[MD] Intellectual Discussion and Dialectic - Finding agreement, Quality and beauty in the world.

[david buchanan]

"The Metaphysics of Quality itself is static and should be separated from the Dynamic Quality it talks about. Like the rest of the printed philosophic tradition it doesn't change from day to day, although the world it talks about does. ...The static language of the Metaphysics of Quality will never capture the Dynamic reality of the world...."


There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, James and Pirsig say together. By describing static patterns as "ever-changing", Marsha has failed to acknowledge the meaning of this discrepancy. This is a failure to acknowledge the distinction between static quality and Dynamic Quality, which is a failure to grasp the MOQ's most basic concepts and architecture. Have I failed to show this, Ant? Do you not see the problem?


Anthony said to Arlo, 

I was just thinking what a fuzzy logician such as Bart "Surfer Dude" Kosko would say about your recent conversation with David Morey about logic.  His popular science books (such as "Fuzzy Thinking") certainly make a good case that fuzzy logic is an improvement over Aristotlean-type syllogistic logic. Then maybe David M is simply not using the term "logic" in the technical/mathematical sense of the word?



dmb says:
It's not my field but I'm pretty sure that fuzzy logic and fuzzy thinking should be understood as attempts to extend logical rigor to vague terms and concepts. Logical operations can easily be used on opposed terms like "hot and cold", for example, but then what do you do with "warm"? Hot is defined as not cold and cold is defined as not hot, so fuzzy logic is the logic used to express degrees of "truth" or degrees of inclusion in the set called "cold" or "old" or "rich". There are lots of vague terms, context dependent terms or relational terms in the language and so fuzzy logic is invented to handle these terms with a more complicated form of logic.

My complaints are about a much simpler problem; Marsha's description of static patterns as "ever-changing". That's like describing cold as "hot". It would be quite alright to say that static patterns are evolving and capable of change and just fine to DENY that static patterns are totally rigid or eternally fixed. That would NOT be a contradiction. It would NOT be like describing cold as "hot" but rather a qualification as to the degree of cold. 

By the same token we can say static patterns are NOT ever-changing in the same way that cold is not hot or the same way that old is not young. The meaning of the terms is defined, in part, this logical opposition. The primary empirical reality, DQ, or reality itself is ever-changing. That's what "dynamic" means. So Marsha's contradictory description confuses static concepts with reality itself, defines static patterns as dynamic, as never static and never patterned. I don't think we need any fancy logic to see why this is a problem. 

"The Metaphysics of Quality itself is static and should be separated from the Dynamic Quality it talks about. Like the rest of the printed philosophic tradition it doesn't change from day to day, although the world it talks about does. ...The static language of the Metaphysics of Quality will never capture the Dynamic reality of the world...."