[MD] Transhumanism

[Matt Kundert]

Hi John,

John said:
I think humility is more than a personal virtue, I believe it 
is a key philosophical foundation.
...
I think philosophy is a consequence of humility rather than 
the other way around.
...
What is the paving mechanism?  How does that work?  Are 
you saying that making it a philosophical assertion thereby 
includes it as system, and obviates it's usefulness?

Matt:
When I suggested that making "humility" a philosophical 
assertion to be "yay or nayed," I was suggesting, just like 
Pirsig in ZMM, that that turns _dialectic_, that which 
discerns what is true or false, into the primary subject, 
rather than rhetoric (or, "personal composition").  
Because by making a philosophical assertion, you are 
making the yay or naying, truth or falsity _of the assertion_ 
the primary object, rather than the way one behaves in the
making of assertions.  Does that make more sense of the 
connection?

I think saying "philosophy is a consequence of humility" is a 
wonderful way of stating my point, and that what I'm 
suggesting is that to make it a philosophical assertion 
reverses the order.  Along those lines, to use the trope of 
"foundations," like in saying that humility is a key 
philosophical foundation, is probably the wrong tactic to 
make the point about humility's priority to philosophy, 
because--surveying the course of foundation debates--it 
likely leads to an internal discussion about "epistemological 
foundations," rather than about personal composition.

Does this make more sense of why I agree that "philosophy 
only can happen in the context of this good - humility," and 
that I would believe you and Mary to be sincere and 
earnest in your desire to state that point, but that I'm 
suggesting that the means with which you try to reach 
your ends aren't the best ones available?  And, further, 
Pirsig agrees with me?  Not all people mean well, but even 
after we've figured out that we agree on ends, it doesn't 
mean the tools we've chosen will get us there.  Both you 
and Mary can likewise repeat this last paragraph back at 
me, that I'm sincere, and mean well, but have chosen the 
wrong means or tools.  But what I want to hear is how 
you avoid the Pirsigian nettle of "dialectic, the usurper" 
(380, Ch. 29), how you avoid the problem of 
"encapsulating" (388, Ch. 29) humility.  I'm not sure what 
you or Mary want to hear from me.

So, it's nice that you give the match to Mary, but I 
wonder why you didn't see that _I_ was suggesting 
philosophy in the context of good, and that the other 
way reverses it?  How is it, since you see that as the 
way, you sided with Mary and not me?

Matt
 		 	   		  
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