Dennett, in our view, misses an enormous question about science: "Why is science dialectical?"
Dennett's science appears to us as a social, and in his case, a religious phenomenon. In other words Dennett practices and believes his science religiously despite his proclaimed disbelief in belief. Apropos: a Doug quote from a 2003 dialog twixt AH and Doug on Sartre...with some minor enhancements for this venue...
AH,
Socialists are lost as individuals... (This explains why socialism is Dawkinsian memetically n¤n ESS.)
Socialism (social objectivism) is a contrived mythos, as Pirsig has told us. They substitute mechanics for Nature and then use "rationale" to call He-r "absurd." All objective-else is "irrational." We just described SOM's Box. Yes, quantum-sophism is classically irrational. Yes, it offers transcendence. Isn't it irresponsible to stay in a box? To stay in a dark cave of 'scientific' dialectic? To stay in social chauvinism?
It is clear that Barnes believes classical reason is a (the) pathway to "pursuing," "making a self."
That self is a self which obeys herd instinct. It obeys social value patterns, n¤t individual Value patterns. Boris nails this in spades. In Quantonics we call this "running on automatic." It is hive droning... 'Science' does this, running on dialectic, formal logic, radical mechanism, and radical finalism.
Is she implying that social patterns make individuals? That's what Mussolini said, "The state makes the people." Ugly then, ugly now.
Wethinks y-our author was a fan of Ayn Rand, mayhaps? (The Passion of Ayn Rand is a very telling video...)
Responsibility to society is lower value than responsibility to self AKA quantum-sophist aretê (Greek virtue is 'aretê,' where 'ê' is eta, while Greek excellence is 'aritos.' We can find no Greek alpha-rho-eta... words in our Pocket OxUP.). See Jon & Doug Dialog on static (objective) and dynamic~emergent (subjective) 'virtue.'
Doug
25 September 2003 - (date of actual dialogue with AH; Doug's guess about Ayn Rand was wr¤ng...)
And Dennett and his ilk want to use classical social science and classical society to 'fix' religion. Hocus bogus! Modern social somnambulant scientific Voo-Doo: 'science' as catholic inquisitional déjà vu? Doug.
Doug has been saying and showing for years that classical science and classical religion share a disease, a disease of intellect: dialectic. Pirsig calls it "the church of reason." Science has its either right or wrong rules and enforces them with 'a human contrived disciplinary matrix.' Religion has its either right or wrong rules and enforces them with 'a human contrived bible.' As you read this chapter of Dennett's Breaking the Spell, you will see him invoking 'scientific dialectic,' AKA 'The Enlightenment,' repeatedly.
Science and religion are both classically social organizations who worship dialectic! Dennett appears to not even realize he is doing this: his dialectic is deeply and sadly inured and automatic. He does not follow his own advice and recapitulatively examine his own 'scientific' assumptions.
Aside - Talk about emotional responses, religious responses... Try asking any professor, especially professors of philosophy, to question, to self-examine honestly, science and philosophy's 'first principles.' They, usually, will glare at you as though you are some kind of devil from hell. Ask them whether 1 is 1. Whether A is A. Ask when? Ask them to show you a 'physical' 1, an substantial, material 'objective' 1. Ask them what 'not' is. Ask them whether 'logic,' science's foundation for 'reason,' is real. Do they assume it's real? Is n¤t all logic and all of science's foundation suppositional? Is supposition objective? Can it be? Subjective? Ask them to define: space, time, and mass. Hey Dennett, "What is space?" Hey Dennett, "What is time?" (Our whole point here is that while science believes it can measure it cann¤t define in lieu of measurement. So scientific 'fact' is based upon measurement, n¤t predicable 'definition.' Thence: all measurement is subjective, therefore science lies when it says it is and has opportunity and potential of being 'objective.') Ask them "Can science really, unilaterally, objectively measure reality?" If they say "Yes!" Ask them what measurement is and whether it requires a state-ic reference frame and ideal 'scientific' "zero momentum." Ask about "zero momentum" AKA stoppability. "Is reality stopped?" "Stoppable?" Or is suppositional stoppability only contrived 'scientific' dialectical analyticity's convention? Ask them whether 'fact' can exist if alternate views, even views from scientific 'nowhere' contravene such 'fact.' Ask them whether 'scientific' fact is generic? Specific? Can 'fact' be specific? Does 'fact' have to be generic? Ponder how 'genericity' to most 'scientists' is actually 'specificity.' Ask them to demonstrate and prove consistency of scientific two-valuedness (i.e., true vis-à-vis false, right vis-à-vis wrong, and ideal either-or) and how it can scientifically establish dichotomous 'fact.' You will see lots of red faces and lots of anger and lots of defensiveness, and perhaps even social fear due loss of their own religion through individual "self examination." ...Followed by denial and a quick return to safety of their religious 'scientific' mythos. End aside - Doug - 16Feb2006.
