[MD] Dawkins a Materialist (is watching?]

[Ham Priday]

Arlo --


[Ham]:
> Even idealists like Socrates and Plato thought of
> ultimate reality as Being.  Would you reject their view?

[Arlo]:
> I'm sure it worked for them.

Now who's being dismissive?  I consider that a flippant response.

[Ham]:
> My conception of Essence isn't Beingness, for example,
> and although I can't precisely define it, I can give you a
> pretty good idea of what it is, what it is not, and how I
> think it relates to the relational world -- even though I
> resort to metaphor and analogy to do so.

 [Arlo]
> Well, this starts to get at the point. It provides some value
> for you to do this. I, personally, am not troubled by an
> "undefinable undefined". As soon as you say "being" or
> "awareness" or "Quality" or "God" you've started the
> definition process. At that point, it all boils down to finding
> the best metaphor for whatever ails you.

I started the "definition process" years ago.  What's ailing me right now
isn't metaphor; it's your abject nihilism.

[Ham]:
> Why are the Pirsigians so fearful of identifying their
> fundamental reality?

 [Arlo]:
> If its un-expressible, its hardly identifiable. I don't speak
> for anyone else here, of course. But I gather if your starting
> point is "all this is just an analogy", laboring over "absolute
> reality" isn't very important. At any rate, I think Pirsig does
> posit Quality as the fundamental reality, no?

He posits it as "the primary empirical reality."  That's fine in my book; I
describe Value (metaphorically) as the stuff we intellectualize as physical
reality.  I also like Bo's concept, "the value of the S/O divide."  But both
the value and the divide are derived from a primary source.  You sleight
this as so much metaphoric talk and refuse to tell me your conception of
this source; yet it is the foundation on which philosophy is built.

 [Ham]:
> Love and Value may be indefinable, but they're obviously
> expressible, judging from the volumes of words that have
> been written about them.

[Arlo]:
> Yes, and which captures love better, a sonnet or a textbook?
> A rose or an essay on "defining love"? I'm not being silly
> here, I'm saying that "love" may be vaguely understandable
> "literally", but is that "love"? Here is a fundamental "metaphor"
> question. Is "art" reducible to "literal words"? Can you take
> Bach's "A Musical Offering" and "explain it"? Oh sure, you
> can offer this and that and this and that, but ultimately
> whatever you offer falls short of the experience ...

Of course it falls short of the experience!  But I don't dismiss Bach
because a verbal analysis of his music doesn't live up to a concert
performance.  Why should you dismiss the progenitor and prime mover of the
universe simply because you can't explain it?

[Arlo continues]:
> Then consider language metaphor. Take "man is a wolf".
> Can you provide a comprehensive, exact "literal" translation
> of this? You can say "man is predatory, and fear-inspiring,
> and solitary, and pack-like, and carnivorous, and ...", but
> can you ever exactly replace this metaphor with something
> "literal". I say "no". Metaphor is the only conduit we have
> to the undefinable, and while metaphysics and explanatory
> ontologies and the like are useful and important ways to
> point in the right direction, they are never "it".

So, because you can't explain it, it doesn't concern you.  You don't think
about it, ponder over it, relate to it, talk about it, or even acknowledge
that there is a primary source.  I find that a peculiar posture for an
intellectual in a philosophy forum.  Exactly what pleasure or contentment do
you get from being a nihilist?

[Ham]:
> ...how do you account for the existence of an aesthetic
> standard, or a relative measure of worth, in the absence
> of a subject to appreciate or measure it?

 [Arlo]:
> Different levels of focus.

Could you explain that in plain English?

 [Arlo]:
> My first principle? How about "all this is just an analogy". :-)

Spoken like a true nihilist.  I can't have an intelligent conversation on
philosophy with someone who acknowledges nothing as real.  I should have
followed my initial instinct and aborted this discussion at the git-go.

(Come back to me when you believe in something.)

Enjoy your metaphoric day,
Ham