[MD] tiny skull... change... nothingness...

[Ham Priday]

Chin --

> How can you say it is “out of context,” and “confusing
> metaphysical theory with scientific empiricism?” What is
> metaphysical theory, and scientific empiricism?  Are you
> saying this as a philosopher, scientist, Buddhist or
> Christian, or combination?  How would Nothingness as
> used in Zen Buddhism differ from Quantum physics?

Chin, my academic background was Science; I have a B.S. in Chemistry with a
minor in Biology (pre-med).  I also studied electronics briefly in my
military service with the U.S. Signal Corps, and later worked at Philco and
RCA.  So, I think I can speak for Science and its methodology as well (or
better) than I can speak for Philosophy, which has been more of an avocation
for me in recent years.

People untrained in Scientific disciplines often fail to recognize that the
principles and theories are always open to fallibility.  That is, as more
facts are discovered through observation and verification, a theory can be
proved wrong; and the scientist is obliged to acknowledge his errors and
revise his theory.  The cosmology of Galileo, for example, was changed by
the observations of Copernicus, and experiments in Quantum Physics made
Newtonian theory obsolete.  Religion is traditionally bound to  canonical
dogma or papal pronouncements which are considered "infallible".  Whether
Philosophy is totally open to fallibility is difficult to determine, since
the fundamental concepts are incapable of empirical proof, and the same
ideas keep coming up through succeeding generations of philosophers.

These descriptions of the way a scientist regards his contributions may help
you understand why I don't think the knowledge gained from Science can be
compared with the theories of philosophers:

"The scientist is a practical man and his are practical (i.e., practically
attainable) aims.  He does not seek the ultimate but the proximate.  He does
not speak of the last analysis but rather of the next approximation. His are
not those beautiful structures so delicately designed that a single flaw may
cause the collapse of the whole.  The scientist builds slowly and with a
gross but solid kind of masonry.  If dissatisfied with any of his work, even
if it be near the very foundations, he can replace that part without damage
to the remainder.  On the whole he is satisfied with his work, for while
science may never be wholly right it certainly is never wholly wrong; and it
seems to be improving from decade to decade."
[G. N. Lewis. Quoted in Stochiometry by Leonard K. Nash, 1966]

"The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not
verified by experience.  Experimental science is the queen of sciences and
the goal of all speculation."
[Roger Bacon (1214?-1294?) English philosopher, scientist]

> But, when you study philosophies one at a time,
> you leave yourself open to the DQ of the one
> philosophy as opposed to the DQ of all philosophies,
> something like a Freshman in college trying to impress
> his senior classmates, but each knows exactly where
> and why he is where he is. They had all been there before.

No.  You leave DQ alone because it's somebody else's philosophy. When you
study Plato and Aristotle you learn about Idealism.  When you study Kant you
explore the logic of reason.  When you study Descartes you gain an
understanding of subject/object duality, etc.  Only when you get to Pirsig
do you apply the theory of Quality to your perspective of the universe.

> In Eastern practices, you must strip away the false
> identities of self in order to reach the real Self, or
> similar in the different teachings. This concept is
> close to MOQ in that in order to experience or
> accept DQ, you must be willing to let go of SQ.

I think you have to be careful when you assume that just because Karma,
Atman, or some other mystical concept seems "close to MoQ" they are
identical.  You must take each philosopher's terms in the context in which
they are presented.  Otherwise you get a "mixed salad" with very little
integrity or cogency, and it may completely miss the author's central idea.

> What is the “real Self” other than the Quality self?
> Would Zen Buddhism be a “mystical teaching” in the
> East, or would “Mystical” be a word we have branded
> it with in the West from a lack of understanding? Would
> this lack of understanding come from SOM?  You
> know he did study Zen.

If Pirsig intended his MoQ to be a redefinition of Zen Buddhism, wouldn't he
have articulated in Zen terms or, at least, have referred his reader to the
literature of Zen?  (HYou can find many books that explain Buddhism to a
western audience.)  Clearly, Pirsig's efforts were directed toward positing
an original philosophy for our 20th century culture.

> Would science and religion not just be a branch of
> of philosophy?

Not today.  In the Middle Ages, before the Renaissance, Religion and
theology were the source of man's knowledge.  The method of observation,
experimentation, and verification was unknown to the medieval monks and
priests who were the "scientists" of their day.  Wikipedia points out that
not until the 13th century were there accurate Latin translations of the
main works of the intellectually crucial ancient authors, and the natural
philosophy contained in these texts began to be extended by scholars  such
as Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus.  Precursors of the modern scientific method
can be seen in Grosseteste's emphasis on mathematics  and in the empirical
approach admired by Bacon.  According to Pierre Duhem, the Condemnation of
1277 led to the birth of modern science, because it forced thinkers to break
from relying so much on Aristotle, and to think about the world in new ways.

The first half of the 14th century saw the scientific work of great
thinkers. William of Ockham introduced the principle of parsimony:
philosophy should only concern itself with subjects on whom it could achieve
real knowledge.  This led to a decline in fruitless debates and moved
natural philosophy toward science.  Scholars started to question the
received wisdom of Aristotle's mechanics.  In particular, Buridan developed
the theory of impetus which was a first step towards the modern concept of
inertia.

