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

[Dan Glover]

John,

On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 5:31 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dan:
>> So old angry white dudes outnumber everyone else in Texas and Montana?
>> That's a pretty bold statement. Care to back it up with statistics?
>>
>>
> Jc:  No, just it's just my personal experience.    And Trump appeals to a
> broader demographic than old angry white dudes, or he wouldn't be as
> popular as he is.  And even if he shrivels up and blows away, the fans he
> is making will still be here and the ideas that he has coalesced will
> remain.  Upper level patterns are not dependent upon "material" for
> propogation and continuence, eh?  Or at least not the same material.

Dan:
Well, the way I understand the MOQ, intellectual patterns arise from
the social level but they can be seen as opposing social mores. I
think that's why anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see through
the media sniping of candidate Trump and will oppose his nomination.
On the other hand, there is certainly a base that he caters to, the
less educated and the more virulent who tend to see themselves and
their ilk as the center of the universe. That in itself is a good
indicator that the levels of the MOQ as laid out in Lila are a better
way of explaining the current political realities than the old us
against them, black vs white sort of explanation.

>
>
>> Dan:
>> I'm not so much arguing that novels are true or not but that we need
>> some sort of commonality in order to make sense of the world and
>> dictionaries and encyclopedias help in that regard.
>>
>>
> Jc:  Well I think it is a good discussion to have.  There are certainly
> nuances in the term's "factual" and "truth" that need to be fleshed out.  I
> do have my own thinking on those terms that is probably different from what
> you're used to.

Dan:
Perhaps. I tend to see the truth as high quality intellectual
patterns. On the other hand, there are terms which we must abide by in
order to have intelligent discussions. That novels are fictional is
one. Can a novel contain truths? Certainly, just as lies contain them
too. I doubt too many people blatantly lie without at least attempting
to coerce others into believing them. Yet a novel is just such a
blatant lie. It says, suspend your disbelief and fall into my trap and
in return I will spin you a memorable tale.

>
>
>> >JC:
>> > You can't say that all novels are not true.  For instance,  Kerouac's
>> > On The Road, was a true and factual recounting of his adventures with
>> > his friends.  But it had to be classified as a Novel, because it
>> > wouldn't have been published as a "true story" so the names were
>> > changed to protect the guilty.   A thinly-veiled guise that STILL
>> > landed Neal Cassady in jail, (can't get more real than that)  but
>> > according to the "dictionary".  On The Road, is a novel.   But in
>> > fact, is reveals many social and intellectual truths.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Any good novel reveals social and intellectual truths. It's been a
>> while since I read On The Road but if I remember that book is a sort
>> of stream of consciousness effort by Kerouac. Whatever truth it
>> contains was filtered through the author's cultural lens. As far as
>> Cassady landing in jail, what did On The Road have to do with that?
>>
>>
> JC:  Ok, first off, of COURSE all truths are filtered through the author's
> cultural lens.  Even so called "non-fiction"  that's my point.  In ways,
> fiction can be a better tool to tell the truth, than an autobiography could
> possibly accomplish.  Truth is not a matter of Facts.  Facts are simple and
> empirically direct, truth is of an abstract nature from the get-go.

Dan:
But aren't facts and truth synonymous?

>JC:
> As to what On the Road had to do with Cassady serving time in prison...
> well, he enjoyed a certain notoriety in the Bay Area scene, while Jack was
> off in New York and all the cops had to do was read the book

Dan:
Cops? Read a book? Really? Now that's gotta be a fictional scenario if
there ever was one. I'd have to say that Cassady serving time in
prison probably had more to do with his own deeds than anything
Kerouac wrote.

JC:
> and they knew
> who to look for as an influence in the newly burgeoning drug scene.    You
> can take Kerouac's word for it, he writes about it in *his* Big Sur.  Also
> wrote about flaking out on meeting Henry Miller, who really gave his work
> and early critical boost, but Jack disappointed people, all the time.
> Alcoholism will do that, I guess.

Dan:
Well, again, I think it comes down to accepting personal
responsibility for our own errors in judgment. I also think that
Kerouac's work was considered fiction for a reason.

>
>
>
>
>> >JC:
>> > Anyway, when you get right down to it, everything IS just fiction.
>> > It's either good fiction or bad fiction, but truth can't be
>> > encapsulated so ....
>>
>> Dan:
>> Nope. Gotta disagree again. There are certain unavoidable truths. If
>> everything was simply a fiction, we'd have no anchors holding us in
>> place.
>>
>>
> Jc:  Do you get what Pirsig's "painting in a gallery" metaphor means?  You
> can't escape the brute fact that any ontology is at it's basis,
> fictional.    Fiction is another term for story or metaphor.  We build all
> our meaning (every last bit) out of these stories we make up. The only
> thing an anchor does is weigh you down and keep you from going anywhere.
> There are countless anchors in the world, I'd rather sail away on the good
> ship MoQ.  :)

Dan:
What I understand that Robert Pirsig is saying is that there are no
absolute truths. He does not deny truth, however.

>
>
>
>> Dan:
>> So we are back to a sort of anything goes?
>>
>>
>
> Jc:  No... not "anything".  It has to be good.  It has to make sense and
> connect up with the rest of the lines in your painting.

Dan:
A good story can be completely fictional.

>
>
>
>>
>> > Jc:  The only experience I ever knew,  was/is nothing but memory.
>> > Even the present, is a memory of what just happened a micro-second
>> > ago.   You can talk about "pre-conceptual" but why would you?
>>
>> Dan:
>> Key word: knew. Static patterns are all we know.
>>
>>
> Jc:  Yeah, and there's no such thing as pure staticity so it's tricky
> seeing where the lines go in that part of the picture.  But I keep coming
> back to an early and fundamental statement about Quality, whereas it cannot
> be defined, you KNOW what it is.  So there must be some knowing, beyond the
> static.  Some knowing, of what is not in the past.

Dan:
Well, sure, there are different ways of knowing. We all (presumably)
know biologically what an apple tastes like but we can't describe it
intellectually. That doesn't mean the taste of an apple is beyond the
static, however. The four levels of static quality are all there is.
Except for Dynamic Quality, which cannot be defined.

Is there a Dynamic knowing? And if so, can it be defined?

Thank you,

Dan

http://www.danglover.com