From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Mon Sep 22 2003 - 12:00:51 BST
Hi Patrick,
Thank you for this post, which I found most stimulating and sympathetic.
I think you are right to equate SOM with the Cartesian revolution, leading to our present
'disenchantment' with the world. One of my difficulties with the blanket condemnation of all pre-MoQ
thinking as 'SOM' is that it ignores the profound changes that have taken place in philosophical
thinking down the millenia. This sense of 'enchantment' is surely evidence against that. I'll try
and put those thoughts into a more coherent framework before too long.
Cheers
Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick van den Berg" <cirandar@yahoo.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 10:43 PM
Subject: MD Meaningful cosmology?
>
> Here's a little essay I took the time to write. Have fun, Patrick.
>
> Towards a return to a cosmological perspective of values and morals
>
> It is frequently discussed in this forum that cartesian philosophy,
> or 'SOM', can be transcended by the MoQ. Here I argue that part of
> Descartes' error was to cut us of from a wide, meaningful cosmos, and
> how a system like a metaphysics of quality can throw us back in a more
> valueable cosmos.
> Cartesian philosophy has the following properties:
> a) The mind and the material world are two different things.
> b)We can only understand both worlds by means of reason and
> experimentation.
> In the evolution of science, only the material world was emenable to
> experimentation, so knowledge about the material has evolved
> dramatically, whereas the mind was pushed in a small, trivial ephimeral
> and epiphenomal corner of reality. This alone cuts us of from a
> meaningful place in the world, or the universe at large.
> But the priority of subjecting nature to experimentation has had the
> particular consequence, that those parts of the world which are most
> easily subjected to our experimental drive, have gained priority in our
> worldview. In science, this means that newtonian and quantum mechanical
> science has gained priority over relativity. Experiments on relativity
> are quite hard to perform.
> Experimentalism in science has swung further to instrumentalism: only
> what can be manipulated, should be investigated and schould be applied
> in technological devices. Obviously this has created a whole new world
> from ca. 1700 to anno 2003 as compared to the rest of earth's history.
> There were virtually no computers 50 years ago, let alone in the 4
> billion years before that.
> From fundamental science to applied mass-technology, there is another
> swing in the instrumentalistic direction in society as a whole, called
> consumentalism. Although technology has made it possible not to spend
> most of our times growing and harvesting food, we work only to be able
> to buy food, cd's and dvd's, gasoline for our cars, organized holidays
> and so on. I'm not saying here that this is a bad thing all in all, only
> that we obviously value those things money can buy.
> What we miss, is our contact with these parts of the world science
> can't put to use. An obvious example is our place in Earth's ecosystem.
> Tigers and lions aren't a threat for us anymore. Most 'wild' or free
> animals don't cross our paths anymore.
> Outside Earth's sphere ;-), asside from an incidental newsreport on a
> newly discovered planet outside our solar system, or that Mars is
> exceptionally close to Earth on August 27, 2003, we don't integrate
> stories about the world outside our planet in our daily lifes. There's
> no obvious way to manipulate it, so we don't value paying attention to
> the wider scheme of things.
> A devotion of the universe, or even the sun as the Egypts did, is no
> longer there. Our religion is focussed on what money can buy for us
> today or tommorrow. The vast world outside Earth- that our power can't
> affect- is ignored, or pushed in a marginal place. But that need not be.
>
> Values can be changed by changing our morals. This can be achieved
> even when standing in a traffic-jam on the highway. Instead of trying to
> push the next car with your eyes, let them wander in the sky or onto the
> trees (if it creates no danger!). No, there's nothing we can do to
> change the weather, but personally I find a tree waving in the wind
> always quite intriguing to watch. And what I see, is what is part of me,
> as schemes like the MoQ acknowledge.
> So our morals, I argue, should expand to the non-controlable. Our
> identity lies not only in what we can put to use today. Our identity
> stretches out to every star in the universe, every bacterium or even
> virus, and to every tree and plant and flower in our rooms. When we can
> rationally conclude, as the MoQ allows us to do, that the stars are
> meaningful for our identity, merely because they are part of what we see
> and what we can understand, then we can live in a meaningful cosmos
> again. We are not only what we can manipulate.
>
>
>
>
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