[MD] Case's Answer to Marsha

[Case]

dmb replies:
You were alluding to Jung's answer to Job? I didn't even know he had one. 
What did he say?

[Case]
As I mentioned I was too lazy to look it up and it's been years since I read
Freud or Jung. But I think he located God, surprise, surprise in the
unconscious.

dmb says:
You're operating with a subtext based on our relationship to the unknown in 
everything we do? That's news to me. I guess I missed a few crucial posts 
leading up to your answer to Marsha, or something. But since you raised the 
point, I have to ask what you mean. Everything we do is in relation to the 
unknown? Uncertainty is the fundamental issue? Can I assume that you were 
using Taoism, syncronicity and the story of Job to discuss this fundamental 
issue? Draw some kind of line through all this for me, will you? I'm not 
following your logic and do not see your point. I agree that Taoism fits 
well with the MOQ. Pirsig says explicitly that he could read through the 
text and put DQ in the place of the Tao in every time. But I fail to see how

you're connecting all this to the subtext of uncertainty and the unknown.


[Case]
The discussion Mark and I were having started with Taoism and was moving
around towards chaos theory. We have been through it a couple of times
before and so I was merely trying to wrap-up the Taoism part before moving
on. It is easy to get distracted.  

In short I tend to view the MoQ as purely Taoist.  With DQ and SQ as active
and passive aspects of the central undefined notion: Quality. But there is
another way of seeing it that I have not really decided upon that may
actually be more pregnant with possibility. This would be that the
fundamental reality is Chaos. Call it DQ if you will and SQ is order. Under
modern Chaos theory Order is simply one manifestation of disorder. Under
this approach everything that we know is a matter of probability
distributions. These distributions are in effect statements about levels of
uncertainty. The advantage to this philosophically is that it carries not a
hint a dualism.

This is the sloppy version I am giving here but from time to time I have
pointed out that almost all human endeavor is aimed at reducing the uneasy
feeling we get when confronting the unknown. The theist, as in the case of
Job, should get scant consolation from dealing with a God whose purposes are
so capricious and unknowable as to render them indistinguishable from Chaos.
I suppose the reduction in anxiety comes from the idea that despite
appearances He is on our team.

To me uncertainty is the elephant under the rug, the water in our fishbowl.
We are evolved to recognize patterns and to use them to construct models of
the future which we apply to move us toward outcomes we have found
satisfactory in the past.

I mentioned Jung's synchronicity because it illustrates the idea that we see
meaning in patterns. Jung applied this idea to rare conjunctions of events
but I think it is in fact a description of our perception of cause and
effect; these being meaningful coincidences that occur with 100 percent
probability.

I have gone on at length about the various industries in modern society that
are based entirely on dealing with uncertainty, insurance, stock market,
marketing, government... pretty much all of it.

Since this seems so obvious why do I think it is significant? I recently
read Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory and he said that while Newton
had given us a deterministic philosophy and Einstein a relativistic one he
saw no hope of a meaningful philosophical orientation arising from quantum
mechanics. I disagree I think quantum mechanics in physics and Gödel's
theorem on mathematics show us that uncertainty is ever present EVEN in
physics and math where we would least expect to find it.

dmb says:
Do you imagine that I fear the bible? 

[Case]
No, but any mention of it sets you off like a bottle rocket. I love to use
biblical references just to see what wacky thing you will say about it next.
And you are never disappointing in this.

dmb says:
My irritation and ignorance make me irrelevant? I'm almost afraid to ask, 
but in the absence of any specific objections this is just name-calling. 
What is it, exactly, that I lack in the way of understanding? Is there 
really a connection between the validity of my assertions and the amount of 
irritiation I feel? Are you dismissing Freud and Voltaire on the same basis,

that they weren't in the right mood?

And isn't it the theists who get all bent out of shape around here anyway? I

think so. At this point, I've come to expect a little flurry of insults as a

response to my posts on the topic. Yours is just one of several in the most 
recent flurry. Its okay. I'm used to it by now. I would just like to make 
one simple point. Personal insults are not a valid form of criticism. It 
seems to me that you are smart enough to smell this kind of bullshit, even 
when its your own. Take a whiff, man.

[Case]
In this instance I was commenting on what David said to you. You ought to
look over your response to him and then look at what you say above. My
response is I'm rubber you're glue whatever you say bounces off of me and
sticks to you. 

As for the theists around here, I think you chased them all off. Are there
any left?

But look I will apologize, promise to be your best friend and call you a
prince among men if you don't launch into some long winded anti-theological
tirade this time.