Aside - Talk about emotional responses, religious responses...
Try asking any professor, especially professors of philosophy, to question, to self-examine honestly, science and philosophy's 'first principles.'
They, usually, will glare at you as though you are some kind of devil from hell.
Ask them whether 1 is 1. Whether A is A. Ask when?
Ask them to show you a 'physical' 1, an substantial, material 'objective' 1.
Ask them what 'not' is.
Ask them whether 'logic,' science's foundation for 'reason,' is real. Do they assume it's real? Is n¤t all logic and all of science's foundation suppositional? Is supposition objective? Can it be? Subjective?
Ask them to define: space, time, and mass. Hey Dennett, "What is space?" Hey Dennett, "What is time?"
(Our whole point here is that while science believes it can measure it cann¤t define in lieu of measurement. So scientific 'fact' is based upon measurement, n¤t predicable 'definition.' Thence: all measurement is subjective, therefore science lies when it says it is and has opportunity and potential of being 'objective.')
Ask them "Can science really, unilaterally, objectively measure reality?" If they say "Yes!" Ask them what measurement is and whether it requires a state-ic reference frame and ideal 'scientific' "zero momentum."
Ask about "zero momentum" AKA stoppability. "Is reality stopped?" "Stoppable?" Or is suppositional stoppability only contrived 'scientific' dialectical analyticity's convention?
Ask them whether 'fact' can exist if alternate views, even views from scientific 'nowhere' contravene such 'fact.'
Ask them whether 'scientific' fact is generic? Specific? Can 'fact' be specific? Does 'fact' have to be generic? Ponder how 'genericity' to most 'scientists' is actually 'specificity.'
Ask them to demonstrate and prove consistency of scientific two-valuedness (i.e., true vis-à-vis false, right vis-à-vis wrong, and ideal either-or) and how it can scientifically establish dichotomous 'fact.'
You will see lots of red faces and lots of anger and lots of defensiveness, and perhaps even social fear due loss of their own religion through individual "self examination."
...Followed by denial and a quick return to safety of their religious 'scientific' mythos.
End aside - Doug - 16Feb2006.
And Dennett wants to use 'science' to study 'religion...?' And he calls religionists "Arrogant?"
Science judges religion dialectically: either either or or. Religion judges science dialectically: either either or or. Science regards objectivity as its apex of thought. Einstein:
"...it is characteristic of these physical things that they are conceived of as being arranged in a space-time continuum. Further, it appears to be essential for this arrangement of the things introduced in physics that, at a specific time, these things claim an existence independent of one another, insofar as these things ''lie in different parts of space.'' Without such an assumption of the mutually independent existence (the "being-thus") of spatially distant things, an assumption which originates in everyday thought, physical thought in the sense familiar to us would not he possible. Nor does one see how physical laws could be formulated and tested without such a clean [SOM's knife cut] separation." Our brackets, bold, and violet.
by Albert Einstein, 'QuantenMechanik Wirklichkeit,' 1948, Dialectica 2: 320-324.
