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

[Dan Glover]

John,

On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 3:53 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan,
>
> My two remaining girls are home for the summer.  My idyllic days of sipping
> coffee at the computer in the morning are at an end. I grab what time I
> can...

Dan:
No worries, my friend. Always thrilled to hear from you. Write when you can.

>
>
>
>> Jc:  No.  But maybe you could :)  I think it was a comment in Lila's
>> > Child.  Too bad Platt's gone.  He always used to chime in with the
>> correct
>> > attribution.  I rely on my aging memory, but if it's in there, I take it
>> as
>> > a sign of significance, and its in there.
>>
>> 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:  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:  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:
>> > 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:  I think we treat certain concepts *as* absolute.  That it's more
>> > pragmatic to consider truth as an absolute, rather than something
>> > relative.  As Royce put it:
>> >
>> > "For in case I say to you: 'The sole ground for my assertions is this,
>> that
>> > I please to make them,' — well, at once I am defining exactly the
>> attitude
>> > which we all alike regard as the  attitude of one who chooses *not* to
>> tell
>> > the truth.
>> >
>> > And if, hereupon, I offer a theory of truth upon generalizing such an
>> > assertion, — well, I am defining as truth-telling precisely that
>> well-known
>> > practical attitude which is the contradictory of the truth-telling
>> > attitude. The contrast is not one between intellectualism and pragmatism.
>> > It is the  contrast between two well-known attitudes of will, — the will
>> > that is loyal to truth as an universal ideal, and the will that is
>> > concerned with its own passing caprices."
>>
>> 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:  No, not really.  The fact that observation has a creative relation
>> to
>> > matter, confirms idealism rather than not.  But what Royce was getting at
>> > was absolutizing truth from within a given system.  I think what most
>> > people hear when they hear the term is some sort of absolute that is
>> > outside of any system and Royce didn't preach that.  His fictional
>> ontology
>> > makes this point clearly.
>>
>> Dan:
>> In the MOQ, the idea of matter comes before matter.
>
>
>
> Jc:  Really?  Comes before in what way?  Chronologically?  There seems to
> be an implicit chronological evolutionary structrure, going from the
> inorganic to the intellectual so it seems to me that from a hierarchical
> moq-view, matter comes before everything.  The big bang is all that matters.

Dan:
The Big Bang is a high quality idea. It might help if we remember that
the MOQ subscribes to both materialism and idealism. They are both
right in their own limited fashion. So from a materialistic point of
view, yes, matter comes before everything. But, that too is an idea.

>
>
> Dan:
>
>
>> But the idea that
>> matter comes first is a high quality idea. The MOQ marries idealism
>> and materialism. They are both right in their own limited fashion.
>>
>>
>
> Jc:  Well I think  agree with you there.  The work to be done is defining
> those limits.

Dan:
I think a lot of that's been done.

>
>
> Dan:
>
> As I understand it, and to put it simply, the uncertainty principle
>> deals with fundamental limits in mathematics. Therefore, to use
>> mathematics to demonstrate absolute truth is impossible.
>>
>>
>
> Jc:  I think the uncertainty principle has more to do with reality, rather
> than math.  Math is predicated upon certainty.  The necessity of absolute
> truth- relative to math, is what proves the necessity of allowing the
> existence of absolutes.

Dan:

I'm pretty sure the uncertainty principle eliminates the possibility
of absolutes in mathematics. No system can prove itself due to
fundamental limits.

"In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, also known as
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, is any of a variety of
mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the
precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a
particle known as complementary variables, such as position x and
momentum p, can be known simultaneously."

"Historically, the uncertainty principle has been confused[4][5] with
a somewhat similar effect in physics, called the observer effect,
which notes that measurements of certain systems cannot be made
without affecting the systems."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle]



>
>
>> Dan:
>> Well, yes. That's one reason why conforming to some sort of absolute
>> seems outdated. I could of course be wrong but I thought that was a
>> big part of the MOQ, to show people the fallacy of absolute thinking,
>> like subjects and objects being all there is.
>>
>>
> 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:
> 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?



>
>
>
> Dan:
>> Disagree. Ants and bees are purely biological. They may seem to
>> represent some sort of social structure, but they do not value social
>> patterns like human beings. We simply overlay our own attitude on them
>> and say it is so.
>>
>>
>
> Jc:  Absolutely.  And why do we assert so confidently this fact?  Because
> the organizations of ants and bees is completely anti-indiidualistic.  The
> members aren't individuals, they're more like parts of a machine.  A real
> society is one made of up individuals.  Individuals that can choose to be
> part of the group, or not.

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.

>
> Dan:
>> Speaking of Platt, I remember him saying how the eye cannot see
>> itself. Philosophy isn't so much a study of culture as it is the
>> regurgitation of dead white men's ideas. Unless of course a person
>> actually has something to say that is original and new. Unlikely, but
>> possible.
>>
>
>JC:
> discovering something original is exciting, but I get more enthusiastic
> over finding perennial connections - that is, the battles that human
> societies fight over and over again.

Dan:
As Rodney King once opined... can we all just get along?

>
> Sorry I'm so late responding!

No problem here. Take your time. Write when you can.
Thanks!

Dan

http://www.danglover.com