[MD] Science and the MOQ

[Krimel]

[Ham]
Actually it's a mathematical law supported by definitions: 12 divided by two

equals 6, and a dozen means 12.  Yes, if it is understood that all truth is 
relative, and absolute truth is not accessible to humans, then everything we

know can be considered an assumption.  But who among us can fully 
participate in the life-experience believing that it's just an assumption?

[Krimel]
The point is that mathematical laws result on assumptions. Base 10 is
culturally determined. Dozens or expressions in base 12 are a hold over from
early cultural assumptions. I would say that a life lived clinging to some
rigid ideas about an absolute is a delusion.

[Ham]
The point that I've been trying to make with Arlo and Krimel is that nothing

has more truth for the individual than Descartes' 'I think'.  Self-awareness

is the primary locus of all subsequent experience from which knowledge 
comes.  Therefore, what we have come to learn and understand about the 
external world (empirical knowledge) can be no more valid than the Self 
which apprehends it.

[Krimel]
I don't know why you think you have to keep making this point to me. I think
you ideas about the nature of the subject are shallow and miss the mark but
I have no doubt that my subjective experience IS my reality.

[Ham]
The problem for philosophers who exclude subjectivity from existence is that

they deny themselves a broader view of reality, along with the teleological 
understanding that such a concept makes possible.

[Krimel]
I think your teleological notion is grossly mistaken but I don't see how it
connects in the least to subjectivity.

[Ham]
Essentialism is a concept of reality, much as the MoQ is a concept of 
existence.  An ontological hypothesis affords a reality perspective that 
can't be confirmed like scientific principles and mathematical laws.  An 
unproven hypothesis can never be equated with knowledge because it isn't 
"factual".  On the other hand, a well-developed ontology can satisfy man's 
quest for meaning in a way that objective knowledge never can.

[Krimel]
But when such an ontology runs counter to and leads away from what is
confirmed by science and math, it deserves to be rejected regardless of
whatever satisfaction it affords. Frankly, if "satisfaction" is all we are
looking for heroin is a surer bet.

[Ham]
If "feeling" is the criterion for what has quality, why do Arlo, Krimel, and

Pirsig deplore the spiritual feelings of theists and mystics?  If the 
cognizant individual is only a myth or "abstraction of levels", as they 
claim, how can one's feelings have any validity?

[Krimel]
If feelings were the only criterion for Quality then heroin would be legal.
It's not that is have problems with spiritual feelings it is the
interpretation of them that bothers me. I don't think that because one
'feels' the presence of God that God is necessarily present or that if God
is present he is the God found in this tradition or that tradition. Likewise
I don't think that because someone says they feel like they are one with
everything that they actually are.

[Ham]
I don't berate people for their political views, Platt.  But can there be 
any doubt in your mind that the predominant morality of this forum is 
Statist Socialism?

[Krimel]
I feel berated but coming from you and Platt it just tickles. How your
vision of a Randian Raygun world extrudes from your Essentialism is a
mystery. But golly, Statist Socialism sure sounds scary. Kinda like Fascist
Robber Barons must sound to some folks, huh?