On that, Robert M. Pirsig wrote,
"About this Einstein had said, 'Evolution has shown that at any given moment out of all conceivable constructions a single one has always proved itself absolutely superior to the rest,' and let it go at that. But to Phædrus that was an incredibly weak answer. The phrase "at any given moment" really shook him. Did Einstein really mean to state that truth was a function of time? To state that would annihilate the most basic presumption of all science!' [This is one of Pirsig's most brilliant observations. And today, it holds. Truth and all other Static Quality are agents of their own change, under an edict for semper flux mediation from DQ. We call it 'evolution!']" Doug's brackets as shown in A Mitch Doug Dialogue.
from Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, bottom of page 100, Bantam paperback, 28th printing, May, 1982, 373 total pages.
Using some of Pirsig's words and putting them back into his mouth we intuitively emerq this might be what he would say about Dennett's Breaking the Spell: "It is bad karma chasing its tail." Pirsig might n¤t agree, however. He wrote at end of Chapter 30 of Lila, p. 440 of 468 total pages, Bantam paper, 1992, paraphrased, "The explanation for this dichon(religion, science) is the belief that science does not free itself from religious static patterns by fighting them with other contrary 'scientific' static patterns and other contrary 'religious' static patterns. " Doug - 16Feb2006.
Actual quote is:
"The explanation for this contradiction is the belief that you do not free yourself from static patterns by fighting them with other contrary static patterns." Which is what Dennett is doing: fighting static religion with other static scientific and religious patterns! To win, Dennett must go quantum; however, to do that he must give up dialectic and a lot more!
Where science regards mechanical objectivity as its zenith of 'reason,' religion regards spiritual subjectivity as its apex of belief. Science judges religion dialectically: either either or or objective and if 'not' thence 'bad.' Religious dialectic: either either or or subjective and if 'not' thence dialectically, ideally 'bad.' Compare latter to optimistic Gnosticism: dichon(spirit, material). Then compare Quantonics' metaphor of Gn¤sticism: quanton(spiritings,materialings). Classic Gnosticism still retains some aspects of dialectic's state-ic semper fi excluded-middle. Quantum Gn¤sticism emersces Quantonics' animate semper fluxio included~middle.
What Pirsig's MoQ and Quantonics' hermeneutics of quantum reality show us is that dialectic is humankind's mental, literally, 'di' sease. Dialectic, as Pirsig shows us is a mental genetic defect of reason. Quantum reality, to us, agrees!
Quantum reality shows us that (n¤t di verse, rather) omniversal beliefs and interpretations and hermeneutics of reality are better. Simply, quantum reality(many_quantum_believings,both_religious_all_while_and_many_scientific_believings) is good and becoming better. Why? They show us, like learning to play a violin, empirically how to achieve better.
Our whole point is that dialectic is simply and demonstrably invalid, yet both science and religion use dialectic to enslave their constituents with genetically defective 'unreason.'
If reality is both~and, but your reason is either-or, what can you expect? More of same. Di Dennett's...ese...ease... Disese (i.e., language), Disease (i.e., pathology)...
Science and religion are phenomena spurting, bursting forth, from creative humanity. But so are all other categories of human individual interpretation like society, politics, academe, medicine, all -ologies, all -isms, etc. Pirsig and quantum reality say, "all are [individually] right." That is quantum superposition, folks! Included~middle quantum superposition. It shows us that we cannot use, as science and religion currently do, dialectic to cut reality up into little di spositioned lisr chunks and try to formally select which one is 'right,' 'orthodox,' 'true,' 'absolute,' 'politically correct,' 'valid,' 'veritable,' 'predicable,' etc.
Every view of reality from every possible con(m)text in reality is quantum~partially, quantum~islandically valid. (Please, please, please, we beg you, carefully ponder how Doug just described a hologram, a self~other~organizing~network, a SOON!) Science calls that "schizophrenia," but we have shown that science itself is "schizophrenic." Latter is what Pirsig and quantum reality show us! But there are always quantum~uncertain caveats! Two of our favorites are from De Finetti and Aiken:
"We are sometimes led to make a judgment which has a purely subjective [religious] meaning, and this is perfectly legitimate; but if one seeks to replace it afterward by something objective [scientific], one does not make progress, but only an [Dennettian] error." (Our brackets - Doug.)
by Bruno De Finetti, from third paragraph of Chapter VI, 'Observation and Thought,' of De Finetti's paper, Foresight: It's Logical Laws, Its Subjective Sources.
