From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Sep 08 2005 - 15:43:25 BST
Ian,
> Two thirds of GEB is creative writing about creative art (Escher and Bach)
> ZMM is a work of art; can there be any doubt Platt, that we're here because
> of the need to bring the art that "classical" rationality lacks, to the
> fore ?
"Lila," replete with reason, is also a work of art.
> "That's a bear, not a rabbit / platypus / gavegai" is far from being
> an absolute truth. It's a very useful, pragmatic, static pattern of
> social value, a latch to prevent Socrates from being eaten alive, in
> order to nurture the evolving intellectual patterns in his head. (A
> very long-lived and very valuable social pattern, it has to be said,
> but not absolute. The only concept we needed was a useful truth.)
Useful for what? To survive. It takes an absolute truth to fend off
absolute death.
> Platt, you and I are back to an earlier impasse, We both \9and Arlo
> and the rest) place high value on both art (as well as "science"), but you
> still seem to keep them in distinct separate boxes for separate occasions,
> whereas I firmly believe an expanded definition of rationality can
> incorporate both without any harmful compromise. Surely that's what the MoQ
> is (or at least is trying to be) ?
The MOQ embraces all values, whether the value be art, reason, social
institutions, biological feelings or physical atoms. I keep art in
separate "box" just as Pirsig does in saying the level above intellect
might be called the level of art. But, if you think of art as the
equivalent of harmony, then there's a great deal of art in the classical
intellectual pattern of logic just as in the pattern of a symphony or the
symmetry of a lobster. Art covers the entire value spectrum.
> When you quote Paul Davies, I don't quite get your logic ..
> [Quote] [Quote] If we wish to progress beyond, we have to embrace a
> different concept of "understanding" from that of rational
> explanation." [Unquote]
> That's why I keep pushing art [Unquote] (??)
>
> I totally agree - I'm pushing art too, into classical rationality to
> create that "new rationality" a new "quality of explanation" - it's
> already got a name "MoQ. Where are you pushing it ?
You seem to suggest that the MOQ doesn't look favorably upon classical
rationality. If so, one quote ought to disabuse you of that notion:
"But what's not so obvious is that, given a value-centered Metaphysics of
Quality, it is absolutely, scientifically moral for a doctor to prefer the patient.
This is not just an arbitrary social convention that should apply to some
doctors but not to all doctors, or to some cultures but not all cultures. It's true
for all people at all times, now and forever, a moral pattern of reality as real as
H20. We're at last dealing with morals ON THE BASIS OF REASON." (Lila, 13)
> Why do I find you so infuriating :-) ?
I give up. Why? :-)
Platt
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