I guess it is whatever it is that makes you who you are.
You've strayed into religion
What do you mean by religion?
For me religion and spirituality are not the same.
Spiritual is inside, personal, no translators - it is more independent. You find your own "truth" instead of being told what that truth is. And most of all it leads to a increasing state of peace and being.
Ah, hope it makes sense, word are so limiting. :-)
Refer to Bob Altemeyer's writing about the Authoritarians (followers) and the Double Highs (gurus). We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
Spirituality is a wonderful impulse within humans, it is the same thing that creates inquisitiveness, quest,humility and wonder. It is the very best part of us
I dislike, no, hate is closer; I hate religion because, to me, it is an attempt to harness the individual's natural spirituality for base political purposes. From what I have read, the actual expressed philosophies of various prophets such as Jesus, Mohammed, buddha are wonderful paths to better personhood. But their codification into religions nd the necessary bundling of "explanations, rules and regulations on top has created entities that would repel the originators. You cannot argue with God, you cannot claim immorality in divine law. Yet it is man made abomination. keep to the Fen Causeway
thanks for saying it so well... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
That is where I find Pirsig's metaphysics useful in terms of the ability to look at things on the basis of a continuum of experience.
And now he began to see for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he gained power to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had lost. He had built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena of nature into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and wealth-but for this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal magnitude: an understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an enemy of it.
He had built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena of nature into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and wealth-but for this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal magnitude: an understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an enemy of it.
I use the example of Mary Rose not to show that my experience "proves" anything, but that it convinced a pretty hard case like me that there is more to reality than may be "subjectively" or "objectively" dissected, tested and measured. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I don't think you can find a single historical culture that viewed itself as 'part of the world, and not an enemy of it.' Most of the rituals - and all of the technology - of those ancient cultures revolves around bending nature to the will of humans, either directly or through divine intercession. The illusion of the 'noble savage' who lives in harmony with nature is one of the more enduring myths of our culture, but it has little basis in fact.
We are not so different from those 'savages' in our desire to control nature. We're just a lot better at it.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
His is essentially a Non-Dualist approach.
Let's look at the land, for instance.
Most native peoples cannot even conceive that anyone could "own" it. To that extent they see themselves as part of their environment.
I draw upon Pirsig's approach to "Quality" to provide an explanation - to myself, if to no-one else - in relation to "Value" (which I believe exists in Static and Dynamic forms) and in particular the relationships of "Property" and "Money", which we have been brain-washed into thinking of as "Objects".
Without consideration of the metaphysical basis of Economics ("the Physics of Value", as I see it) we cannot construct an Economics that addresses the Reality we daily experience.
Pirsig's identification of the relationship - and not just the subject and object - is IMHO ground-breaking. It takes us into the "both/and" space which is not "either/or".
Up here in Scotland they seem to "get" this - it's in that "uncertain" space of their "Not Proven" verdict between the certainties of "Guilty" and "Not Guilty".
Knowledge based value and Intellectual Property
was my ramble through the subject at Lancaster University a couple of years ago... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
It postulates that the fundamental reality is Quality or value. All things come from Quality, and it is Quality that draws all things into being from Quality. All that exists is a form of Quality, and nothing exists without Quality. You could say that Quality is one of the names of God.
This is the central axiom of Pirsig's metaphysics, right? If so, then he is indeed practising Platonic dualism: Postulating an existence of qualia as something distinct from physical reality. Discussions of angels and pinheads then ensue.
The identification of the importance of relationships is neither new nor groundbreaking, nor does that insight benefit from being couched in metaphysical claptrap.
Postulating an existence of qualia as something distinct from physical reality
But the quote actually was (my highlight again)
It postulates that the fundamental reality is Quality or value.
Nothing dual about that.
The way I read Pirsig, he says that Quality is all there is: it's not distinct from anything: it is anything and everything ie Reality.
You won't find anything resembling "claptrap" in Pirsig's books. You may disagree with what he says, but you shouldn't have any difficulty with the way that he says it.
How other people describe what Pirsig says is up to them, and people often descend into "claptrap": if only everyone were as clear as you, Jake.
But I think you should avoid using "metaphysical" almost as a term of abuse, a bit like the use of "liberal" by political opponents as a pejorative term. What is needed is a good dose of Metaphysics IMHO: we really need to look askance at the assumptions that underpin what passes for our thought.
If anyone else pre-dated Pirsig in his conception of an alternative metaphysics to the conventional post-Greek "subject/object" metaphysics, then please direct me to him or her.
As far as I can see Pirsig's is entirely original thinking, and original thinking is rare. This is once in a thousand years stuff.
