[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Platt, Matt,

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 8:14 AM,  <plattholden at gmail.com> wrote t"o Mary
> Right you are according to the MOQ. But some people believe God
> accounts for many things just as many others believe chance explains a
> lot (the "Oops" crowd). My point was that all-purpose explanations that
> ultimately depend on a mysterious force (DQ, God, Chance, etc.) are
> vulnerable to legitimate criticism. When it comes right down to it, the
> convictions people have about the way the world works depend on one
> or more unprovable assumptions. Regardless of how convincing, all
> metaphysics begins with a leap of faith.

Steve:
I think it would be better to drop the idea of faith and say that the
selection of intellectual constructions is done based on Quality.

Recall Pirsig's: "One can then examine intellectual realities the same
way he examines paintings in an art gallery, not with an effort to
find out which one is the "real" painting, but simply to enjoy and
keep those that are of value.  There are many sets of intellectual
reality in existence and we can perceive some to have more quality
than others, but that we do so is, in part, the result of our history
and current patterns of values."

Platt:
>> Bruce's example is an empirical fact established by observation and
>> experiment. But, where is the evidence that values are involved?  How
>> do we convince doubters that the germ-immunity conflict is a moral
>> struggle? I mean it's easy to say that all battles are moral battles. But,
>> how do you prove it in court?

Steve:
I don't think the sort of certainty about which picture (the Quality
picture or the subject-object picture of reality or some other
picture) is ultimately better is possible. There is no "objective
court" where a given picture must be proven to be the true picture.
There are only human perspectives where what we perceive as having
more quality is a "result of our [individual] histor[ies] and current
patterns of value."

But we can hope to convince some others that the Quality picture is
better if we do a good enough job making our case. Cleary Pirsig's
arguments worked on us, but they did not work on, for example, Ham
(based on recent comments it seems that he has finally got around to
reading Pirsig's books). The way to convince someone is tell more and
better stories to disrupt his or her current patterns of value so that
new patterns of value are formed which are favorable to the MOQ. In
Ham's case, he identifies strongly with certain patterns that are
incompatible with the MOQ and is therefore unlikely to be swayed.

I think Matt Kundert would argue that the sort of metaphysical
certainty you are looking for is what drove Pirsig to insanity and
later to developing a new metaphysics.

Matt, what do you think? Did Pirsig find some comfortable resolution
in his quest for certainty?

Best,
Steve