[MD] Julian Baggini Interview with Pirsig

[Scott Roberts]

Bo,

Scott said
> This is arguing against me as Scott, and not as the D.A. that I am
> trying to impersonate. As such, I don't care what you mean be
> intellect or intelligence. All I care about is why you say there is
> value at the inorganic level.

Bo said:
I have better things to do than argue with several Scotts, if you ...

> > happen to agree that value, aka consciousness, aka intellect is
> > omnipresent, but I am under no illusion that I can make this
> > self-evident to the skeptic.)

.. than it's up to you to sort it out. The fallacy is of the course the
"value=consciousness, aka intellect" part, but I am obviously not
able to make that self-evident to you.

Scott:
That's why I donned the D.A. hat,  to see if YOU could make the MOQ 
self-evident to ANYONE. Recall that this was in response to your agreement 
with Pirsig that the MOQ has "rock-solid foundations".

Bo said:
This last shows it:

> Scott as D.A.
> Huh? Are you saying that rocks sit around and groove on their
> infallible knowledge?

I put knowledge in quotation marks to suspend the usual usage.
The idea is that all level patterns are (subject to) that level's
values. This is a postulate and can't be proved, it's the result from
such an initial statement which is the proof. Physics' (intellect's)
"explanation" of how the universe works can also be "huhed" if
presented as metaphysics (how things really are) but if physics is
seen as a static intellectual pattern its explanation is good
enough.

Scott:
>From this I conclude that the "rock-solid foundations" of the MOQ consist in 
assuming that it is true. And yes, that is the case for other metaphysical 
systems, but so what? The issue here, as Matt K would point out, is that of 
whether or not foundational talk is ever going to be useful at all.

- Scott