[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[skutvik at online.no]

Matt, DMB, Steve, Multitude

Matt had said:
> > Heidegger suggested that Newton's laws were neither true nor false
> > before Newton dreamed them up.  Rorty said this about it in 2000: "I
> > once tried to defend Heidegger's audacity, but my defense went over like
> > a lead balloon.  So I have resigned myself to intuiting, like everybody
> > else, that a true sentence was true before anybody thought it up."

Matt is mad with me since I exposed his essay to support the SOL so 
it's useless to comment. 

DMB:  
> I think Pirsig is even more audacious than Heidegger and he did not
> resign himself in the face of that audacity either. 

DMB cut and pasted from ZAMM

    "What I'm driving at [] is the notion that before the beginning of 
    the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the 
    primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed." 
    "Sure" "Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of 
    its own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, 
    not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere 
    - this law of gravity still existed?" Now John seems not so sure. 
    "If that law of gravity existed, I honestly don't know what a thing 
    has to do to be NON-existent. It seems to me that the law of 
    gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is."  

 
> Shall we "intuit "the opposite "like everybody else", because defending
> this audacious idea of "true" doesn't go over well? Doesn't exactly win
> you medals for bravery, but I guess it would be easier to just go along
> with what you know ain't so. Yea, that's the ticket. 

Bodvar:
I'm not sure what respective views you (two) harbor on the Newton 
issue, but al least I have harped on it as most important and that Pirsig 
haven't always been true to his old self. ZAMM says that the GRAVITY 
REALITY was born with Newton's theory and that implies that the 
QUALITY REALITY was born with the MOQ. It means that after 
Newton gravity was seen to have existed forever and after Pirsig 
quality is to be seen as having existed for ever. The latter day Pirsig's 
"sin" is his "Quality/MOQ" sentence.which will correspond to a 
"Gravity/Theory of Gravity sentence" and (transcribed) 

    ".... the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the 
    sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of 
    anything, Quality existed."       

I do NOT oppose that inside the MOQ quality has existed for ever but 
THIS QUALITY IS THE DQ OF THE DQ/SQ CONFIGURATION not a 
Quality that exists independent of the MOQ. 

I tried to convey this to Andre, but as the Newton issue was brought up 
by Steve you all may have a go at it, not hide behinf pro- and contra 
Rorty.

Bodvar