[MD] Dawkins a Materialist

[David M]

Hi DMB/Ian

> dmb says:
> That's not what the MOQ says, that's what Quine says. And even then its 
> only
> true on a philosophical level. The fact is, the "assumptions" of 
> scientific
> materialism work perfectly well on a practial level every day of the week.
> In conventional reality, where the museum of creation is being built, 
> there
> are social, political, intellectual and moral issues at stake, all of 
> which
> you are ignoring entirely. And on that level the myth of materialism is 
> not
> at all dead. Nearly everyone in the West still believes in it. Doubting it
> never even occurs to most people. In any case, the MOQ's distinction 
> between
> social and intellectual values prevents us from coming to the ridiculous
> conclusion that science and fundamentalism are equally valid or invalid.
> Agreeing with the creationists in their attitude toward science is
> anti-intellectual and, I think, immoral according to the MOQ.
>
> As Ken Wilber says about the extreme postmodernists, they equalize science
> and religion by shooting them both in the head.


DM: Yes and no, up to a point, let's find the right path, the middle way.

In many ways, I think materialism has had it. Post-modernism can
undermine it, cutting-edge science can undermine it, eastern thinking
can undermine it. But the man/woman in the street may have no idea of this, 
and
the analytical philosophical community, deeply secular, and desperate
to use science as a shield against religion, also don't seem to have
caught on that science is less and less materialistic in a recognisably
reductionist, deterministic and mechanical form. Where I am with
the analytical community and against the post-modernists is where
they go too far and fail to recognise the achievements and benefits
of science (although lets not forget the costs and new problems it
brings too). Where I am with the post-modernists, particularly
its phenomenological roots, is that they open up the space between
experience and science where the MOQ is located. Science is not
the only description of reality because reality is founded in experience
and there is much more to experience than measurement, extension
and quantity. MOQ draws our attention to the other qualities of
experience that science ignores. Phenomenology does this too.
Husserl wanted to get at the truth of SQ, and Heidegger pointed
out that this entirely ignores DQ and makes similar errors to the
reductions and abstractions of experience performed by science.
Husserl wanted to experience and describe objects of consciousness,
Heidegger said consciousness is a dualistic conception and suggested
the concept of da-sein, not-being (often mistranslated as being-the-there)
as the locus of human experience. Of course, Romanticism already
reacted against the reduction of experience, disenchantment, of
enlightnement and science. For me, MOQ addresses these problems,
the inadequacy of the enlightenment-science conception very well.

However, where Pirsig appears to reject religion, I think he fails to
make a key distincition. Where the MOQ is based in experience and
is in this sense anti-metaphysical, it does need to reject that side
of religion that is speculative-rationalistic-metaphysical. What
Derrida calls logocentrism & onto-theology. So here we agree with
the post-modernists again. But is there not exactly the same room
for certain kinds of religious experience as there are for other qualities
of experience in the descriptions of experience that go beyond scientific
descriptions, such as in eastern thought and the MOQ. I guess DMB
would be inclined to call this mystical experience rather than religious
experience (you say tomato). So let science do its work & model
reality but if its models fail to be compatible with experience then
it has failed to deal with what is the primary reality on which all
sny knowledge is based. On the other hand our descriptions of experience
need toexplain how science is possible. So a mystical or religious 
conception
of experience is possible, but should be able to make sense of our ability
to do science. So if someone wants to do a different kind of science
based on a different take on experience let them make their case. It
then comes down to judgement whether it is for us or not. It may not
be for you or me but let them get on with it. We all have a different 
perspective.
For me, experience is best described in terms of DQ and SQ,
or if you have very understanding friends, Heideggerian terms.
Some people prefer good and evil, saints and sinners, and that's
their choice. I think we are best trying to communicate with people
who hold these different views (however inadequate they appear to
us in relation to our preferredways to describe experience),
attempt to understand them, and hope they will take time to understand
us, and if we have something better than they just might switch.

I would also add that certain religious thinkers are also
anti-metaphysical in the above sense and therefore also help
to set out the difference between experience and any attempts
to portary it or wider realities (i.e. that which transcends our
experience, e.g. the world as a whole) in reduced and impoverished terms.

Over to you DMB to argue against something I am not saying....