[MD] Suspending disbelief

[Khoo Hock Aun]

Mike & Everyone,

I like where you are  going with this. It is good to have a sceptical
sometime cynical view of the world that does not accept any premise that is
"god-given" : )

I might even venture that the experience of Quality begins with a state of
suspended disbelief; and being self aware then to strive to make this state
permanent.

It might be that a whole world of wonders open up. Always dynamic. Nothing
static.

Rgds
Khoo Hock Aun

On 12/5/05, Michael Hamilton <thethemichael at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Ian and MD
>
> It's probably just a coincidence, but a couple of weeks ago I was
> having some thoughts about 'suspending disbelief', and now it turns
> out to be a big part of your thinking. We may be talking about
> different things, but here are my thoughts anyway.
>
> It followed on from something I wrote to Matt recently, about the
> conditions for social value creating intellectual value:
>
> "What enables individual intellects to think freely, is education.
> Education is necessarily a social process. It is _someone else_
> teaching you mathematics, teaching you to read and write, and teaching
> you to think critically. The significant feature of these disciplines
> is that they cannot be indoctrinated - it's much more a Socratic
> Method of "drawing-out" (I was fascinated to learn that,
> etymologically speaking, "education" is precisely "drawing out". The
> "-duc-" bit isn't "drawing" in the sense of a chalk and blackboard,
> but in the sense of drawing the knowledge out of the student.). The
> teacher voluntarily _suspends_ the power to indoctrinate you, and
> instead encourages and empowers you to think autonomously.
>
> "So, the first condition of education (as opposed to indoctrination) is
> the teacher's faith that it is better to educate than to indoctrinate.
> The second condition is the student's faith that he or she can and
> should think for his or her self. And the final condition for a
> burgeoning 4th level is the society's faith that its citizens should
> be free to think for themselves and to express those thoughts. Again,
> it's a _voluntary suspense of power_ - the (rulers of) society
> voluntarily suspends the power to control you by coercion.
>
> "So, free thinking is made possible by these particular social faiths.
>
> "There's definitely a hint of paradox about all this. Take that
> sentence: "What enables individual intellects to think freely, is
> education." However, it makes sense in the context of the suspension
> of power. The 4th level can only be created by a voluntary suspension
> of level-3 static value. Better still: the 4th level is created when
> level-3 value is put into the service of DQ. This is where the
> framework of discrete levels shows its elegance."
>
> I should say that this can't be a description of the _beginning_ of
> the intellectual level, because there's an infinite regress of 'who
> educates the educator'. It's more a description of how the
> intellectual level is maintained.
>
> Now, if I'm right that a level creates a higher value level by
> voluntarily putting its value into the service of DQ instead of its
> own static value, then we can try extrapolating this theory. Organisms
> co-operating to form societies instead of competing tooth-and-nail for
> food etc - this fits, although the word "voluntary" becomes less
> appropriate. And it becomes even less appropriate when we talk about
> the inorganic level. DQ works in mysterious ways, I guess :)
>
> But what got me on to 'suspending disbelief' was considering how
> intellect might sacrifice its own static value considerations by
> putting its value into the service of DQ. Traditionally, at least,
> intellect loves to question and to doubt. Socratic dialectic is a
> questioning process. Descartes' method was the Method of Doubt. Hell,
> doesn't science basically consist of asking nature very specific
> questions: if I do _this_ in _these_ conditions, what are you gonna
> do, Nature? And there's that line from ZMM, something like "If you
> keep asking what it is, you'll never have time to _know_." And there's
> Lila's angry response to Phaedrus, something like: "Don't you realise
> that I am whatever your questions make me into?" Anyway, I'm rambling.
> But haven't you noticed that when it comes to the point of creating
> something, you _just can't do it_ if you're still obeying your
> intellectual, hrm, DESIRE to question everything that passes through
> your mind? You can't say, write, paint anything if you can't stop
> asking yourself whether it's right or not.
>
> So, even Descartes had to suspend disbelief a bit to actually write
> down his Meditations. However, we can still say that he did this in
> the service of his intellectual sense of value. By writing the
> Meditations, he propagated the method of doubt.
>
> To put intellectual value into the service of DQ, we have to suspend
> disbelief wholesale. Generally speaking, humour and fantasy (to take
> two clear-cut examples) have Quality because we have the power to
> question them, _but we choose not to_, because.... because, well, its
> just Better that way. We just let it go. We allow these things to
> stand, for reasons that we can't define or explain without killing the
> beast. It's that vague sense of we know not what, which makes us laugh
> or makes us keep reading. And Tolkien's books and Ross Noble's
> stand-up routines get static-latched: people buy the books or DVDs,
> tell their friends, remember the jokes.....
>
> Well, thanks very much if you made it this far.
>
> Regards,
> Mike
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