[MD] The Hero's journey

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Dan,

I think what we've seen especially in this last series of exchanges 
between us is what we might call a "trust building exercise."  You 
wanted to make sure I was using old terms (like "nature") in the 
new ways (without SOM assumptions).  This, I think, is perfectly 
normal occurrence in philosophy, a kind of "getting to know you" 
exercise.  Below is just the final coming to terms:

Matt said:
I'm not sure why you thought my parenthetical statement implied 
that it needed a Cartesian-like certainty as opposed to high value...

Dan said:
It was how you phrased your statements: [Matt from earlier] "Not 
all intellectual patterns have this flavor, but a lot of the one's out of 
the natural sciences do. (Principally, I think, because a lot of the 
stuff in "nature" was around before we personally were.)" 

You seemed to be saying that certain intellectual patterns pertaining 
to natural sciences hold a higher value on account of "stuff in nature" 
being around before we personally were. That is what got a rise out 
of my intellectual hackles, but I see better now what you were 
saying... thank you.

Matt:
Oh, I see.  I used "flavor" to try and suggest the idea that there 
wasn't anything better about intellectual patterns that extend in this 
way, because like you I don't want to suggest that the natural 
sciences have better patterns or something.  It's just a different 
taste, like people who like chocolate on their pancakes, but 
butterscotch on their ice cream.

Dan said:
I believe the MOQ says that the relationship exists in our heads 
though, not out there in the world apart from us. So I am unsure 
there is a right way of distinguishing between them.

Matt said:
I no longer believe that "correctness" needs a notion of "out there in 
the world apart from us."

Dan said:
Well then I am not sure what we are disagreeing about either. Your 
formulation of personal evolutionary history vs. longitudinal 
evolutionary history led me to the conclusion that you believe there 
exists a world apart from us. If this isn't correct then why are you 
attempting to distinguish between them? Isn't the idea itself a 
distinction?

Matt:
I think that we believe, as a high-valued intellectual pattern, that 
"there exists a world apart from us" is true.  The reason I'm trying 
to distinguish between personal evolutionary history and longitudinal 
evolutionary history is to distinguish between the history of an 
individual and the history of a community (and this as another 
intellectual pattern of high value).  Not holding this distinction is how 
one flirts with solipsism, I think.  Pirsig's discourse on Western 
ghosts can be read as flirting with a kind of solipsistic idealism (as I 
think I've seen aggressive critics of Pirsig pursue in the past), but 
Pirsig is more like a Hegelian idealist, whose root idea is the 
primacy of the community in understanding where ideas come from 
(rather than an individual's confrontation with the world, which is 
rooted in the pre-Kantian empiricist tradition).  A beginning 
formulation of understanding Pirsig's relationship to the classical 
empiricists is to say that he is a post-Kantian, quasi-Hegelian 
empiricist (which is pretty close to just saying he's a Deweyan 
pragmatist).

Matt