Platt Holden (pholden@worldnet.att.net)
Fri, 17 Oct 1997 03:44:07 +0100
Hi Magnus:
> Platt wrote:
> > To say "it would be immoral to judge according to one's personal static
> > level ladder" is itself a judgment based on your personal ladder.
> > According to your view, your judgment that "it would be immoral" is
> > immoral.
>
> Granted, so, we have the situation Doug exemplified the other week:
>
> "Everything I say is true.
> The previous sentence is false."
Yes. So here we have a situation where your argument defeats itself. Of
course, our discussion occurs in the rational SOM mode which, as Doug
points out, leaves something to be desired. (I think Doug's email about
"many truths" is extremely significant.) There are several SOM paradoxes in
the MOQ itself. For example, the quality of the rational Metaphysics of
Quality cannot be proved by rational thought. Still, so long as admit to
being in a rational SOM mode, self-contradictory assertions need to be
challenged. When we want to go beyond the SOM mode, we can drop in a poem
like Maggie's "Lord of the Dance." (Platt's test for AI is to have one
computer make sense of a poem written by another computer.)
> I'm curious, are you saying that this copying - this process that keeps
> static patterns the same between QE:s - is equivalent to biological
> reproduction?
No. Biological reproduction such as cell division creates measurable
entities ("entities" being defined as have three dimensions of space and
one of time) whereas the "copying" process of the senses creates no
entities. How neural tissue organizes and interprets data received by the
senses remains a mystery because the process is not particulate.
> I just don't think it's fair to take written words too literally.
> First of all, the intellectual pattern becomes static as soon as
> it's printed as words. And second, language is limited and
> ambigous.
OK. So why are we hung up on defining the levels? Even the best definition
will be limited and ambiguous. Also, it seems to me at some point we have
to assume that a writer of the caliber of Pirsig chooses his words with
care and means what he says.
> I'd place the core of our disagreement here. We've approached the MoQ
from
> different directions. But that's ok, that's what it's supposed to do.
Join
> seemingly different people around the same core.
>
> Your approach is homing in on the "inquiry into morals" part, whereas
mine
> aims for the "metaphysics" part. And this metaphysics part has very much
> to do with the composition of man-made objects, as well as non man-made
> objects.
Excellent point. For me the metaphysical thrust is secondary to the morals
thrust. Thanks for making the distinction clear. It illustrates the value
of Doug's advice to bring our assumptions out into the open. Since our
assumptions are so near and dear to us we often don't recognize them for
what they are, and it takes someone else to point them out.
Platt
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