[MD] Julian Baggini: This is what the clash of civilisations is really about

[Dan Glover]

John,

On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 12:42 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Dan:
>> >> I know there is a line in Lila about living beings reacting to Dynamic
>> >> Quality, but that doesn't translate into the individual.
>> >>
>> >>
>> > Jc:  I may be confused.  It just stuck in my head somehow as "orthodoxy".
>>
>> Dan:
>> I don't think so but it's something to consider.
>
>
>
> Jc:  there is a logic to the fact that the only way to intellectually
> resist social pressure is individually.  If you just prefer the
> beliefs of one group as opposed to another, you're taking sides in a
> social conflict but you're not really thinking for yourself and the
> distinction between social patterns and intellectual ones would be
> meaningless.

Dan:
Actually, social pressure seems to be a prime example of social
patterns of value, and as the Borg said so eloquently, resistance is
futile, especially on an individual basis. You'll end up either in
prison or an insane asylum unless you comport to the rules of whatever
culture you happen to live in.

>
>
>>
>>
>> >
>> >> Jc:  I don't think individual competition is a good analogy for evolution.
>> >> > That's for sure.  Co-Evolution, is a better explanation of what goes on
>> >> at
>> >> > the biological level.  Everything that lives, serves some life, in some
>> >> > way.  The more life you have, the more life you have.  the organic matrix
>> >> > is illimitable and fascinating and humanistic science wants to cut it all
>> >> > up into manageable bits, but it doesn't work very well at the ultimate
>> >> > levels.  Makes many ontological errors, as any MoQist
>> >> > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0waMBY3qEA4> is aware.
>> >>
>> >> Dan:
>> >> Science is in the business of defining our representation of reality.
>> >> You can't define reality in its entirety. It's too overwhelming. You
>> >> can only take bits and pieces at a time
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> > Jc:  It's a useful category tho.  Without a firm grasp of what is real
>> > versus what is imaginary, our proverbial ancestors woulda been screwed.
>>
>> Dan:
>> That's an interesting theory. Were they screwed because they once
>> thought the sun revolved around the earth? Or that they thought the
>> earth was flat? To them, that was real. To us, imaginary. How much do
>> we take as real today that our descendants will laugh at?
>>
>
> Jc:  And how fast is the change occurring?  The

Dan:
Changes are occurring more quickly than most anyone realizes. My
youngest grandchild was born seven months ago. By the time she reaches
adulthood, it will be illegal for a human being to drive a car on
public roads. The odds are our descendents will look back on the
carnage caused by automobile accidents and shudder just as we do when
we look back with horror on the medicinal practices of the 17th and
18th centuries.

What I find interesting in that is how all our science fiction of
today has human beings piloting spacecraft. The idea of the individual
being in control is so ingrained into our culture that it is nearly
impossible to comprehend the enormity of change that is coming our way
and quickly. Will people fight it? Absolutely. But just as we
eventually gave into the notion that the earth is not the center of
the universe, so too will we come to see neither is the individual.

>
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >> Jc:  The individual vs. the community is always an important and ongoing
>> >> creative conflict.  You can't have a good community without good
>> >> individuals and you can't have good individuals without good community.
>> >> The way intellectual evolution fits into all this, is that it seems to
>> >> attach to the individual's efforts to solve a social conflict - which
>> >> creates the need for new formulations of ideas.     Which boils down to...
>> >> respect your degenerates?
>> >
>> > Dan:
>> >> The individual is a high quality idea, just like subjects and objects.
>> >> But I think the MOQ would say that's all it is.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Jc:  Well.. that's saying a lot, eh?  From an MoQ perspective, that's all
>> > ANYthing is.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I'm not sure about that. Ideas arise from social patterns, which in
>> turn arise from biological patterns, which arise from inorganic
>> patterns. So no, ideas are not all there is. If so, we could turn a
>> fistful of dirt into gold by just thinking it. No?
>>
>
> Jc:  Maybe I should have said "from an idealistic perspective"  but

Dan:
The MOQ states that idealism and materialism are both right in their
own limited perspectives.

>
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> >JC:
>> >> > May be.  I think in a video of a speech by Hilary Putnam, he said
>> >> something
>> >> > very much like that.  The importance of heeding the minority complaint,
>> >> or
>> >> > something along those lines.
>> >>
>> >> Dan:
>> >> Oh no... it was James T. Kirk. Remember? As he lay dying Spock told
>> >> him that, logically, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the
>> >> one. But Jim showed Spock that, sometimes, illogical as it may sound,
>> >> the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.
>> >>
>> >>
>> > Jc:  I guess it depends upon the one.   and the many.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I was being a little goofy but at the same time I think this is
>> important to understand. In a democracy, the majority rules. But the
>> minority still has a voice. In fact, there are times when the needs of
>> the few outweigh the needs of the many. Take this week, for example,
>> and the SCOTUS rulings here in the States.
>
> Jc:  Yes.  Scott Adams make this point in his Native Pragmatism, how
> the Haudenosee had stories of inviting one's enemies - the cannibal -
> into camp and feeding him.  It gives a whole new meaning to the
> Thanksgiving story, eh?

