[MD] False Messiah

[Scott Roberts]

DMB,

Scott said to Peter:
How do you know that, given that you are not a stick or a stone? They have
value to us, of course, but the MOQ says they have value in themselves, and
that's what I'm asking about. ...What we know through scientific instruments
tells us nothing of whether or not electrons experience value. Yet the MOQ
says they do. In other words, you are dodging the issue.

dmb says:
I'm with Peter here. As I see it, Scott is asking Peter to explain a claim
that nobody made. I don't think anybody is saying that they can read the
"minds" of subatomic particles or any other kind of inorganic level
patterns.

Scott:
I didn't claim that anybody could read the "minds" of subatomic particles. 
What I said that is that the MOQ claims that inorganic static patterns are 
inorganic static patterns *of value*. Since nobody can read the minds of 
subatomic particles, where is the evidence for that claim?

DMB continued:
The MOQ simply asks us to replace causality with preferences, to
replace physcial laws with patterns of preferences. Nobody is saying that
they know what its like to be a rock or an electron. This is no a matter of
faith, because this alternative way of describing inorganic reality is still
based on the very same labratory data, from the very same scientific
instruments. In other words, this alternative explanation is based on
empirical data. Its not based on faith and its not even an assumption. Its
just one valid conclusion based on the known facts.

Scott:
Yes, to say that there are "preferences" rather than, say, valueless 
mechanism is an alternative explanation. What is the basis for adopting that 
alternative explanation given that it is undetectable? How do you 
demonstrate that the inorganic is or is not valueless mechanism? What is 
this empirical data that tells you to use the words 'value' and 'preference' 
in describing inorganic static patterns rather than not using those terms? 
The very same laboratory data would hold if I claimed that what electrons 
are "really" doing is dancing to the music of the spheres. But of course to 
claim that is absurd. Yet the MOQ claims that there is value involved in 
what electrons do. It does so because it has faith in the idea that Quality 
is omnipresent -- and so do I. But I recognize this as faith, that is, it is 
consistent with what mystics say, even though I have no empirical evidence 
for it. There is empirical evidence for Quality, but only in humans and 
higher animals. Not for the inorganic.

Scott said to Peter:
...I obviously agree that if faith results in one's stopping one's thinking,
then it is bad. But what I've tried to show is that -- for those who take to
heart the dictum "reason requires faith and faith requires reason", faith
leads to a new and higher level of thinking, not its stoppage. That makes it
desirable.

dmb says:
I think the only way to make faith valuable here is to re-define the concept
as your heart-felt dictum apparently attempts to do. What does it mean to
say that reason requires faith when faith is understood as believe in the
absence of evidence, or even contrary to evidence?

Scott:
Like I said, Christianity has been using the word 'faith' in this way for 
about 1800 years, with the exception of some Protestants. It is you (and 
Pirsig) who are defining 'faith' in a way to belittle it -- as if it were 
nothing but giving assent to propositions.

DMB said:
Faith is trust given
rather than earned, don't you think?

Scott:
That's why faith requires reason. If faith can't stand up to reason, it is 
unjustified.

DMB concluded:
Among the classic figures in
Christianity there is a tendency to put reason in the service of faith, to
make it subservient to to faith, faith's little bitch. That's what I smell
here and I think it really stinks.

Scott:
Fine. Do without. No need to insult those who find value, including 
intellectual value, in faith, though, especially when your understanding of 
faith is based on secular myth. Like God, you want to take faith as 
something understandable, which makes it easier to reject. But faith, like 
God to someone with faith in God, is a mystery. In other words, you treat 
faith-talk, like God-talk, literally, in order to justify your anti-theism.

- Scott