[MD] Wanted: A proper foundation

[Ham Priday]

Hi Ron --


On 1/28 at 8:37 PM you wrote:

> For someone who really doesn't seem to accept an ontology that
> rejects ontology you have a great grasp at what's at stake, but where
> do you derive the notion of an ultimate source, if not via rationality?
> O' Parmenides! no matter the metaphor used to describe anything
> it does not overcome anything either, whether source nor difference.

For someone who has mastered logic, this complaint is remarkably illogical. 
To give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's on purpose.  For if the 
ontology that you claim I don't accept is a reference to the MoQ, where is 
it?  I haven't found it.  In fact, I don't recall Pirsig even mentioning the 
word.  Yet ontology -- the theory of being which Aristotle considered the 
First Philosophy and developed as a "science of the essence of things" -- is 
indispensible to metaphysics, a title by which Pirsig chose to name his 
philosophy.  Don't you find that rather odd?

The notion of an ultimate source has fueled religion, mysticism, and 
philosophy for thousands of years.  It reflects the spirituality of man and 
his need to feel part of a realm that transcends his finite existence. 
That's not exactly a "rationally derived" conclusion, but it's more 
reasonable than a life cut off from reality except for  experience and whose 
only purpose in the world is to survive in relative comfort for an allotted 
time period.  One of the most intriguing aspects of our existence is that we 
can neither prove nor disprove the truth about what reality ultimately is. 
The stakes seem to be equally balanced on the sides of nihilism and belief. 
As I see it, theories capable of swinging the balance in the direction of an 
absolute source are still the exclusive province of metaphysics.

I concluded my website thesis by pointing out that since "cosmological truth 
is denied us absolutely, life may be viewed as a gamble in which the 
individual is free to choose.  I leave you with the stakes as Pascal saw 
them: 'Let us weigh the gain and loss in choosing 'heads' that God is.  Let 
us weigh the two cases: if you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose 
nothing.  Wager then unhesitatingly that He is'."  One doesn't have to 
subscribe to a deity to consider that a reasonable bet.

Best regards,
Ham