Hi Elephant, Roger,
ELEPHANT:
Er, Gravity *is* an idea. And that's the whole point. What newton added to
the transparent fact that apples fall was an idea expressed in mathematics:
viz, gravity. That this idea expressed in mathematics should *correspond
to* real life is wonderful. But that it *is* real life is ficxticous:
apples do not perform mathematical calculations.
Er, gravity is a force. The idea you refer to is the one expressed
as a mathematical formula and is called the "law of gravity". But the law of
gravity is not just an intellectual idea expressed as a formula, because it's
hard to imagine gravity as it is if this law were different. It seems
the law is bound up in the force. And no, it's not "the whole point".
This is really secondary to the thrust of my argument. The really startling
thing Pirsig says is that gravity *itself* is solely a human concept; Sir
Isaac created it, and gravity itself did not exist before that.
GLENN: (previously)
Pirsig is saying that evolution of static reality is correct and the
ability humans and cultures have to create reality is also correct and he
bundles these two notions under the MOQ. But I think I've shown that the
two notions are not compatible and cause internal contradictions within
the MOQ. You can have one or the other, but not both.
ROG:
I see none at all. The "evolution of static reality" itself is created by
men, and it would be more appropriate to say we create models derived from
reality than to say we create reality. (though I recognize Pirsig may have
oversimplified his teminology somewhere in his novels).
You think "Pirsig may have oversimplified his terminology" but his
terminology and intentions are rarely as clear as in the gravity passage.
He even italicizes the key controversial phrases to ensure you don't
misunderstand him. So please read it over again, several times if
necessary. I agree it is "more appropriate to say we create models derived
from reality than to say we create reality", but if Pirsig were only
proposing that Newton's law was a model of gravity, which is the standard
interpretation, why would he preface his argument by saying his proposal
sounds "nutty" in comparison?
PIRSIG: pg 40 (25th Ann ZMM)
...it seems completely natural to
presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed
before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that
until the seventeenth century there was no gravity.
What I'm driving at is the [ridiculous] notion that before the
beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before
the primal generation of everything, the law of gravity existed. Sitting
there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's
mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space
either, not anywhere-this law of gravity still existed?
If that law of gravity existed, I honestly don't know what a thing has
to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed
every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single
attribute of nonexistence that the law of gravity didn't have. And yet
it is still 'common sense' to believe that it existed.
Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find
yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally
reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of
gravity and gravity itself *did not exist* before Isaac Newton. No other
conclusion makes sense. And *what that means* is that the law of gravity
exists *nowhere* except in people's heads! It's a ghost! We are all of
us very ignorant and conceited about running down other people's ghosts
but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own.
[stress his]
Glenn
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