"Might it not be true, perhaps, that [classical] reason, the supposed liberator of the human mind, is no more than the repository of ancient [Greco-Roman] prejudices and habits of mind that have no general validity whatever?" (Our brackets - Doug.)
by Henry D. Aiken, The Age of Ideology, pp. 20-21, 1962 ed., Mentor (paperback, total 283 pages).
Both quotes, in our view appropriately, abuse what Dennett is attempting in Breaking the Spell. He says it like this:
"I appreciate that many readers will be profoundly distrustful of the tack I am taking here. They will see me as just another liberal [social-atheist] professor trying to cajole them out of some of their convictions, and they are dead right about that —that's what I am, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do." Our brackets.
We agree with those quotes. Dennett, from what we see so far, wants to objectify ('scientifically' reify) religion using ancient prejudices and habits of mind, especially dialectic. Dennett calls this "Enlightened Science." Dennett's science needs a lot of work prior to attempting to use it on religion. And vice versa. 'Either-or' science-religion is genetically defective thingking.
Let's all take a quantum bath, get clean, get well, free ourselves of classical dialectical thingking whether scientific, whether religious. Let's REIMAR~emersce ourselves in quantum think-king quanton(religious,scientific). We need both religion ihn science and science ihn religion. We need to learn to say "religion and science are ihn It and It is ihn religion and science." We need to learn to believe Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, I Chingers, science, etc. are ihn It and It is ihn Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, I Chingers, science, etc. Doug - 16Feb2006.
Today science is trying to get us to believe that one orthodox scientific view is correct and further that science can (has qua to) tell and show us which one. Ditto religion. Classically though, and as we have shown, both are schizophrenic! Belief in Einsteinian-picking 'the right and orthodox way' IS sociopathic dialectical analysis! We are saying to you reader, 'the right and orthodox way' is demonstrably invalid!!!
But Dennett wants to use dialectic as a scientific tool to help us 'reason' why all of us should be like him: an atheist, a self-declared egoistic reifier of religion! (Just, first time, noticed reifier is a palindrome! Dennett's truth: science reifier religion; Dennett's untruth: religion reifier science. Telling! Telling!!! What this demonstrates clearly for us is that Dennett's mind is a scientific diode! Ugh! Ughly! Doug - 17Feb2006.)
It is di fficult, n¤, omnifficult for Doug to imagine any greater arrogance. Dennett declares self as science's infallible 'rope a dope pope.' Just what we need: two di alectical popes. Ugh! What does Doug mean by "Roping dopes?" Voltaire said it, perhaps best, "...the first divine was the first rogue who met the first fool..." Voltaire (François Marie Arouet). Similarly, paraphrased only slightly, "...the first scientist was the first SOMite who met the first fool..." Parmenides, Plato, and Aristotle come to mind unhesitatingly. That's what Doug intends... In Quantonics we do n¤t ask you to believe, we ask you to think as an individual. Be quantum Gn¤stic! Do n¤t be "rope all helpless innocents" 'catholic.' Do n¤t try to fit OSFA!
Apparently, if science just got rid of religion all would be well. (A scientific social pattern of value: war.)
Apparently, if religion just got rid of science all would be well. (A religious social pattern of value: war.)
Apparently, if animals just got rid of humans all would be well. If Muslims...Christians and Jews... and on and on and on...
Doug, et al., say, "Apparently if sophism just got rid of dialectic all would be better." But we do n¤t. We say all is a quantum autonomous~coherent~holographic~manyings pot: minimal melting allowed. All is quantum islands cowithin islands cowithin groups of islands...and we should learn to live peacefully and cooperatively with that and worship and be happy with that. All is holographic with each holofuzzon interrelating and quantum~phase~encoding every other...all.
Well, Neo sapiens are gonna get rid of, er um evolve out, Homo sapiens...it's already underway...
