[MD] Science - Delusions in Search of Theory

[david buchanan]

Arlo said to Mark:
...Here you see the lowering of science to just another religious belief. But, in a few sentences we see this rhetoric appear. "Whatever the case, there is always good reason to trust the Word of God over the words of atheistic scientists with an evolutionary agenda."   Those damned "atheistic scientists" and their evil "agenda".   This is the place in the rhetoric where Angell appears, not content to make "science" just another "faith-based theism", he openly mocks and ridicules "science" as openly dangerous and in need of the tempering hand of "religion" to guide it lest it lead to villainy and evil. "Scientists" are a "smug" lot, intent of "disgracing" Christianity (since Angell neither mentions nor cites nor draws any reference to "religion" apart from "Christianity", it appears the two must be synonyms for him).
 As Pirsig would note, this is a move to subjugate a higher level by a lower level. It is immoral.


dmb says:

Exactly. Thanks Arlo. Ian (and the theists among us) sees this move as "balance" but according to the MOQ this move is immoral.

This is the thing that kills me. In the MOQ we already have a brilliant critique of the limits of science and the limits of intellect. We already have a strong defense against scientism and reductionism and a strong rejection of the narrow empiricism that leads to both of those things. And the MOQ criticizes and corrects this problem WITHOUT undermining science or intellect. In fact, the solution is to bring art, science and religion together by making them all subservient to Quality, to the primary empirical reality. To a radical empiricist, they're all supposed to be based in empirical reality and faith becomes a very low quality basis of belief, regardless of what domain we're talking about. Empirical reality. That's what makes science work in the first place. And that's what's wrong with faith-based beliefs in the first place. They're not based on experience. They're not open to change or criticism. Ever noticed that Sanskrit and Latin are dead languages?

"Phaedrus saw nothing wrong with this ritualistic religion as long as the rituals are seen as merely a static portrayal of Dynamic Quality, a sign-post which allows socially pattern-dominated people to see Dynamic Quality. The danger has always been that the rituals, the static patterns, are mistaken for what they merely represent and are allowed to destroy the Dynamic Quality they were originally intended to preserve." (Lila, p.385)  The MOQ associates religious mysticism with Dynamic Quality but it would certainly be a mistake to think that the MOQ endorses the static beliefs of any particular religious sect. Phaedrus thought sectarian religion was a static social fallout from Dynamic Quality and that while some sects had fallen less than others, none of them told the whole truth." (Lila, p.376)  "From what Phaedrus had been able to observe, mystics and priests tend to have a cat-and-dog coexistence within almost every religious organization. Both groups need each other but neither group likes the other at all. There's an adage that, "Nothing disturbs a bishop quite so much as the presence of a saint in the parish." It was one of Phaedrus' favorites. The saint's Dynamic understanding makes him unpredictable and uncontrollable, but the bishop's got a whole calandar of static ceremonies to attend to;... In all religions bishops tend to gild Dynamic Quality with all sorts of static interpretations because their cultures require it. But these interpretations become like golden vines that cling to a tree, shut out its sunlight and eventually strangle it." (Lila, p.377)
 


Arlo summed it up:
... I think Angell is simply beating the dead horse of GOF SOM science, or what Pirsig called decades ago "classical rationality".  Instead of pandering to theism, though, Pirsig envisioned a way forward.




dmb says:

Exactly. Whether they realize it or not, Ian and the theists among us are advocating a step backwards. Pirsig's critique of science and intellect is about the expansion and improvement of science and intellect. That is very, very different from the anti-intellectual stance given voice here by the right-wingers and theists among us. To the extent that they denigrate and undermine fourth level values to prop up third level values, they're not just incorrect. They're also immoral.

"The Metaphysics of Quality says that science's empirical rejection of biological and social values is not only rationally correct, it is also morally correct because the intellectual patterns of science are of a higher evolutionary order than the old biological and social patterns. But the Metaphysics of Quality also says that Dynamic Quality - the value-force that chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious one, or a brilliant experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one - is another matter altogether. Dynamic Quality is a higher moral order than static scientific truth, and it is as immoral for philosophers of science to try to suppress Dynamic Quality as it is for church authorities to suppress scientific method.  Dynamic value is an integral part of science.  It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself." (LILA, p. 365-6)


In all of the following quotes, the emphasis is Pirsig's in the original:

"But we know from Phaedrus' metaphysics that harmony Poincare talked about is NOT SUBJECTIVE. It is the SOURCE of subjects and objects and exists in an anterior relationship to them. It is NOT capricious, it is the force that OPPOSES capriciousness; the ordering principle of all scientific and mathematical thought which DESTROYS capriciousness, and without which no scientific thought can proceed. What brought tears of recognition to my eyes was the discovery that these unfinished edges match perfectly in a kind of harmony that both Phaedrus and Poincare talked about, to produce a complete structure of thought capable of uniting the separate languages of Science and Art into one." (ZAMM, p. 269-70) 

"No, he did nothing for Quality or the Tao.  What benefited was reason. He showed a way by which reason may be expanded to include elements that have previously been unassimilable and thus have been considered irrational. I think it's the overwhelming presence of these irrational elements crying for assimilation that creates the present bad quality,.." (ZAMM, p. 257)

"But now we have with us some concepts that greatly alter the whole understanding of things. Quality is the Buddha. Quality is scientific reality. Quality is the goal of Art. It remains to work these concepts out into a practical, down-to-earth context, and for this there is nothing more practical or down-to-earth than what I have been talking about all along - the repair of old motorcycle." (ZAMM, p. 276) 

"I want to show that that classic pattern of rationality can be tremendously improved, expanded and made far more effective through the formal recognition of Quality in its operation." (ZAMM, p. 278)