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

Dan Glover daneglover at gmail.com
Sun Sep 6 13:05:57 PDT 2015


John,

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 2:00 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan,
>
> Before I dive into the gist of our evolving dialogue, I'd like to recall
> the nature of the subject of our thread - what this clash of civilizations
> is really about.
>
> In a nutshell, the secular open-mindedness of Western Democracy has left it
> incapable of dealing with radical fundamentalism's appeal to large swaths
> of the globe.
>
> I agree.  Which is one reason I see values in discussing religious issues
> in this forum.  Now onward!

Dan:
Or with large swaths of the United States. Donald Trump for President?
County clerks withholding marriage licenses because of their religious
convictions? Really? The christian fundamentalists are no different
than radical islam. They all demand obedience to THEIR notion of god
and anyone who dares to differ is damned to hell for all eternity. So
yeah... if you really want to start a religious discussion, start with
that.

>
> On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 9:59 PM, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>> > Jc:  I think you are right, but mainly about that unifying effect of a
>> > narrative story - the novel is a story unfolding in time, and thus as
>> > true to itself, a species of truth which speaks analogously to higher
>> > truth.  Analysis and philosophology are great at picking apart this
>> > process, after the fact, but the cutting edge of human evolution is
>> > artistic in nature, not analytic.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I tend to disagree with this. A novel is a lie. It is a fictitious
>> story, not the truth in any sense of the word.
>
> Jc:  I guess it depends upon what you mean by truth.  A novel is an
> expression of a person's story. Perhaps what you mean by truth is
> "factual".

Dan:
No, not really. Again, by definition, a novel is a fictitious story.
We all need to recognize definitions to the terms we use, otherwise
all we're doing is sowing confusion.

JC:
> That's "a" definition, I guess.  But I don't subscribe to that
> particular aspect of SOM.  No, by "truth", I mean the value of the 4th
> level, which is ultimately indefinable as a discreet concept, but rather a
> sort of urge toward, conceptualization itself.

Dan:
Well, again, we don't get to pick and choose how we define our terms.
That's what a dictionary is for. Now, if you want to define 'truth' in
terms of the MOQ:

"The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with
experience, and economy of explanation. The Metaphysics of Quality
satisfies these." {Lila]

"... one doesn't seek the absolute "Truth." One seeks instead the
highest quality intellectual explanation of things with the knowledge
that if the past is any guide to the future this explanation must be
taken provisionally; as useful until something better comes along."
[Lila]

Dan:
Truth, according to the MOQ, is not some sort of urge or even the
value of the 4th level. As you can see, there are parameters defining
truth in specific terms. Truth is not a sort of anything goes, which
is what you seem to infer.

>JC:
> Thus a novel can be, and often is, A truth.  It helps us conceptualize in
> our own lives, then that is what truth is all about.

Dan:
Again, no. A novel is a fictional story. If we find it somehow relates
to our own lives, that doesn't make it true. It simply adds appeal.


>
>
> Dan:
>
>
>> Each person who reads
>> it will take from the pages that which they are familiar with and
>> leave the rest behind. Sort of like experience. I remember reading in
>> the Guidebook to ZMM how Chris was upset when he read ZMM for the
>> first time. He said: but that's not how it happened at all! He had his
>> own narrative in mind and it didn't balance with what he read.
>>
>>
> Jc:  Yes, but, Chris wasn't really a casual reader of the novel, eh?  It
> was about him, about his life and naturally his remembered experience is
> vastly different than his father's.  It is that way with all of us.  The
> truth isn't in the remembered facts, the truth is in the way we interpret
> memories of common experience, so as to mesh, so as to make a meaning full
> story.

Dan:
We don't get to pick and choose the truth. My point was that there was
a reason why ZMM was called a novel.

