[MD] The stuff that straw men are made of

Thu Aug 26 11:59:20 PDT 2010

I think this is about correct , DMB, what Krimel and Dt are saying is in
complete conflict with what you really were saying 3 days ago on  silt
and....old thea

this is the actual point of view you took, ..allow me to re-launch it-

david buchanan aan moq_discuss
details weergeven 23 aug. (3 dagen geleden)

In the "Speed of Lighting" thread, Krimel said:

Pirsig's real contribution could be taken as synthesizing Darwin and Lao
Tsu. Much of my vitriol arises from the realization that he or at least his
apologists don't quite seem to get either of them right.

dmb says:

Evolutionary Taoism? Okay. I guess that's roughly true the way it's roughly
true to say Avatar is a synthesis of Star Trek Wars and Dances With Wolves.
To suggest that your vitriol arises from a resistance to this notion isn't
very plausible, however. I don't recall anyone ever even mentioning such a
synthesis. If there was ever a struggle for its legitimacy in this forum, it
snuck past me.

This reminds of all the times you've complained about the MOQ not addressing
some piece of evolutionary science or another. I want to push back against
this kind of complaint. As I see it, that kind of criticism is mostly just a
result of inappropriate expectations or a basic misconception about the
scope and focus of the MOQ. In Lila, for example, traces the etymology of
his central term all the way back into the proto-Indo-European language and
finds that he is not saying anything new and that in fact it's the oldest
idea known to man. In ZAMM he traces the history of philosophy all the way
back to the pre-Socratics and finds that the discredited Sophists were
already saying then what he is saying now. The scope is very, very broad and
the idea is not to be newest, hippest thing since bellbottoms. The idea is
to be good.

"I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig
deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts
grown stale and platitudes too often repeated. "What's new?" is an
interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued
exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the
silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question
"What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a
question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of
human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and
no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and "best" was a
matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our
common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its
central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and
isolating the highlands and to no particula
 r purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum.
Some channel deepening seems called for."

To criticize the MOQ for its failure to address this or that recent
development in science always strikes me as oddly inappropriate, like
criticizing Gandhi because he was a Luddite who failed to anticipate
facebook. Sure, in some fantasy it would be nice if Mark Twain had a twitter
account but as a realistic way to assess their relative success or failure
it's very much beside the point. It's not quite that silly to expect the MOQ
to address everything Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett has written lately,
but almost. I think it's pretty safe to say that Pirsig is perfectly aware
of the fact that the theory of evolution continues to evolve. This MOQ isn't
supposed to be the last word on the theory, it simply agrees the theory.
Same with Taoism, actually. In ZAMM he says that his notion of Quality is
nothing for Taoism. It agrees with Taoism but the purpose of the MOQ is to
improve and expand our modes of rationality. And the use of everything from
Taoism to the Sophists is a
 imed at that. He's trying to deepen some very old, very silty channels, to
freshen and revitalize some ancient, ancient stuff. I mean, think about the
scope of the perennial philosophy, which says that all the world's great
religions have an esoteric, mystical core and at that level they all agree
with each other. That's how the MOQ can be a form of philosophical mysticism
and agree with Taoism and agree with Zen Buddhism and agree with ... Well,
you get the idea.

The world's leading evolutionary biologist died today. He was replaced by a
larger, stronger evolutionary biologist.

2010/8/26 david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>

>
> Gents:
> It's ironic that you two would accuse me of reading with a bias toward
> supporting my own positions because that's exactly what it takes to
> construct a straw man. The first thing to do is subject your opponent's
> assertions to the least charitable interpretation possible. Then you take
> that distorted view and drive it to the most absurd conclusion possible.
> Finally, you attribute this distorted absurdity to your opponent and that's
> what straw men are made of.
> When you respond to your opponent with an attack on something you
> constructed and attributed, then you are not really responding to your
> opponent at all. You're just battling fictions of your own design. But to
> genuinely face your opponent, you have to read with a very high level of
> comprehension and that means, among other things, reading fairly and
> honestly.
> I sincerely wonder if either of you are capable of doing that. Do you want
> to show me that you are or maybe just give me a reason to believe that you
> are? As I see it, you're constantly dealing in straw men. The other day when
> I was going way out on a limb in support of religious freedom, Dave Thomas's
> response included a comparison between me and Mao. These contortions are
> literally laughable. Surprise me, eh? Be serious for a change.
>
>
>
> > On 8/26/10 9:20 AM, "Krimel" <Krimel at Krimel.com> wrote:
> >
> > > [Krimel]
> > > That really is the heart of it, you know. dmb is not interested in
> > > pragmatism or philosophy of mind at all really. He is interested in
> > > supporting his interpretation of Pirsig. He begins with his conception
> of it
> > > and is only interested in finding support for it. As a result he only
> looks
> > > in a narrow range of places and only finds what he is looking for.
>
> > [Dave Thomas replied]
> > This is called the "Phaedrus Method." Even though Pirsig's work can be
> read
> > as a cautionary tale about the danger to your life and work of using it,
> > given the fame and fortune this approach achieved at least once, the
> > temptation is understandable.
> >
>
>
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