[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)

[Ron Kulp]

Are you saying the MOQ is a form of Dynamism?
Is it vitalism that is being debated?
-x

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Ham Priday
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 3:56 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?)


Platt, Arlo, Ian, Mark, Case --

I haven't tangled with Arlo for a long time, and Platt no longer
discusses metaphysics with me; but I see a trend developing in their
current exchange that is troubling to me and is certainly not helping
the MoQ cause.

On 1/22 Platt wrote to Arlo:
> I consider Consciousness and Quality to be "natural processes."

To which Arlo responded:
> Not if they are "transcendent".

[Platt]:
> Transcendent means "beyond comprehension,"
> as are many natural processes.

Actually, transcendent (at least as used in religion and philosophy)
means "extending beyond the limits of experience."  In any case,
Consciousness and Quality are both part of man's experience, although I
see no rational justification for considering them "natural processes."

But, rather than challenge Platt's assertion on logical grounds, Arlo
strikes out at what he believes is the crux of Platt's position --
theism.
He attacks Anselm's ontological argument:
> Who made God? How does a God, whose always existed, jibe with our 
> "experience of how things are made"?

[Platt]:
> Now that you seem to have changed your tune, who made Quality?

[Arlo]:
> Its a metaphor made by man.

Are we to understand that Pirsig founded his MoQ on a metaphor made by
man?

In a later post, Platt asks Arlo...
> Are you now saying that the universe emerged from nothing and mind 
> arises from no mind due to "spirit?"

Arlo responds:
> The Universe, and mind, emerged from Quality interactions among 
> individuals in increasingly complex collectives.

Excuse me?  The universe emerged from interactions of INDIVIDUALS?  The
statement is totally nonsensical.  Even if it was intended as metaphor,
it doesn't relate to any evolutionary theory I've ever heard.

Not one to be non-plussed, Platt persists with the interrogation:
> Where did such a system come from?

 [Arlo]:
> From those Quality interactions.

And, a little later...
> What about direct experience.  Is that also a metaphor?

 [Arlo]:
> Pre-intellectual experience, mysticism we may agree to call it, is by 
> definition "pre-metaphor" (although the terms here are all metaphors 
> to describe this after-the-fact).
> But at the moment this experience gets woven with words, descriptions 
> and the like, we are dealing with metaphor.

So, "pre-intellectual" experience for Arlo is "pre-metaphoric", while
"after-the-fact" experience is metaphoric.  What about DIRECT
experience?
Somehow Arlo has managed to evade Platt's question.  Or, could it be, he
doesn't acknowledge direct experience?

[Platt]:
> You've said Quality, but then say it's a metaphor, meaning I presume, 
> existing only in language.

[Arlo]:
> Meaning "Quality", like any other attempt to understand the cosmos, is

> a metaphor. An analogy. Its just a damn good one. Best one so far, I'd

> say.

[Platt]:
> So Quality is just a figure of speech?  Interesting.
> I thought it pointed to something a bit more substantial.
> But, I could be wrong.

I thought so, too, Platt.  But now Ian has chimed in to support Arlo's
nihilistic claim:
> Not sure the word "just" helps Platt, but that aside, yes.
> See my reply to Case about how it mattered little whether assertions 
> concerning quality (making things happen) were literal or 
> metaphorical. ...
> My summary of Lakoff and Johnson said that whilst many metaphors are 
> "dead" and we feel the words are symbols of some tangible reality when

> we use them, most if not all are ultimately metaphorical, which is not

> surprising if one accepts ineffable quality as that ultimate basis.
>
> But there is no "just" about it.  It is the case.

I think it should be pointed out that Philosophy in the main is alive
and well, and still concerned with understanding reality.  Yes, a theory
or postulate is expressed in words, and all words may be considered
symbols.
But they refer to real things, whether the things are objective or
subjective in nature.  Metaphor is the substitution of one word or
phrase for another.  Ineffable is something incapable of verbal
description.  And while metaphors have a proper place in conveying or
clarifying what is ineffable, if the fundamental axioms are assumed to
be metaphors, we're not discussing philosophy but analyzing linguistics
(or romantic prose).

It's not clear from the Platt/Arlo discussion what is intended to be
literal and what is metaphorical, so the dialogue is so much
circumlocution.  But if, as Arlo asserts, the Quality on which the MoQ
is founded is only a metaphor, then what is it a metaphor FOR?  What is
Quality intended to represent?  Didn't Pirsig posit Quality as the
"primary empirical reality"?
That he was unable (or unwilling) to define it doesn't make his premise
ingenuous, meaningless, or unreal.  (...or does it?)

Do we want to foster the notion that the MoQ has no legs to stand on?

Or is reality itself only a "figure of speech", Ian?

Troubled on the sidelines,
-- Ham


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