From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Thu Jan 29 2004 - 08:07:46 GMT
Paul and Apostles
25 Jan. you wrote:
> The S/O distinction is *an* intellectual pattern of value, not *the*
> value of intellect.
I know what you position is and you know mine ...that the S/O is
the master-pattern from are as many sub-patterns as stars above
have evolved.
> Bo said:
> Will it never penetrate that the S/O does not mean that intellectual
> patterns "contains" subjects and objects", merely that they are of the
> "search for what is objectively true" ...etc." ROOT.
> Paul:
> If you cut out the "objectively" then I would agree that intellectual
> patterns can be said to "search for what is true." As I have said
> repeatedly, "true" and "objective" are not equivalent terms.
> Intellectual patterns can only be better or worse than others. A
> stumbling block for you in accepting this may be your insistence that
> patterns in one level are of identical value. I found a quote on this
> subject in Lila's Child:
OK, we may be reconciled here if you accept Truth in the sense
of (ZMM p.368)
"Truth. Knowledge. That which is independent of what anyone
thinks of it.The ideal that Socrates died for. The ideal that Greece
alone possesses for the first time in the history of the world".
Still I wonder why the "objective" term so inedible?
"Truth" is often reinforced by putting an "objective" in front of it to
indicate something more than just plain truthfulness. Knowledge
is "objective", and "..independent of what anyone thinks of it". Is
there a better definition of objectivity?
> Jason asks the question, "What distinguishes a high quality
> intellectual idea from a lower quality one?" [p.10] Pirsig, in his
> annotations, replies, "Its truth, mainly. Also the magnitude of the
> questions it answers or problems it solves. Other things being equal,
> its rhetorical "elegance" is also important in the mathematical sense
> of that term." [p.32]
The better intellectual pattern is the one that raises
KNOWLEDGE to the greatest distance from the subjective. Not a
mere social good of being honest.
> The ancient Greeks might have been the first to consciously strive for
> truth and in doing so placed it higher than the good but the notion of
> "objective truth" has been dying for years, science would not have
> survived if it couldn't reject old truths for better ones, as Pirsig
> notes in Lila:
The enigmatic matter (if that is your "objective truth"?) does not
pose any stumbling block. It has been under attack for long now
- I mentioned Quantum Mech. - but it has not lead to any
revolution except a lot of NewAge books. Physical science itself
doesn't give a damn ...after the hubbub after Schrödinger's Cat
and Alain Aspect's experiment has waned.
> "It's ironic that although the philosophy of science leaves no room
> for any undefined Dynamic activity, it's science's unique organization
> for the handling of the Dynamic that gives it its superiority. Science
> superseded old religious forms, not because what it says is more true
> in any absolute sense (whatever that is), but because what it says is
> more Dynamic
Here Pirsigs roams freely between the MOQ and SOM, but you
see that it is SCIENCE he sees as the epitome of intellect -
always.
> If scientists had simply said Copernicus was right and Ptolemy was
> wrong without any willingness to further investigate the subject, then
> science would have simply become another minor religious creed. But
> scientific truth has always contained an overwhelming difference from
> theological truth: it is provisional.
Well, he could have said that science is a relentless search for
what is objectively true in contrast to relying on holy scriptures
and their interpreters
> Science always contains an
> eraser, a mechanism whereby new Dynamic insight could wipe out old
> static patterns without destroying science itself. Thus science,
> unlike orthodox theology, has been capable of continuous, evolutionary
> growth. As Phaedrus had written on one of his slips, "The pencil is
> mightier than the pen."" [Lila p.254-255]
OK Paul you have been forthcoming and as in the Jaynes/Pirsig
comparison effort we are on the verge of an agreement, but that
time I felt that you took advantage of it so I found it safer to go
back to the trenches ;- But sooner or later.
Sincerely Bo
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