-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 11:02 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: RE: MD Glenn, Platt, Ant and the creation of patterns
Hi Glenn, thanks for the reply to:
MARTY:
I believe that Pirsig's point is that all of that
stuff - planets, solar systems, gravity, are all static patterns, and
those patterns can (and probably will) change over time.
Glenn wrote:
Yes, that's what I think to. Most people would say that peoples' ideas
of planets and stars changed from a Ptolemeic definition to a modern
definition during the age of enlightenment, while the stars and
planets stayed the same throughout. But what makes his view
radical is that not only did the attitudes change, but so did the
so-called objective reality of the planets and stars. He wouldn't
say Aristotle's concept of a cosmos with concentric spheres was
wrong, even in retrospect, because the 'burning balls of hydrogen in
an immense universe' simply didn't exist yet. Those spheres damn well
existed, at least in the high quality illusion that was 'objective
reality' at the time.
My response would be that it seems to come down to 'existence' - what does
it mean for something to 'exist', such as "burning balls of hydrogen"? Your
point seems to be that there actually are these burning balls of gas in an
immense universe; I believe Pirsig is saying no, there aren't. What there
is is a static pattern that we define as burning balls of gas. If this
static pattern changes in the future, we may very well say that, no, we were
wrong, they're not balls of gas but something else all together.
Glenn wrote:
I realize it's an unreasonable task for you to come up with something
that sounds novel and revolutionary for a future cosmological view
and that all you can really do is recycle crazy sounding or debunked
ideas. But Pirsig is suggesting that we do this very thing, that we
give these old ideas another look.
Glenn
I add:
I don't believe that Pirsig is so much asking us to re-visit old ideas as he
is for us to realize that ALL our ideas, old and new, need to be seen for
what they are: Attempts to organize, define and manage our response to the
constant flux of the dynamic quality that is reality. All of our
organization, definitions,discussions scientific theories and metaphysics
are not reality, but a map we are developing in attempts to describe it.
marty j
__________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Webmail account today at
http://webmail.netscape.com/
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