>
>> Jc:  You can't just think about any one - the triune reality we deal
>> > with involves all three in constant flux and communication.  The
>> > relation of time and thought, is what Randy's book was mostly about.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Nope. I beg to differ. I do believe that is the game that Alan Watts
>> was talking about. Most people play the tomorrow game... I'll write my
>> book... tomorrow... I'll be a better person... tomorrow. And at the
>> same time, they tend to think yesterday is dead. That nothing will
>> ever change what's already happened. They never realize that all those
>> tomorrows and yesterdays amount to nothing in the end. They're stuck
>> playing the wrong game, seriously. And if that's what Randy is on
>> about... too bad.
>>
>>
> Jc:  I know what you mean, about the psychological addiction to the
> future.   Action and choice can only be instantiated in the indeterminant
> present.  But the present itself would have no meaning, without a past for
> context and no decisions would matter, without a future to project.  You
> can't have any single aspect of time, they always go together.  At least as
> long as life continues.

Dan:
Past and future are convenient fictions. To accomplish anything, one
must be present, not ensconced in tomorrow and yesterday.

>
>
>>
>> Jc:  I should quote you from ZAMM: "It's asinine, neh?".   So this
>> idea, or intellectual pattern just sits there, "shining" with nobody
>> to notice or care?   No, you know that isn't true... so it comes down
>> to the individual's appreciation vs. the crowd's appreciation.  But
>> the thing is, if the crowd NEVER takes a "shine" to an idea, it dies.
>> It is with some crowd in mind, that publishers and librarians say yes
>> to a set of ideas.   without that consideration of social usefulness,
>> all ideas fail to live.
>
> Dan:
>
>> Somebody noticed. Otherwise, the idea wouldn't exist. See, ideas pull
>> people up to the next level. It is easy to think they filter down, but
>> that's not how the intellectual level operates. As I said before,
>> Einstein toiled away in virtual obscurity for years before his ideas
>> caught hold. It wasn't that the theory of relativity leaked down to
>> the masses... rather, a few people finally noticed what Einstein was
>> on about and stepped up to that level.
>>
>
>
> Jc:
>
> You say "ideas pull people up to the next level" and I agree.  That is what
> I said about truth - it's the urge to conceptualize (or create ideas) and
> so it could equally be said that "truth pulls people up to the next level"
> Truth is a sort of mental perspective and when you climb "higher" you see
> more.
>
> But climbing a mountain does not mean we are flying.  I think human
> thinking should always be concretely grounded.

Dan:
Precisely why we need to be careful with our definitions of terms.

JC:
> The levels are abstractions
> about human thinking.

Dan:
The levels are abstractions, yes. Of human thinking? That would be the
4th level.

JC:
> Where does the MOQ's 3rd level, actually "ground
> out" in experience?

Dan:
In the MOQ, experience is synonymous with Dynamic Quality.

JC:
 I always assumed it grounds out in the patterns of
> actual human societies, but actual human societies are mixtures of all the
> levels and so we can't talk about the levels as discretely as advised.
> This needs clarification, imho.  And you're just the guy to do it, Dan.  :)

Dan:
"This classification of patterns is not very original, but the
Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion about them that is unusual.
It says they are not continuous. They are discrete. They have very
little to do with one another. Although each higher level is built on
a lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the
contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to
the lower level, dominating it, controlling it where possible for its
own purposes." [Lila]

Dan comments:
Now, if we want to discuss the MOQ, it behooves us to use the terms as
laid out in Lila. Otherwise, what are we talking about?

>
>
>
>
>> >JC:
>> > This is a big topic with me.  It was probably that passage, more than
>> > any other that so endeared me to Pirsig's work.  It dovetails
>> > perfectly with an insight of Jacques Ellul's, that there are two human
>> > frames of reference - images and words and these two realms coincide
>> > with two different terms - Truth and Reality.  But Pirsig adds the
>> > idea that Truth is intellectual, and Reality is social.   What an
>> > amazing insight.  which nobody much gets.  All I know is that its an
>> > insight that earned MY life-long loyalty.
>>
>> Dan:
>> If I am not mistaken, reality is made up of all four levels, plus
>> undefined Dynamic Quality. It is not confined to social patterns. Be
>> that as it may, as a writer, I use words to form images. I paint
>> pictures with my stories.
>>
>>
>>
> Jc:  In ZAMM, Chris asks his dad if ghosts are real.  The automatic
> teacherly response is a factual "no". But when a deeper context is revealed
> in the question - that the term "ghosts" has different meanings to
> different peoples, the truth is out that yes, ghosts are real.  Ideas are
> real.    We deem real, those ideas which we can agree upon.  As a writer,
> you persuade others to 'see' a new reality.   A noble task.

