,
DMB
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