Dan:
Well, yes. On the other hand, shared cultural customs from around the
globe point to dining with one's enemies as a way of bridging the gap
between them, if only until the food digests. Feeding the beast keeps
it from eating you. I think Freud wrote quite a lot on that.

>>
>
>
>> >> Dan:
>> >> I think we do ourselves a disservice by clinging to one or the other.
>> >> Pragmatically, there's got to be some middle ground that falls
>> >> somewhere between the absolute and relativism. Or perhaps we can meld
>> >> the two together and come up with more than the sum of the whole.
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > Jc:  I think that's what is meant by  -- hold your absolutes lightly, as
>> > useful ideals, rather than ontological categories.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Why not do away with them all together?
>
>
> Jc:  because they are foundational for math, science and rationality
> itself.  They function as foundations for thought.  They don't exist
> before thought, generating reflection.  That's not what I'm saying.
> They are intellectual derived foundations to further thought,
> irreducible or definable.    Royce made the argument for the absolute
> existence of possible error, for instance.  If you think about it,
> it's this possibility which drives science and rationality and truth.
> But really, why should it exist at all?  As Socrates asked Thaetatus.
>
> A sort of koan, I'd say.

Dan:
Absolutes are set in stone. Experience is malleable. Absolutes are
hard and unforgiving. Experience is pliable and absorbs blows without
breaking. To set a foundation of absolutes cannot further thought,
only limit it.

>
>
>
>
>>
>> Dan:
>>
>> I'm pretty sure the uncertainty principle eliminates the possibility
>> of absolutes in mathematics. No system can prove itself due to
>> fundamental limits.
>
>
> Jc:  Using a term like "absolute" is a tricky business.  As Pirsig
> pointed out in that quote I shared, it has many connotations and
> requires some work to come to an agreed-upon definition.   But I think
> the work is fruitful and resolving the conflicts brings new light to
> old problems.  Even good ol' William had his moments of realizing
> this.
>
> James: Not only the absolute is its own other, but the simplest bits
> of immediate experience are their own others, if that Hegelian phrase
> be once for all allowed. The concrete pulses of experience appear pent
> in by no such definite limits as our conceptual substitutes for them
> are confined by. They run into one another continuously and seem to
> interpenetrate.... My present field of consciousness is a centre
> surrounded by a fringe that shades insensibly into a subconscious
> more. I use three separate terms here to describe this fact; but I
> might as well use three hundred, for the fact is all shades and no
> boundaries. Which part of it properly is in my consciousness, which
> out? If I name what is out, it already has come in. The centre works
> in one way while the margins work in another, and presently overpower
> the centre and are central themselves. What we conceptually identify
> ourselves with and say we are thinking of at any time is the centre;
> but our full self is the whole field, with all those indefinitely
> radiating subconscious possibilities of increase that we can only feel
> without conceiving, and can hardly begin to analyze."

Dan:
I agree the term absolute has many connotations. I guess my question
is, why do you believe it is important to introduce the term into the
MOQ?

>
>> >>
>> > Jc:  Here's the thing, you can't absolutely say that absolutes can't
>> > exist.  Because to do so would be to admit the existence of an absolute.
>> > Platt made that point, and Royce and Peirce argued it with James also.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I see that as a limitation of language, not an admission of an absolute.
>>
>
> Jc:  I'm not certain what the limitations of language are.
> Intellectual patterns have no upper limit that I can deduce.   One can
> always re-conceptualize more and if we both go "aha", over the same
> conceptualisation, then however it happens, language succeeds.   The
> term "absolute" is just a sign, like any other.  What it points to, is
> the question.

Dan:
You seem to be assuming language is a collection of intellectual
patterns. I'd say yes, to a degree. But language also involves social
patterns, a shared commonality without which language would be
useless. When I write, I fight to find just the right word, not only
to convey the intellectual message that I'm seeking to share, but also
to discover the proper cadence... the feeling the word engenders when
it is lowered into a specific sentence and indeed the paragraph. In
that sense, language can been seen as biological in that the right set
of words can move the reader to feel sorrow, joy, pain, anger, etc.