But since it brings into question the premises underpinning pretty much the entire academic edifice constructed in the couple of thousand years it's no surprise it doesn't exactly receive an enthusiastic reception... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Oh. My mistake then. But if Quality is simply physical reality, then why isn't he just saying that?
Looking at assumptions is good and right, but I fail to see what metaphysics has to offer as anything other than an intellectual exercise. If it does not make testable statements, then how can it educate our decisionmaking? And if it does make testable predictions, then how is it different from methodological naturalism?
Since I don't know how old Pirsig's writings are, and since I apparently don't understand what they're about, I think I'll retract the statement that he does not make original claims...
As far as I can see Pirsig's is entirely original thinking, and original thinking is rare. This is once in a thousand years stuff. But since it brings into question the premises underpinning pretty much the entire academic edifice constructed in the couple of thousand years it's no surprise it doesn't exactly receive an enthusiastic reception...
But since it brings into question the premises underpinning pretty much the entire academic edifice constructed in the couple of thousand years it's no surprise it doesn't exactly receive an enthusiastic reception...
... but claims of an impending paradigm shift raise little red flags in my mind.
If it does not make testable statements, then how can it educate our decision making?
I think that what we have to do is to look again at the nature of tests. I really don't know enough about this area, but my intuition is that this Metaphysics of Quality/Value may open up new thinking in relational logic and conceptual frameworks. My problem is that I find abstraction very difficult to cope with intellectually.
And rightly so, but such is the position in which we find ourselves, IMHO.
In particular, the legal concepts of "absolute" property rights are faulty and "broken". We are used to either absolute, infinite "ownership" eg freehold land, shareholder "Equity" or absolute, temporary "use" for a finite duration eg leasehold land, and debt.
These Newtonian assumptions of absolutes are not good enough. They do not explain the ability to utilise assets/Value for an indefinite period which arises from the use of the legal concept I call an "Open" Corporate for the encapsulation of property rights.
I have found in Pirsig's MoQ an approach that allowed me to develop a conceptual framework within which to analyse - at least to my own satisfaction - value events/transactions and their role in economic interaction.
The reason this is important is that there is a "Telluric" paradigm shift going on IMHO based upon the connectivity of the Internet, and it is only defective legal protocols - the "Semantic Web" - that are holding us back.
My thesis is that consensual partnership based solutions are optimal, and the proof of that pudding is in the eating. If I am right in that thesis, then I am curious as to why it should be so. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
i believe that to be axiomatic, so it may not have a 'why'.
does asking 'why not?' help?
why does it need male and female genetic material to create human life?
or should i say 'did'?
the world as one big pulsing consensual partnership sure sounds optimal to me....
if the proof is in the eating, then i can say from experience that when you get a bunch of people together for a project and it goes well, everyone goes home feeling good, bellies full of pudding.
ET is a group project, and induces that sort of satisfaction, if mostly intellectually.
blogging is a new way of relating which creates a forum which in meatspace would need highly unusual levels of respectful discipline and lack of interruption, no one interjecting, each with the freedom to say until the end what one had to say.
and then take as much time as necessary to peruse and reply.
so it's pulling communication out of us that possibly has had no outlet up to now.
i should bear that in mind more, when glitches occur, and flameouts follow.
you knew this was going to get warm, this debate, chris, calling it a punch-up in advance...
and it has been, because this stuff goes deep, very difficult to keep emotions down to lukewarm when discussing concepts like soul.
i see it as lancing a boil, what you did.
not the lounging emperor watching the blood sports below, but peacemaker, through somewhat shamanically allowing passionate emotions space to erupt and spend themselves, bouncing pixels against each other, instead of fur flying and blood on the walls, which is all to often the meatspace outcome when matters of 'faith' are provocatively brought out of hiding, like lions out of their catacomb cages.
can't wait for the next one on art... though i imagine it will be much less emotional...art claims no ticket to houri heaven in the afterlife, more like a pine box and a posthumous price at sotheby's.
though it can save souls... prolly left ole-time religion in the dust in that sense.
unless art is your religion! rumi's poetry comes to mind... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
JakeS, I think the one point where I think you clearly mis-read rg's top-level comment really applies to you. Writing "being couched in metaphysical claptrap" might be what you honestly think, still, it won't generate anything positive in a discussion with ETers who believe in the meaningfulness of that metaphysical claptrap. It may be the right language for an esoterics or sceptics web forum or USENET newsgroup with a rawer tone and higher traffic with more hit-and-run posters, who to boot are prepared to take some fire on both sides, but minting words and asking questions should work better here. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