"Don't worry! Be happy!" Evolution eventually changes all and always changes all. "This too shall change." "Become the change you [as an individual] seek."
Whatever you do, realize that OSFA societies, unions, churches, sciences, anystuffings are-become ESQ! We do n¤t need to be building such classical artifices, anyway. Quantum reality emerscitects and emerscentures quantum~coherent quantum~autonomies for us, intrinsically. Like this:
Ever wonder how people like Dennett drive their cars? Scientifically! "Have crack up." (Actually, we all drive our cars both subjectively and objectively; if we drove our cars only objectively we would, dialectically, "have crack up." Thanks for that one, RMP! What does that say? At least ponder living our lives both religiously and scientifically...while respecting rights of others to live theirs as they please while allowing natural evolution to make any potential changes. Superposition of many approaches is good and eventually garners better. Imposition of any single approach is hegemony and garners worse, since it is wholly antithetical individual freedom. Doug.)
J
Section 1 - Can science study religion? - of Chapter 2 is mostly inane. We covered our response just above.
Section 2 - Should science study religion? - Starts out with Dennett offering five 'scientific' hypotheses about religious ontology.
Guess what? They're all dialectical. Surprise! J
Briefly, here they are:
Dennett does 'not' list one possible set of ostensible c¤mplements:
Dennett does say this, "Other possibilities are describable, of course, but these five hypotheses highlight the extremes that are taken seriously." Page 36.
They appear a tad shallow, classically anthropocentric and Earth chauvinistic, even narcissistic, to us. An antidote? Read Prigogine and Stengers' Order Out of Chaos on equilibrium, near equilibrium, and far from equilibrium (quantum) processes. Juxtapose that to both Nash's Equilibrium Theory and Mae-wan Ho's quantum~social coherence. Excellence! Doug.
Notice 'not' a single both both and and in his list and one of its ostensible complements. All are either either or or. As Heraclitus said, "Dialectic is simple toys for those who do not understand the logos." Indeed!
Also notice that we can take 'combinations' of our list of other 'social' patterns of 'value' (SCASPoVs; subscript is Classical-Aristotelian) from our title criticism just prior to our Chapter 1 review above and mechanically manufacture countless other potential ostensibles.
When we do that which social patterns appear to offer most potential for survival? Those which actually offer value, those which compete (e.g., practice Darwinesque heretical selection more) a(e)ffectively, those which adapt via REIMAR better choosings~chancings~changings. In our view all SPoVs which practice dialectic will 'die' AKA become mostly extinct during next Millennium, i.e., twixt 2000 and 3000 a.d. There is a powerful clue here for who survives! Value is quality and quality is n¤t quantity. Too quality is subjective and uncertainly affective, n¤t quantitatively objective and predicably effective. Doug. If you disagree, read Pirsig and Bergson. Read Bohm and Bohr.
None of Dennett's five possibilities and our ostensible complements is even remotely quantum~real. Each is shown naïvely, helplessly, innocently for what it is, as a social, inept, pattern of value. Individuals, by social design, are absent, classically viewed and conceived as subjective nonentities. Each hypothesis is lisr. Each is analytic. Each is state-ic. Each demonstrates, at least for us, simple social dialectical ineptness which we see ubiquitously in USA at Millennium III's commencement. Let's use our simple Quantonic evaluation lists to compare:
Classical assess: stability independence excluded-middle EOOOness H5Wness lisrability causation certainty EEMDivity observation : Religious ontology.
Quantum assess: animacy c¤mplementarity included-middlings BAWAMings H5Wings lisrings affectati¤nings umcærtainty EIMAivityings c¤¤bsfection : Ræligi¤us ¤nt¤l¤gy.
Allow us to quote Pirsig on 'scientific hypotheses:' Doug's bracketed comments. Text borrowed for use here from a 2002 A Mitch Doug Dialog.
"Phædrus' break occurred when, as a result of laboratory experience, he became interested in hypotheses as entities in themselves. He had noticed again and again in his lab work that what might seem to be the hardest part of scientific work, thinking up the hypotheses, was invariably the easiest...