The English language has limits. For instance, I often borrow words
from other languages to express thoughts not possible with English. In
fact, English language is actually a hodgepodge of other languages. We
are constantly appropriating words from other cultures from all around
the globe. On the other hand, those words are used, dropped into our
culture might be more apt, to bolster ideas already present yet
inarticulated.

Now, if we want to use a term like absolute, we should seek to drop it
into the framework of the MOQ without disrupting the ideas already
present. To me, to do so only creates confusion. Dynamic Quality or
experience are better words to use, more in keeping with the nuances
of the MOQ.

>
>
>> JC:
>> > But
>> > Pirsig's MoQ makes it much clearer by explicating LEVELS of experience and
>> > it's only in the real of analytic intellect that any absolute has meaning
>> > or existence.  It's a conceptual abstraction that serves a function on the
>> > 4th level, that's all.
>>
>> Dan:
>> So any absolute is a high quality idea. Is that what you're saying?
>>
>
> Jc:   No, I'd say that the term itself can be used in quality ways -
> To construct rational systems.  Believing in one's own creation is the
> problematic area that science fights and common sense admonishes us to
> avoid.  There are big problems with absolutism.  I agree with James
> and so does Royce.
>
> "James remains painfully conscious of the rootlessness, loneliness,
> and fragmentation of modern life. He thinks the Absolute idealists'
> proffered cure for this is as bad as the disease: their attempt to
> show that the fragmentation of the sensuous and natural-scientific
> life is knit up in an Absolute Mind that subsumes all finite points of
> view and connects all things in its battery of universal ideas. For
> James this is a monstrous abstraction that conceals the wound it
> cannot heal."
>
> What James is fighting against is nothing less than intellectual
> arrogance which permeates the halls of power and academia.  A worthy
> fight!  Nevertheless, as Wilshire goes on to explain:
>
> "Nevertheless, James feels intensely the disease of alienation and
> world-loss, and our yearning, "our persistent inner turning toward
> divine companionship."" A hopeful remedy he finds in the panpsychic
> world vision of the German polymath, Gustav Fechner. If Absolute
> idealism is egregiously thin, Fechner's view is very very thick.
> Fechner writes of plant-souls, animal-souls, indeed, Earth-soul. Now
> what on earth are scientists like James and Fechner doing speaking
> this way? Because they are also philosophical, and they realize that
> stock scientific materialism cheats at the start: supposes that Earth
> and its members are discrete, inert, or mechanical bodies 'out there.'
>
> Such objectification emerges from, abstracts from, a primal
> involvement with things: a being-along-with-fellow-members of the
> earth, and it forgets its abstraction and what it abstracts from.
> James and Fechner will not forget. They develop a clue in
> Aristotle-and in much indigenous and aboriginal thought as well: human
> soul is not some nonmaterial entity or spiritual force, but is just
> all that the body does. The body not only eats, excretes, copulates,
> but it breathes as well, and this breathing is a bridging into the
> thinking and feeling that it also does. The Aristotelian formula is:
> Soul is to body as sight is to the eye. And there are bodies other
> than human ones; in fact, Earth itself is a body."
>
>  The more I read of these progenitors of pragmatism, the more I like
> and the more I agree that Pirsig is in the same philosophical boat.
> This connection with primal american thought at the basis of American
> Pragmatism has been very enlightening to me. Tying William James to WJ
> Siddis and thence RMP is a fascinating move.

Dan:
I think what's being said in the quotes you offer would make much
better sense framed within the hierarchy of the MOQ.

>
>
>> Dan:
>> Well, again, you seem to be conflating a society with social patterns.
>> That's not what the MOQ is on about. While a society is a collection
>> of people, social patterns are not.
>>
>
> Jc:  If you're just talking about abstract intellectual categories,
> you're not talking about the concrete.  We abstract social patterns
> from intellectual ones, in order to get a better handle on both, but
> we can only talk in the context of the actually lived -  societies.
> The social patterns that bind a society together are religiously held.
> In the latin roots of the term - re - ligere.  I'm not sure then, how
> I can conflate social patterns (religion) with collections of people
> since the distinction is very clear in my mind.

Dan:
Though religion can be seen as a collection of social patterns, that
doesn't mean social patterns are religion. Collections of people are
not social patterns in the MOQ. Collections of people are biological
patterns. They are physical. They can be seen. Social patterns are
non-physical. They cannot be seen. By conflating social patterns with
collections of people you are creating confusion.

>
>> Dan:
>> As Rodney King once opined... can we all just get along?
>
>
> I believe so, yes.  We can.  Whether we will or not is an open question.

Thanks, John,

Dan

http://www.danglover.com