From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Mon Jan 10 2005 - 06:03:17 GMT
> Hi Platt --
> To believe that only scientific claims are meaningful is scientism as
> defined by the Skeptic's Dictionary that you quote. Merriam-Webster
> defines scientism as "an exaggerate trust in the efficacy of the methods
> of natural science." Pirsig thankfully frees us from the stifling limits
> such scientism. Your appeal to "anyone in the field of science or
> otherwise" as the sole arbiters of physical reality smacks of scientism.
I have made no such "appeal", and that charge is absurd, as anyone who has
read my thesis would know. Perhaps you scrolled past my "Mechanical Garden"
introduction where I assailed the ontological conclusions drawn by science
in statements such as: "Trying to understand reality by searching only for
objective information is the equivalent of one hand clapping."
> If physical reality is the content of conscious awareness,
> such awareness must be present at the physical level, as Pirsig says, or
> the physical world didn't exist until life emerged to observe it, a
> dubious idea.
A dubious idea in the historical perspective of man's reasoning, certainly;
but perfectly logical in a timeless metaphysical reality.
> > Thus, the way
> > to resolve the SOM duality is to posit reality as totally subjective.
>
> That's pure Idealism, a philosophy that goes back at least to Berkeley.
>
> Anyway, it's becoming
> increasingly evident that you have hitched your star to Idealism, a point
> of view easily rejected by noting the cardinals in my back yard depend on
> a great many things for their existence, but somebody's looking at them is
> not one of those things.
Is a New Ager -- or (pardon me), a "post-modernist" -- compelled to put down
any idea that was developed prior the 20th century? While you may consider
it old-fashioned and unsophisticated, I am not at all offended by the
Idealism label. In fact, I like to think that Essentialism has the
potential to reawaken idealism in our nihilistic age. As for those
cardinals in your back yard, we have them, too. Where do you suppose those
little red birds would be if you and I and no one else had ever noticed
them? In the Pirsigian view (SODV), this avarian species would be part of
"The Conceptually Unknown" which, having no value for man, would not be
experienced, hence would not exist. Or, have I misread the Master?
Essentially,
Ham
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