[There are unlimited static views of any observable. Just move from one location to another, and notice how your observable 'changes.' Most scientists claim that observables hold still. Indeed, this is one of their requirements for observation, but we know better. Observables evolve, just like all else in quantum reality. And even more interesting: quantum reality shows us that we affect observables and observables affect us! As we move (and even if we, apparently, do not move), observables and we, both both and and are evolving!]
"...The act of formally [this is a classical problematic: formality is radical mechanism] writing everything down precisely and clearly seemed to suggest them. As he was testing hypothesis number one by experimental method a flood of other hypotheses would come to mind, and as he was testing these, some more came to mind, and as he was testing these, still more came to mind until it became painfully evident that as he continued testing hypotheses and eliminating them or confirming them their number did not decrease. It actually increased as he went along.
[Today, Pirsig's personal experiences are vindicated. There are unlimited interpretations of quantum reality. We offer only 12 as examples on our site.]
"At first he found it amusing. He coined a law intended to have the humor of a Parkinson's law that 'The number of rational...
['rational' is another classical, formal problematic, - you may now see why we are doing our Quantum English Language Remediation efforts]
"...hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.' It pleased him never to run out of hypotheses. Even when his experimental work seemed dead-end in every conceivable way, he knew that if he just sat down and muddled about it long enough, sure enough, another hypothesis would come along. And it always did. It was only months after he had coined the law that he began to have some doubts about the humor or benefits of it. (This margin note was added by Doug about nine years ago: p. 100 ZMM paperback.: We choose to interpret Pirsig's coined law as, "Many truths.")
"If true, that law is not a minor flaw in scientific reasoning. The law is completely nihilistic. It is a catastrophic logical disproof of the general validity of all scientific method!"
[We agree, wholeheartedly! Science, classical and relativistic and classical versions of quantum science, are in deep, deep trouble.] from Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, pages 99-100, Bantam paperback, 28th printing, May, 1982, 373 total pages.
We cannot overemphasize importance for you and our world that you read surrounding text there, in ZMM, yourself!
"So what I am calling for is a concerted effort to achieve a mutual agreement under which religion—all religion—becomes a proper object of scientific study.
"Here I find that opinion is divided among those who are already convinced that this would be a good idea, those who are dubious and inclined to doubt that it would be of much value, and those who find the proposal evil-offensive, dangerous, and stupid. Not wanting to preach to the converted, I am particularly concerned to address those who hate this idea, in hopes of persuading them that their repugnance is misplaced. This is a daunting task, ..., but perseverance is called for. Yes, I want to put religion on the examination table. If it is fundamentally benign, as many of its devotees insist, it should emerge just fine; suspicions will be put to rest and we can then concentrate on the few peripheral pathologies that religion, like every other natural phenomenon, falls prey to. If it is not, the sooner we identify the problems clearly the better. Will the inquiry itself generate some discomfort and embarrassment? Almost certainly, but that is a small price to pay. Is there a risk that such an invasive examination will make a healthy religion ill, or even disable it? Of course. There are always risks. Are they worth taking? Perhaps not, but I haven't yet seen an argument that persuades me of this, and we will soon consider the best of them. The only arguments worth attending to will have to demonstrate that (1) religion provides net benefits to humankind, and (2) these benefits would be unlikely to survive such an investigation. I, for one, fear that if we don't subject religion to such scrutiny now, and work out together whatever revisions and reforms are called for, we will pass on a legacy of ever more toxic forms of religion to our descendants." Bottom of page 38 and nearly all of page 39.
"So what I am calling for is a concerted effort to achieve a mutual agreement under which science—all science—becomes a proper subject of religious study.
