From: jc (jcpryor@nccn.net)
Date: Sat Aug 06 2005 - 21:43:48 BST
At 8:33 AM -0400 8/6/05, Platt Holden wrote:
>
>Pirsig rejected your argument in a note in Lila's Child:
>
>"This is the usual argument against the philosophic idealism that is part
>of the MOQ so it had better be answered here. It is similar to the
>question, "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make
>a sound?" The historic answer of the idealists is, "What tree?" In order
>to ask this question you have to presuppose the existence of the falling
>tree and then ask whether this presupposed tree would vanish if nobody
>were there. Of course it wouldn't vanish! It has already been
>presupposed. This presupposition is a standard logical fallacy known as a
>hypothesis contrary to fact. It is the "hypothetical question" that is
>always thrown out of court as inadmissible. If pigs could fly how high
>would they go? (LC, Note 80)
Hi Platt,
I won't argue with you on this issue, is it allowable to argue with Pirsig?
I'm not a historical idealist. I'm an antianthropocentrist. I
wasn't arguing the existence of the tree, but of the sound. Although
admittedly a sound has just as much inherent reality as a tree.
What I was arguing was the relationship between observer and observed
creates the quality event. Is that not congruous with MoQ? If we
remove the observer, there is no event. There is still a tree and it
is doing something no doubt, but 'sound' is entirely a relational
definition.
So if a tree falls in the forest and there is no observer,
definitively no sound has occured.
thanks for the quote,
jc
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Aug 07 2005 - 09:57:37 BST