From: Simon Magson (twix_570@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Dec 01 2004 - 17:21:38 GMT
Scott Roberts wrote:
This is casuistry. I repeat, what sense experience is involved in knowing
that the square root of 2 is irrational?
SM:
I’m sorry if it appears casuist. It is supposed to be a genuine
epistemological proposition i.e., the avoidance of infinite epistemic
regress via a grounding of coherentism in the primary empirical reality of
value. I’ll try and break it down for you.
First of all, when you say “sense experience” you appear to be excluding
value from that experience. I am arguing, in accordance with the MOQ, that
value has historically been “excluded” from sense experience for
metaphysical and not empirical reasons.
I am arguing that, within the decimal number system, the square root of 2 is
1.412 simply because it is an established pattern of intellectual quality
maintained by static social conventions.
I am arguing that the establishment of this intellectual pattern occurred as
a result of the invention of the decimal number system, and the invention of
square roots within that number system, and that these inventions are the
direct result of a sense of these inventions being valuable, more valuable
than an infinite number of other possible systems because of their coherence
and, perhaps, applicability.
So in answer to your question - “What sense experience is involved in
“knowing” that the square root of 2 is irrational?” - it is either the sense
of intellectual quality iself e.g., the primary perception of ratio,
coherence, or whatever the kind of value was that created the number system
and square roots, or, much more likely to the non-mathematician, it is
simply a sense of social quality i.e., conformity to authority in education
and the mathematical conventions it teaches.
Scott Roberts wrote:
If you call reason a sense, then
what did Pirsig mean when he said "In the MOQ, reason is completely
dependent on the senses"?
SM:
I’m not calling reason a sense. I am arguing that you are taking what the
MOQ calls an intellectual sense of quality and calling it reason.
He meant that there are no a priori truths waiting to be discovered by
reason.
Scott Roberts wrote:
The square root of 2 is known to be irrational through logical necessity.
SM:
Then what is the necessity of logical necessity known by? What justifies the
belief in logical necessity?
Scott Roberts wrote:
Unicorns are known not to exist empirically. Do you really want to do away
with this distinction?
SM:
No, but that wasn’t what I was saying was it? I was making a statement about
rationalism and the lack of constraints it places on what does or does not
exist. God is not known to exist empirically but is considered to be
monistic reality itself by some rationalists, such as Spinoza. So why accept
a non-empirical God but not a non-empirical unicorn?
Scott Roberts wrote:
Sensation is separation.
SM:
No it isn’t. This sounds like SOM.
Scott Roberts wrote:
We always see particular things.
SM:
Not strictly true.
Scott Roberts wrote:
I see trees and walls. I hear tunes and thuinder. I taste sourness and
sweetness. I don't see, hear, or taste "pure experience".
SM:
Correct. Pure experience precedes the distinction into seeing, hearing and
tasting. You really don’t know what I’m referring to do you? However, I
accept that in this discussion this is my problem and it is frustrating
because it seems there is nothing I can do about it!!
Scott Roberts wrote:
Are you saying that a baby experiences everything in one dimension: low to
high quality. She doesn't experience hunger differently from a wet diaper?
SM:
Yes she does experience them differently but the MOQ postulates that it is
primarily a difference of quality from which “hunger” and “wetness” and
“diapers” are derived as “complex patterns of values”.
SM
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