"Here I find that opinion is divided among those who are already convinced that this would be a good idea, those who are dubious and inclined to doubt that it would be of much value, and those who find the proposal evil-offensive, dangerous, and stupid. Not wanting to preach to the converted, I am particularly concerned to address those who hate this idea, in hopes of persuading them that their repugnance is misplaced. This is a daunting task, ..., but perseverance is called for. Yes, I want to put science on the examination table. If it is fundamentally benign, as many of its devotees insist, it should emerge just fine; suspicions will be put to rest and we can then concentrate on the few peripheral pathologies that science, like every other natural phenomenon, falls prey to. If it is not, the sooner we identify the problems clearly the better. Will the inquiry itself generate some discomfort and embarrassment? Almost certainly, but that is a small price to pay. Is there a risk that such an invasive examination will make a healthy science ill, or even disable it? Of course. There are always risks. Are they worth taking? Perhaps not, but I haven't yet seen an argument that persuades me of this, and we will soon consider the best of them. The only arguments worth attending to will have to demonstrate that (1) science provides net benefits to humankind, and (2) these benefits would be unlikely to survive such an investigation. I, for one, fear that if we don't object to science with such scrutiny now, and work out together whatever revisions and reforms are called for, we will pass on a legacy of ever more toxic forms of science to our descendants." Bottom of page 38 and nearly all of page 39.
Simply, if religion bears scientific and other scrutiny, shouldn't we concur science bears religious and other scrutiny?
Sort of like medicine as practiced today. Doctors are impatient and patients may not be. Have you ever seen a 'impatient' label on an elevator in a hospital? Our parable is that patients should be impatient with impatient doctors and sometimes doctors should be patient with sometimes impatient patients. Again, it is ostensible here that medicine, as practiced, is a social classical-Aristotelian pattern of quantitative object above subject value.
Both patients and doctors are quanton(subject,object) to scrutiny. Full script: Quanton(patients,doctors) are...
Both science and religion are quanton(subject,object) to scrutiny. Full script: Quanton(religion,science) are...
In Doug's Quantonics quantum perspectivings that is better.
Be careful! What is Doug assuming here? What does Pirsig's MoQ tell us about SPoVs?
Compare what Dennett wants to what Doug is asking.
Pirsig's MoQ shows us that SPoVs which are more highly evolved have moral authority over SPoVs which are less highly evolved.
Why is Doug giving nearly balanced authority to both religion and science?
Why is Dennett presuming and assuming that science has social and scientific authority over religion?
Dennett simply views science as dialectically ethical and above religion due science's methods and provisionality, and though he does not say so, we believe Dennett intuits religions' absence of self-assessed (thus requiring other assessment of) provisionality.
Doug views science and religion (except for our already admitted provisionality advantage of science) as more balanced ethically due their common logical methods based upon dialectic. To Doug, where provisionality is more of a trait, dialectic is die gründung ausrechnen arbeiten albeit a faulty one. Hopefully you see Doug saying and writing and showing that both science and religion (among countless other social SPoVs) need progenesis~thenceforth quantum~self~other reevaluation. Modern Christian religion anyway is a lie, i.e., classical-dialectical-catholic over Jesuit~quantum~gn¤stic. Modern Western science anyway is a lie, i.e., classical-dialectical-scientific over Coquecigrues~quantum~quantonic.
Dennett, more simply, sees science as 'true,' and religion as 'false,' a purely and naïvely dialectical assessment which, as we show, itself is an indictment of science regardless of any ethical scientific provisionality. In our view it overrides and annihilates any worth of science's provisionality. But perversely religion does similarly to science. Dialectic is our demon, n¤t science, n¤r religion, n¤r any other social pattern of value. Indeed that is what Doug means by quantum~evolution away from SCASPoVs to SqQSP¤Vs! Major renovation and remediation required to accomplish that includes, as priority "top", intentional devolution and subsumption of dialectic. Unfortunately ICASPoVs (individual-classical) are unaware of that. Fortunately IqQSP¤Vs (individual-quantum) are experiencing a cusping awareness of that.
Those of you who follow efforts in Pirsig's Lila Squad may grasp here how Doug is describing and showing ESS within Pirsig's Social SPoV level. Also you may recall how Doug admitted, way back on January 24, 1998, that he did not (then) know how to assess intra and inter SPoV level issues. Well, we can and we do nowings!