Dan:
My work is fictional in nature. Noble? Eh.

>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> > Jc prev:
>> >
>> >> > I'd like to hear your response to  Pirsig's willingness to find
>> >>
>> > Jc:  (splutters)  But Dan!  That's my point entirely!  Why has nobody
>> > noticed that Aristotle, James and Pirisig (and the Primal Americans)
>> > are saying the same thing??
>>
>> Dan:
>> Didn't you read the quote? That is precisely what Robert Pirsig is
>> objecting to... that people claim he's saying the same thing as
>> Aristotle... as James... as etc. Not sure what your point is here.
>>
>>
>
> Jc:  Ok, we have stumbled upon a big point of conflicting interpretation
> because I absolutely disagree with you.  Here, let me lend you the
> expertise of somebody who took logic once at a Jr. College, (smile)  This
> is Pirsig's conclusion
>
> _" then why has no one ever noticed that Aristotle
>   and Spinoza and William James are all saying the same thing?"
>
> The statement following the "then" is the main thrust of his argument.  His
> implication is that since he himself, has pulled together the various
> groundings of Aristotle, Spinoza and James, then his work is original and
> important.    That doesn't mean the fact that he's saying much the same as
> James, Spinoza and Aristotle in any way obviates his accomplishment because
> after all, he didn't get his Aristotle from reading lots of Aristotle, any
> more than he got his congruity with James from reading James.  It's because
> great minds think alike and the congruence of great minds, generate the
> perennial search for truth. Pirsig is making an argument for his inclusion
> in the pantheon that the Academy reveres.  Not by making his own line of
> thought alien to the traditional sources and authority, but by aligning
> with - at least in the main thrust.  There are always differing factual
> disparities across time and place.

Dan:
Well, unfortunately the quote has mysteriously vanished (is that part
of your Jr. College logic course? Destroy conflicting evidence? :-))
and so I will reproduce it here.

"I also have a concern of my own. This is the concern that
>> philosophers, instead of coming to grips with the philosophy at hand,
>> sometimes dismiss it by saying, “Oh he is saying the same as someone
>> else,” or “someone else has said it much better.” This is the latter
>> half of the well known conservative argument that some new idea is (a)
>> no good because it hasn't been heard before or (b) it is no good
>> because it has been heard before. If, as has been noted by R.C.
>> Zaehner, once the Oxford University Professor of Eastern Religions and
>> Ethics, I am saying the same thing as Aristotle; and if, as has been
>> noted in the Harvard Educational Review, I am saying the same thing as
>> William James; and if as has been noted now that I may be saying the
>> same thing as Spinoza: then why has no one ever noticed that Aristotle
>> and Spinoza and William James are all saying the same thing?"
>>
>> [Robert Pirsig, A Brief Summary of the Metaphysics of Quality,
>> http://robertpirsig.org/Intro.html]

Dan comments:
Now, how does he start off? "I also have a concern of my own." He is
NOT saying that he's pulled together all the great thinkers. In fact,
he is saying precisely the opposite. He is claiming his ideas are
dismissed because academics are saying how someone else said it
already and said it better.

>
>>
>> > Dan:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> On the other hand, if the MOQ does offer something original, why
>> >> attempt to cover it up by bringing in other philosophers and saying:
>> >> There! He's saying exactly what James is saying! Sure, Pirsig is
>> >> simply mimicking Royce and his Absolute.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Jc:  No, I don't believe that.  For one thing, mimicry would imply
>> > that Pirsig read Royce.  And before the new millennium, I doubt
>> > anybody had read Royce.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Ah. So his ideas were just sitting there all by themselves? With
>> nobody noticing them? Sound familiar?
>>
>>
> Jc:  Ok Dan, here's a question for you to consider:  Does the 4th level
> describe something real?  Or is it all an illusion?

Dan:
Please see my Lila quotes above.

>
>
> Take care,

And you do the same. Thanks!

Dan

http://www.danglover.com



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