> When you read the stories of those such as Galileo,
> Newton and Einstein, how often do you read or hear
> the word intuition?  Did they look through a telescope
> or microscope and say “Hey there’s gravity!” or
> “Hey! There’s General Relativity!”?  Did gravity go
> hide somewhere?

By the time of Newton and certainly Einstein, Intuition meant deductive
reasoning from empirical evidence.  Microscopes, telescopes, precision
scales, advanced mathematics, and the classification of biological phyla and
species were necessary to establish the discipline of Scientific
methodology.

> And, our spiritual, psychological and intellectual nature
> is no more than SQ, or layers of imitative poetry
> stacked upon imitative poetry to the point our real
> nature is not visible to us. Pirsig mentioned Self-
> reflection. I think if we could each observe our small
> self as it really is, and how it became what it has
> become, we would be surprised at the influences on
> our being that has nothing to do with true spirituality
> or intellect, maybe as Pirsig pointed to the fact the
> insane were left alone to work out their own problems.
> Maybe self reflection is all we need to bring ourselves
> up to Quality or the Buddha or Jesus nature. Maybe it
> is all psychology, and maybe just self observation of
> our shallow psychology would be enough to bring us
> to our real Self or Quality self, in that we would see that
> we have not concerned ourselves with the Real
> personality called ‘Me’, but have become nothing but
>  little imitative or mirror images of what we think others
> would think we should be, or what others are.

This is too much speculation for me, Chin.  It would be a big mistake to
dismiss the value of scientific knowledge in understanding the physical
universe.  There is simply no other way to validate and document empirical
information.  But this is not the province of Philosophy.  Philosophers must
deal with those concepts that are not empirically verifiable -- Goodness,
Morality, Truth, The Absolute, Metaphysics, and to a lesser extent some
aspects of Epistemology and Cosmology.

> In the concept of Essence, would Goodness not
> be the highest order? Would a search for the truth
> not reveal The Good, as The Good is higher than
> the Truth? Does the culture not put false morals on us,
> such as gays, blacks and Easterners are at a lower level?
> – such as in the Church of Reverend Moon? Or the
> one I am more familiar with, the wearing of jewelry is
> a sin? – beating a child is more acceptable than taking
> a peek at a good looking woman? (Sorry ladies)
> I’ll stop there, but I’m sure you could think of quite
> a few more examples of moral values that don’t
> make sense. Would cultural (religious) moral values
> actually come anywhere close to the real Good, or Truth?

In my opinion, Morality is neither a science nor a philosophy.  It is the
decision of a collective society to establish rules of behavior so that
people can live in peace and harmony with each other.  If you are a
religious person, you may take the 'Ten Commandements' as a moral system
defined by God; for me they are a codifed set of rules designed by man to
preserve the existing culture.  I don't believe in the concept of a "moral
universe"; if the universe were moral, there would be no immorality.  The
universe (Reality) presents man with a balanced range of values from which
HE makes the choices that determine the future of his world.  Values are
what we judge to be desirable (good) or undesirable (bad) relative to us.
If we did not have the intellectual and emotional ability to make
discriminative judgments, there would be no value.  Man is the decisionmaker
of his universe; it is he who determines what is "right" and "wrong."  This
is his role in the cosmos.

> So you're saying that your philosophy could not
> benefit from the study of prior philosophical beliefs?
> – modern philosophy did not build on prior
> philosophies, and philosophy does not improve as it
> evolves? (The same would be said of religion, unless
> there are really religions around that still believe in
> the Flat Earth)

Of course I benefit from the wisdom of those who've gone before me.  But I
have to choose where the wisdom lies and form my own evaluation.
I can't just copy assertions from the world's greatest philosophers and call
them my own.  The public demands originality and new insight from its
philosopher-authors.  Anything else is just philosophilogizing.

> But seriously though, how can anything negate
> Nothingness? And just the fact that Essentialism
> is your “version” of essence would mean it is not
> pure Objectivism – it is of your mind. And, two
> ways of looking at it makes it subjective.

"Seriously though" how can a perfectly balanced universe arise from
nothingness and produce a creature with exquisite sensibility to value and
cognizance of all things finite?  Logic and mathematics were developed to
make reasonable propositions about relations in a finitely differentiated
system.  When you extend concepts beyond the finite world, you need a
different set of logical principles.  To some people this effort will always
be viewed as irrational.

Essentialism is not Objectivism at all.  If anything, it's Subjectivism.
Existence is the appearance of physical being to a subject which has no
physical existence of its own.  Is that "logical"?  Yet, it's true.
Philosophy (mine or anybody else's) gathers the reasoning, intuition, and
logic needed to offer a plausible answer.  Obviously it won't be the ONLY
answer, nor will most people accept it; but that's the challenge of
Philosophy.  One can only believe what he considers reasonable.  As Truman
once said, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."

Thanks, Chin.

Regards,
Ham