Section 3 - Of Chapter 2 is - Might music be bad for you?
What blunt force 'logical' trauma just hit you square in your face?
Women's Christian Temperance Union! Remember that?
It was Bu()sh() then and it's Bu()sh() now.
Dennett's analogy is music but it just as well may have been booze. It smells of musical WCTU, and he agrees with them that if we ever show that some music is bad for humans we should make it illegal, similar as we contextually limit smoking today, at least in USA.
This is interesting from another angle. Some religions already practice it! LOL!
OK, Dennett, assess dialectic's damage to humanity over last 2500+ years! While doing so, ponder your own religious devotion to it.
On page 46, Dennett broaches a yummy which he says we shall fathom deeper in his book, "Do people have a right to stay ignorant?" Personally, Doug can barely wait to see what Dennett does with this one. Mayhaps we should ask first, "H5W smart is smart?" And "Is founding your thought system on antique presumptions and dialectical lies smart? Ignorant?" And, "Is an assumption that latter is your only choice, smart?"
On page 47 Dennett calls that 'science' "Enlightenment." "The Enlightenment!" Not an attempt at enlightenment, The Enlightenment! No indefinite articles allowed. From our web page titled 'Should Absolute Skeptics Use The?:'
Doug wrote in June, 1999, "Especially when scientists [and religionists] use the, one senses an habitual, perhaps unintended, obfuscatory self-aggrandizement. It almost appears scientists use the as a linguistic badge of authority. The carries an innate expert pseudo ambiance of [dialectical] certainty from which scientists, no doubt, garner fake authority-enhancing security. But once you compare their extreme overuse of closed and limiting 'the's to other more open possibilities, like ones we show above, our skeptical scientists appear more as lettered and titled obscurantists than as fonts of natural law." Doug added intra quote brackets 18Feb2006.
Apropos!
In our view, dialectical science and religion, since Romaninanity began just prior Christ's birth, have been enormous human endarkenments, if n¤t from their anthropocentrism and Earth chauvinism alone.
Wouldn't it be fun to watch Dennett give forth on science above religion to say Rigelians and Betelgeuseans? J
On page 49 Dennett writes that religion, "If it is going to receive attention, it had better be high-quality attention..." Our bold.
This is laughable!
Science is n¤t qualitative. Dialectic disallows qualitative thingking. Dialectic thingking may only be (similar as how music might be bad for you) quantitative. Scientists are only allowed to practice objective measurement! We call it "DIQheaded scalarbation."
What Dennett should have said, reverently and religiously is, "...high quantity attention."
Or is this just another 'language problem?'
On page 50...
Oh boy!
"There are some people—millions, apparently—who proudly declare that they do not have to foresee the consequences: they know in their hearts that this is the right path, whatever the details. Since Judgment Day is just around the corner, there is no reason to plan for the future. If you are one of these, here is what I hope will be a sobering reflection: have you considered that you are perhaps being irresponsible?"
Doug, again senses that it is apropos to ask Dennett, "...have you considered that you are perhaps being irresponsible?"
Again our point isn't that we disagree with what Dennett says above (while self realizing that at some point an asteroid could take out Earth and a nearby gamma ray burst could take out our solar system and at some point another galaxy will devour our Milky Way). We are saying that his method of thought, which we call "CTMs," is very similar to how religionists thingk. CTMs spawn dilemma and oxymora. All who use CTMs whether scientific, whether religious, whether political, whether pedagogic...spawn linguistic Babel. Examples? A is A. A is either A or not A. A cannot be both A and not A. Bilge! Babel. Lies! Idiocy. Demonstrate? Simply ask H5W!
Dirac answered for us, along with Bergson and Hoffmann, Pirsig, et al. "You can analyze a thing, but not a process." Quantum reality is absolute semper fluxio processings!
CTM Babel as Dirac wrote, "(...we must revise our ideas of causality. Causality) applies only to a system which is left undisturbed." Page 4 of Dirac's The Principles of Quantum Mechanics. Our parentheses and ellipsis.
Enough on this dreary chapter.
Doug - 18Feb2006.