From: abahn@comcast.net
Date: Tue Nov 04 2003 - 22:28:19 GMT
Hi Johnny,
I had said (11/03/2003):
>the more I have read of him [Rorty], the more convinced I am that he does have
>great respect for these things. Especially American culture. Rorty does
>highlight history and morality, in fact, much more so than most
>philosophers.
Your comment (11/04.2003):"That's good to hear, I'd like to read what he says on this subject myself. I recall raising this point once before, though, and Matt pretty much denied that Pragmatism ought to call for giving greater respect to Morality as the source of intersubjective agreement."
Andy: Well, saying you have great respect for morality is not the same as saying one should have greater respect for morality as "the source of intersubjective agreement." More on this below.
Johhny: "He seemed to feel that Pragmatism called for re-examining Morality from an outside perspective, now that we know it is created by us, and changing it to what we decide is better by creating fresh intersubjective agreement. In other words, not respecting Morality at all as such."
Andy: It's pretty hard to take you seriously here. One can respect morality without putting it as the source of all things. Is this going to be like arguing with a fundamentalist christion about morals? I say killing is bad because we agree killing is bad. But, He replies that until I say that killing is bad because god says it is bad you are disrespecting morality and god. If you want to use morality as ultimately deciding what our morals are, I think you can go right ahead. But if you tell your interlocuters that you are not coing to continue with the conversation until we all agree that moarlity is supreme, sorry, but you will be the ultimate source of the problem.
Johnny: "I don't know what you mean exactly by divine creator. I was referring to Quality, or Expectation (Morality) itself, as a whole, as sort of an essence
or spin or process. I'm fine with calling that a divine creator when
talking with people who see it that way, and also fine with calling it
scientific determinism for people who see it that way, so in this discussion
let's just leave it out, there's no need to introduce the idea here."
Andy: but you are introducing the idea with your emphasis as Morality as the source of all things and your talk of respect, but I am more than happy to leave it out. It is what I intended to do in the first place.
Johnny: "I'm simply saying that we are what we are and believe what we believe because that is the way Morality has played out up to this point."
Andy: Substitute God for morality and what do you hear?
Johnny: "I didn't put in a request to be born in Boston to my mother and father, that was the way patterns interacted according to morality, to expectation. My thoughts and beliefs are similarly beyond my control, they are created by Morality. I can't just decide to believe something I don't believe."
Andy: I am not asking you to decide, just take part in the conversation.
Johnny: "They [truth and quality] hold themselves together by our intersubjective agreement. But the key is that they CREATE the intersubjective agreement to begin with. They have created it, and will continue to create it, and it creates them."
Andy: This is your belief. I respect that. Regardless, though, I don't believe that. Still we need to come to some agreement about other things. The pragmatist just asks what good it does to hold certain beliefs and Rorty thinks that holding metaphysical beliefs is no longer useful. We have bigger problems facing us, you might say, than to be trying to figure out the ultimate source or essence behind the physical world.
Johnny: "There's no space 'between' morality and instersubjective agreement, there's no 'outside' from which you can see quality creating intersubjective
agreement creating quality. To divorce these two and try to get between
them to hijack the process and create intersubjective agreement without
respect for morality is, well, blasphemous, or at least annoying."
Andy: blasphemous? Well there you go. DO you need anymore evidence about divine entities? The pragmatist will say we don't need to combine morality with intersubjective agreement or say that morality creates intersubjective agreement. The pragmatist says these things because he (she) wants individuals to take some responsibility and have active part in creating a moral and just society for all to participate in. In order to do this individuals need to converse, discuss, persuade and come to some intersubjective agreement.
Johnny: "It's no coincidence that we DO have society and language, you know? We have to have those, because there are ideas."
Andy: Or we have ideas because we have society and language, but why quibble.
Johnny: "Morality creates ideas as it expects to, and with them the society
and consciousness to contain the ideas, all at the same time."
Andy: I don't care what creates it all. And I thought you said we were going to leave that out. All I care about is coping in the world. Solving real problems. Morality plays an important part in answering these questions, so lets get on with the discussion and quit it with all this talk of creation, and sources, and respecting Morality, and trusting God, and having faith, and accepting wills. My focus is on the problems in this world. Our physical world. In my freetime, I might dabble in the mystic and feel the full force of dynamic quality, but as this is left unexplained and undefined, I prefer to leave it out of discussions on morality and instead talk about what works for all of humanity right now.
Johnny: "I guess I'm starting to describe the Anthropic Universe principle (or a
variation on it perhaps, as I don't think I really understand what people
mean by that term)."
Andy: You sound confused, but that's okay. Confusion is good. THere are no ultimate answers, so we should all be comfortable with a little confusion.
Johnny: "John Archibald Wheeler's phrase is "participatory universe", which I like more. He says the universe is made of information, of binary choices. "It From Bit" he calls it. That ties in with MoQ, if value is understood as a binary up/down vote or choice as opposed to a sliding scale of value. In both "It From Bit" and the MoQ, conscious participants are necessary for anything to "matter"."
Andy: I can buy that with a little more development. But the point is, you don't need to respect Morality to have this view.
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