[MD] theories of truth

[david buchanan]

djh said to dmb:
...Anyway - I'll also speak to your specific charge that I seem to claim that it's 'always wrong to skillfully manipulate abstract concepts or define any words.'   Of course I don't think it's always wrong for, as you seem to agree, the conclusion would be that there's no point in joining an intellectual discussion board if you think it's always wrong.  But what I am claiming is that while it's not always wrong it is always ultimately degenerate.  Can you see the difference between those two things?



dmb says:
You're still missing the point. Your statements have grown increasingly bizarre, David, and now you've really gone off the deep end. Intellectual discussion "is always ultimately degenerate" but "it's not always wrong"? So sometimes degeneracy is good? This claim is so obviously wrong and foolish that it doesn't even deserve to be disputed. 


degenerateadjective |diˈjenərit|1 having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal and desirable; showing evidence of decline : a degenerate form of a higher civilization. See note at depraved .

noun |diˈjenərit|an immoral or corrupt person.

verb |diˈjenəˌrāt| [ intrans. ]decline or deteriorate physically, mentally, or morally : the quality of life had degenerated | the debate degenerated into a brawl.

My computer's thesaurus says the other adjectives for "degenerate" are "debased, degraded, corrupt, impure, corrupt, decadent, dissolute, dissipated, debauched, reprobate, profligate; sinful, ungodly, immoral, unprincipled, amoral, dishonorable, disreputable, unsavory, sordid, low, ignoble" and opposes it to the terms "pure" and "moral".  As a noun, "degenerate" can be used in place of words like "reprobate, debauchee, profligate, libertine" and as a verb can be equated with "deteriorate, decline, slip, slide, worsen, lapse, slump, go downhill, regress, retrogress; go to rack and ruin; informal go to pot, go to the dogs, hit the skids, go into/down the toilet, waste (away), atrophy, weaken" and the opposite term is simply "improve".

The point in using an ordinary dictionary, in case you're wondering, is to show that your claim is absurd, to put it politely. You are misusing the term so badly that your claim can be defeated by simply quoting the dictionary. But what really kills me is the way you keep missing the point of Pirsig's prohibition. You are very badly misconstruing Pirsig's point to mean that intellectual discussion is "always ultimately degenerate". I've been trying to explain why that is wrong but, apparently, you just cannot grasp this point. It's very frustrating and my patience has been tested to it's limit.


Let me try one more time. If you STILL can't see what I'm saying, then I'm just going to have to conclude that you're just not up to the task. (And that talking to you is a huge waste of time.)

As I've already pointed out many times the degeneracy in question is degenerate BECAUSE intellect is lower on the moral hierarchy than is the mystic reality. Right there, David. That's the point you're NOT getting. It is immoral to define DQ (the mystic reality) because definitions are static and intellectual. The positivists also rejected metaphysics but for completely different reasons. The MOQ is a form of philosophical mysticism, with DQ being undefinable mystic reality. The degeneracy in question is based on the mystics' objection to metaphysics.

"Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is NAMES about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page  menu and no food." (LILA 63)

(That analogy is from William James, by the way. "One real pea is better food," James says, "than all the menus in the world.")

"Some of the most honored philosophers in history have been mystics... They share a common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside of language; that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality is undivided." (LILA 63)

"Mystics will tell you that once you've opened the door to metaphysics you can say good-bye to any genuine understanding of reality. Thought is not a path to reality. It sets obstacles in that path because when you try to use thought to approach something that is prior to thought your thinking does not carry you toward that something. It carries you AWAY from it. To define something is to subordinate it to a tangle of intellectual relationships. And when you do that you destroy real understanding.   The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called "Quality" is his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics." (LILA 64)

Basically, the distinction here is between reality and words, between actual food and the menu. The degeneracy in question depends on this distinction between thought and reality as it's experienced directly. As Pirsig and James will say a couple of dozen chapters later, "there must always be a discrepancy between concept and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing". (LILA 365) And Pirsig repeats this same idea again in Lila's Child. 

"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 but some fingers point better than others and as the world changes, old pointers and road maps tend to lose their value."

All of these quotes and comments are presented to make just one point, the point you're NOT getting. You see it yet?The menu is not the food, the map is not the road, and words are not reality. Unless one is an extremely stupid person, this distinction should be quite clear by now. I mean, what kind of idiot thinks it's good idea to eat menus? What kind of person thinks that we can drive our cars across a map? Only a very confused person could make that mistake, don't you think? And avoiding the degeneracy in question depends on understanding the proper relationship between thought and reality. In the MOQ, of course, all static patterns (including the intellectual level of static patterns) are subordinate to DQ. Degeneracy is a failure to properly acknowledge this hierarchical relationship. Degeneracy would be predicated on the belief that thought CAN bring you closer to reality, that the map is just a real as the road or that reading the menu is a good substitute for an actual meal. 

It's one thing to say that "one real pea is better food than all the menus in the world" but quite another to say that menus are evil. The point is to elevate reality (DQ) above thought (sq), not to trash thought as such. The point is to subordinate intellect to DQ in the MOQ's moral hierarchy. But your failure consists in mis using this distinction to misconstrue any intellectual discussions of anything as always inherently degenerate. 

If you want to eat real food, drive on actual roads or see the actual moon, then philosophical discussions will not give you what you want. But who thinks they can? Not me. I'm not even talking about the mystic reality. I'm talking about the MOQ, which "is static and should be separated from the DQ it talks about." It is quite alright to discuss Pirsig's thought so long as we know that "the static language of the MOQ will never capture the Dynamic reality of the world." 

It's not degenerate to examine the menu, to compare Pirsig's map to other maps because that is NOT a case of trying to "capture the Dynamic reality of the world". It is just only a matter of thinking about thoughts, of talking about words, of conceptualizing concepts! This is just a matter of intellectually dealing with intellectual static patterns. This does NOT constitute the subordination of anything higher than intellectual static patterns. The MOQ itself is static and intellectual. That's what we are here to talk about, not the mystic reality as such. 

It is not immoral to talk about words and ideas or otherwise discuss Pirsig's writings. If one thinks otherwise, one should get the hell out of here. Seriously. Such a person should not leave because disagree with Pirsig or disloyalty to the dogma - or whatever - but simply because of a fundamental incompetence. Such a person has no business being anywhere near a philosophy discussion. I suspect such a dummy would make for a very lousy mystic too. Being a mystic and being anti-intellectual are two completely different things, about as different as Buddha and Hitler.