[MD] Alternatives to the scientific method

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting ian glendinning <psybertron at gmail.com>:

> Bringing in my response to Craig's contribution this may have run it's
> course Platt .... but my responses inserted ....
> 
> On 8/14/07, Platt Holden <pholden at davtv.com> wrote:
> > > Platt, my mind is not "made up", I have opinions about what I have
> > > read in the past 50 years, a continuously evolving reading list from
> > > small beginnings.
> >
> > Doesn't everybody? Talk about being blindly obvious.
> 
> [IG] Yeah, yeah, your usual rhetorical trick of splitting up the
> paragraph so that the actual point is left dangling after your
> insertion - but you acknowledge "strong views lightly held" eventually
> ;-)

Oh, oh. For awhile I thought we were avoiding insults. Too good to last, I guess.

> >  "Strong opinions lightly-held" as I've expressed it
> > > before - I'm asking you to point out what I missed ... just one thing
> > > will do .... in Rand. I don't know everything, no-one does, so I
> > > assume there is something you know that I don't, there must be ;-)
> >
> > Not being a mind-reader I don't know what you don't know.
> 
> [IG] Oh but you are and you do Platt, and a very good one too, as
> would anyone be with whom 20 odd e-mails per week have been exchanged
> over 5 years or more. Some of those mails explicitly told you what I
> "knew" about Rand ... that was the point ... to ask "tell me something
> I'm not saying".

Sorry. I still don't get what you are driving at.

> > > So "she is in favor of forbidding the initiation of force by anyone on
> > > another" is she ?
> > >
> > > Tell me something that is not already blindingly obvious in just about any
> > > Randian paragraph you care to choose, and not already covered by my summary
> > > above. She likes freedom, she doesn't like imposition of force. She's not
> > > alone there.
> > >
> > > But in practice (real life) force (limitations to freedom) do have to
> > > be imposed - no ? Social over biological in Pirsigian terms ... higher
> > > quality social patterns over other social patterns - no ? What does Rand
> > > have to say about this other than the juvenile conclusion that freedom is
> > > good - accept no substitute. Mill understood this much better already.
> >
> > Well, if Mill understood it, what's your problem with it? Pirsig
> > understands in too. Freedom is at the top of his moral hierarchy.
> 
> [IG] Saying it is "at the top of a hierarchy" is the over
> simplification. It's in play at many points in "the hierarchies", and
> often finds itself in conflict with other freedoms. Pirsig and Hume
> (and plenty of others) recognised this. Rand prefers ignorance.

"Its (DQ's) only perceived good is freedom and its only perceived evil is static
quality itself—any pattern of one-sided fixed values that tries to contain and
kill the ongoing free force of life." (Lila, 9) Sounds like freedom is at the top
of the value hierarchy to me.

> > > The only other thing significant I've found Rand saying is to take
> > > personal responsibility for your own philosophy of life - can't argue
> > > with that either. As some fella called Socrates already said sometime
> > > before her emigration - the unexamined life ain't worth living.
> >
> > So what do you argue with Rand about? Seems she reaffirms all your
> > beliefs. :-)
> 
> [IG] As I said to Craig. All the easy bits yes, but no clue about the
> hard bits. Where freedoms conflict and come up against relative values
> of reality.

Like what, for example?

> > > You say "Pirsig is not all that enamored of the Darwinian explanation".
> > > Jeez - again - repeat after me - Darwin is NOT the last word in
> > > evolutionary explanations - it's good that Pirsig (and a million other
> > > neo-Darwinian philosophers, biologists and anthropologists) noticed this.
> > > Darwin was "mostly right" with his survival and fitness in the face of
> > > largely "random" change - but not "wholly right" - no-one ever will be
> > > "wholly right". Some of the natural explanations of evolutionary process
> > > even support what might  be described on Lamarkian principles (there are
> > > processes by which inheritance of acquired attributes could be said to
> > > occur, but you have to look at the whole sexual-reproductive / development
> > > cycle). Even naturally "intelligently directed" explanations - I mentioned
> > > already - look at spandrels & sky-hooks, look at natural re-engineering -
> > > the processes are awesomely many and varied on many inter-related levels
> > > across extended phenotypes and eco-systems - including mental ones.
> >
> > How about looking at intelligent design? And what neo-Dawinists, pray
> > tell, agree with Pirsig about "moral evolution."
> 
> [IG] Not sure I get your point. I've mentioned "intelligent design"
> three times in this thread already - but it's a tricky subject
> definitionally, hijacked by some dubious factions. Intelligence is
> natural there is intelligence in natural "designs" (aka "spandrells"),
> but be careful with "designer" metaphors. Moral evolution ? As i go on
> to say ... Freedom (your highest moral) Evolves ... will that do ?

Surely Dennett doesn't support intelligent design as commonly understood, or
does he? And does he agree with Pirsig's version of evolution? I don't think so
from what I've read about his views on the Web.

> > > Don't presmue Dennett would laugh at Pirsig's moral evolutionary
> > > drivers - when you're read "Darwin Dangerous Idea" try reading
> > > "Breaking the Spell" and read E.O.Wilson too if you haven't already.
> >
> > Doggone it, there's no library within a 100 miles of my house that has a
> > copy of Dennett's book. I'm going on the web now to see what I can find
> > out about the  'dangerous idea" and if there is any hint that Dennett
> > might buy into Pirsig's metaphysics.
> >
> > > BTW Dennett wrote on freedom too - "Freedom Evolves" - but the he
> > > would say that, wouldn't he, like any good Pirsigian ;-)

Maybe so, but would he agree with Pirsig that evolution is against the
inanimate forces of nature? 

> > Well, like any good Pirsigian, Rand believed freedom was a high value,
> > better than socialist alternatives. How about that?
> 
> [IG] Err no Platt. Lets leave ideological issues out of this. Freedom
> has no simple absolute authority that decides every case by itself -
> it can't fail to bump up against other freedoms in any of the layers,
> inlcuding the social.

I don't hold ideological issues as restricted to political arrangements. IMO
holding any idea strongly so as to ridicule opponents is an ideology.

> > "Strong opinions lightly held" -- describes me to a tee, too. :-)
> 
> [IG] Err no again Platt - see above on ideological dogmas.

Err, I beg your pardon. You seem fairly dogmatic about your ideology of  
low quality dichotomies.

Platt
  
 

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