[MD] Bo's weak versus strong interpretation of quantum physiks

[Krimel]

[Platt]
Your view is that the only legitimate "honest inquiry" is one that adheres
to 
the assumptions and methods of SOM science. Fine for acquiring knowledge
about 
inorganic and biological patterns. No argument there. But, not so good for 
social, intellectual and artistic patterns. And, no good at all for
determining 
the value of anything. 

[Krimel]
That is not what I have been saying at all. You keep interpreting the
Academy to mean "science." Science is only one part of the Academy which
include the pursuit of all sorts of knowledge wisdom and expression.

[Krimel said]
Journalists have their own set of ethical guidelines for determining what is
worth reporting, how to report on differences of opinion and for assessing
standards of truth.

[Platt]
Lawyers follow strict rules of argument and evidence, politicians are held
to 
account by the electorate, purveyors of propaganda exist in the eye of the 
beholder with journalists among the purveyors.

[Krimel]
Both lawyers and politician as I said are sophists advancing a particular
point of view to the exclusion of or denigration of other points of view. A
journalist's professional obligation is to present both sides or disputes in
a way that does justice to both. To the extent that that fail in this and
become "purveyors" they fail as journalists. Fox News is the first "news"
organization I am aware of that elevates this failure to the status of
virtue.

[Platt]
Appears you equate "honest inquiry" with the academy and the academy with 
wisdom. Talk about hutzpah. As for sacrificing material comforts, there are 
millions of hard working people struggling to make ends meet who would love
to 
get vacations every five or six weeks, three months off every summer, a year

long sabbatical every seven years or so, and a guaranteed job for life. 

[Krimel]
So perhaps they ought to consider the sacrifices needed to enter into
teaching worth the effort. Or perhaps they should move to France or some
other enlightened democracy where personal and family values are taken
seriously instead of merely talked about then pissed on.
  
[Platt]
You mean science is skeptical of and constantly questions their assumptions
of 
determinism, reductionism, materialism, and emergentism? I'd love to see
some 
evidence. 

[Krimel]
Pick up a copy of "Science" or "Nature" or any such journal.

[Platt] 
You mean to tell me that practitioners of the disciplines you mention think
but 
don't believe they think about things? Who is doing all this "honest
inquiry" 
if it isn't a subject looking at object data? That reminds me: we can add 
another assumption of SOM science -- externalism.

[Krimel]
The ways that people characterize this process are legion. Subject/object is
just one of them. Some in say the theology department might hold for example
that thoughts are reflections of the mind of God.
 
[Platt]
In the annals of history much knowledge has been gained and many inventions 
made outside the academy. The larger drug companies have their own research 
departments. 

[Krimel]
Corporations like drug companies typically do independent research to expand
on the discoveries that results from academic research. They seek to
commercialize and expand on potentially profitable avenues of research. This
is not at all the same thing as the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. 

[Platt]
Your list of artists who have used advances within the academy is 
unconvincing without evidence. 

[Krimel]
Then let me expand my statement to include ALL artists. Artist rely entirely
on the fruits of technology for the production of their art. From cave
paintings to webisodes, art is expressed through technology.

[Platt]
As for who "exploits" whom, the prize goes to 
the academy who exploits the profits of enterprise, either granted
voluntarily 
or, in many cases, by coercion. Where do you think those multi-billion
dollar 
endowments come from? Where do you think those multi-billions are invested?

[Krimel]
Actually I suspect that if the government insisted on retaining the right to
income from the discoveries it has financed, taxation would be a thing of
the past. Satellite communication is an example, it is simply would not
exist at all without government funding for research and development. I
remember with the original Telstar satellite was launched and the money it
was suppose to generate was to be put back into funding public broadcasting.
But the technology was instead turned over to private enterprise for free.
Like the discoveries of basic medical research this is nothing but corporate
welfare.

[Platt]
Or ask anyone who was machine-gunned in WWI, or anyone who was gassed in a 
shower room in WWII, or anyone leaped to his death from the Twin Towers on 
9/11.  

[Krimel]
Odd that the value of society and human life always come down to a question
of quantity for you. Ok, do the math. In 1940 the population of the planet
was about 2 billion people. Today it is about 7 billion. That is 5 billion
people alive today and living under much better conditions than ever before.
Your litany of death camps, genocides and technological terror total aren't
even a drop in that bucket.

[Platt]
The problem of honest inquiry a.k.a SOM science that I and Pirsig refer to
is 
expressed well in this passage from Lila:

"In the time that Phaedrus grew up, intellect was dominant over society, but

the results of the new social looseness weren't turning out as predicted. 
Something was wrong. The world was no doubt in better shape intellectually
and 
technologically but despite that, somehow, the "quality" of it was not good.

There was no way you could say why this quality was no good. You just felt
it. 
Sometimes you could see little fragments of reflections of what was wrong
but 
they were just fragments and you couldn't put them together. He remembered 
seeing The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams, in which one edge of the 
stage had an arrow-shaped neon sign flashing on and off, on and off, and 
beneath the arrow was the word, "PARADISE," also flashing on and off.
Paradise, 
it kept saying, is right where this arrow points:
PARADISE "> PARADISE "> PARADISE ">
But the Paradise was always somewhere pointed to, always somewhere else. 
Paradise was never here. Paradise was always at the end of some
intellectual, 
technological ride, but you knew that when you got there paradise wouldn't
be 
there either. You would just see another sign saying:
PARADISE C> PARADISE "> PARADISE >" (Lila, 22)

[Krimel]
I'm with Don Henley on this one: 
"They call it paradise. I don't know why. 
You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye."

Paradise is right here right now. If you aren't happy right here right now
it seem unlikely to me that you are going to be transformed into a happy
person in some other time in some other place. It has nothing to do with
technology or the lack of it.

[Platt]
Much good in the physical sense has come from SOM science and technology,
but 
but it's a brittle good without knowledge or even awareness of an
independent 
moral order. 

[Krimel]
If anything has contributed to the disintegration of moral order it would be
capitalism's emphasis on greed and the exploitation of others and the
environment. Gordon Gekko is making a comeback. Technology in the evil sense
that you see it, becomes evil to the extent that it facilitates this kind of
economic manipulation of values.