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

[PhaedrusWolff at carolina.rr.com]

Ham -- 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: 

Chin -- I have to be honest with you, and tell you I haven’t read much 
in the scientific journals, but have read a little in the Journal of 
Finance, and it appears to me those who write in these journals are 
generally professors. The professors do seem to me to be a bit biased 
toward a particular theory, which of course by Pirsig’s explanation of 
science might make them a fraud. This may be a bit ideological. It 
seems to me these professors might be guilty of a little data mining, 
manipulating, or threatening to take away Data’s dating privileges 
unless she offers up the data they are looking for, but fraud might be 
a strong word for someone just tying to get their foot in the door to 
publishing books. ;o) 

Would “Fact” not be a strong word in science? Do the theories not 
sometimes get treated as facts? One in particular I have had a little 
trouble with is Efficient Market Theory, which is treated as a fact, 
but most I have discussed this with pretty much end up returning to 
EMT is true because EMT says it is true, and another you might be 
familiar with is the Fama/French Three Factor Model (FF3F) depends on 
historic data to prove small and large stock asset classes offer 
higher returns, because small and large stocks offer higher returns. 
Sound something like “Because the Bible tells me so?” 

It seems much of what I have read in finance ends up some degree of 
circular reasoning, and the professors who come up with the hypotheses 
are a bit biased toward the data that helps prove their hypothesis, 
maybe for some of the reasons Pirsig offered as to why they enter the 
world of Academia. 

Ham --  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. 

Chin -- When you study any of these without drawing your own 
conclusions, are you not guilty of imitative poetry? Was Plato’s and 
Aristotle’s philosophies not opposed to each other? Which view would 
you take, or what parts of each view would you take, or would it not 
be better to take out of them the best of what they offered in your 
own view? 

Ham -- 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. 

Chin -- And if you accept philosophy as empirical, are you not guilty 
of imitative poetry? 

Ham -- 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. 

Chin -- Yes, and there have been a few others who have done the same. 
Dr. Wayne Dryer might be one of the worst, or Jacob Needleman, or 
maybe Gurdjieff and his followers which have built schools all over 
the world following along the same efforts as Pirsig to bring East and 
West closer. Gurdjiff may be the closest as his is more for those who 
follow a scientific approach. It seems this may be another period of 
East and West influencing each other. 

Ham -- 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 in
troduced 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. 

Chin -- Are you not skipping Aristotle? Is this not where the naming 
of things became considered knowledge? Was it not Greek philosophy 
that put Western man in his current SOM thing-king? 

Ham -- 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. 

Chin -- The apple falling was enough data to discover gravity without 
intuition? And Einstein found data that confirmed the bending of space 
and time without thinking of it first? 

Ham -- 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. 

Chin -- You have scientific data pointing toward Essence? 

Ham -- 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. 

Chin -- If the Ten Commandments were enough, why would we need laws? 
And are laws not made to be broken? If you are rich enough, or smart 
enough, is it not possible to get around the laws? Would morality be 
that which you can get away with? 

Ham -- 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. 

Chin -- and each philosopher who went before you has had the benefits 
of the philosophers who went before them, so does not philosophy build 
this way? Is concerning with public demand not a hindrance to finding 
Truth? 

Ham --  "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. 

Chin -- I think you are still calling Nothingness with nothing. The 
contraction and expansion of what has always been there, no beginning 
or end, no large or small, might be as close to Nothingness as I could 
explain it. The Zen Masters didn’t explain it, but used it for a hint 
to find truth. Per their style, a hint is all you are offered -- never 
empirical truth -- never dogma. 

Ham -- 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." 


Chin -- Sorry, I typed the wrong word. Let’s rephrase it --
 ‘Existentialism’ would be pure Objectivism? I’ll read ahead where you 
are explaining this later. It’s a bit late, and I may be under the 
afflence of inkahol. 

Thanks for you thoughts,

Chin

----- Original Message -----
From: Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net>
Date: Friday, November 17, 2006 1:47 am
Subject: Re: [MD] tiny skull... change... nothingness...
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org

> 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 
> avocationfor 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 
> madeNewtonian theory obsolete.  Religion is traditionally bound to 
> canonical
> dogma or papal pronouncements which are considered "infallible".  
> WhetherPhilosophy is totally open to fallibility is difficult to 
> determine, since
> the fundamental concepts are incapable of empirical proof, and the 
> sameideas 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., 
> practicallyattainable) 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 
> whilescience 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 
> littleintegrity 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 
> positingan 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 
> naturalphilosophy 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 
> empiricalapproach 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 
> developedthe 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 
> deductivereasoning 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 
> physicaluniverse.  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 
> thatpeople can live in peace and harmony with each other.  If you 
> are a
> religious person, you may take the 'Ten Commandements' as a moral 
> systemdefined 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 
> decisionmakerof 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 
> differentiatedsystem.  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
> 
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