| Subject: | Your new book, 'TNP.' |
| Date: | Mon, 29 Mar 1999 11:00:46 -0500 |
| From: | Doug Renselle <NOFLAMEqtx{at}earthlink{dot}netNOSPAM> |
| Organization: | Quantonics |
| To: | "Thomas Petzinger, Jr." <FlameProof@petzinger.com> |
This copy of the original email contains minor edits to clarify and emphasize semantics, and add useful links.
None of the original text is deleted.
Tom,
Just five minutes ago, I finished your new book.
Aretê!
Panempirically and panexperientially, you captured the stuff
of
Millennium III.
Most of your book and WSJ column readers, presumably, are lay
folk.
Perhaps they may not possess theoretical underpinnings of Value
you
bespeak and intuit. We think understanding is crucial to the success
of
new pioneers who want to learn and practice the art you describe.
You place onus on Newtonianism. If you look back further
chronologically, as Pirsig, et al., have done, you will learn
Sophists
practiced aretê, antecedent to Greek philosophy! But Parmenides,
Plato,
Socrates, and Aristotle bespoke absolute truth, and denigrated
the
Sophists' aretê.
We in Western culture live with a denigrate-the-sophists legacy
today.
Pirsig calls it the, "Church of Reason."
Newton, Einstein, et al., bought into absolute truth big time.
But some
quantum theorists did not.
Pirsig tells us we must place onus over two millennia prior
to Newton.
Actually, it appears to have begun, as reflected in ancient text,
with
the first sentence of Homer's 'Iliad:' "Sing O-Goddess, the
anger of
Achilles..." In the original Greek, the first word in the
sentence is,
'wrath/anger.'
Clearly, we see Western culture bearing many ills 'The New Pioneers' can
cure, if they intuit a new ontology.
Exemplifying pioneering behaviors is one approach, but won't
your 'Front
Lines' readers expect more? Why have we allowed the Subject-Object
dichotomy and its concomitant absolute truth legacy to survive
thus far?
What does Western society need to beget a cure? Is there a cure?
My answers:
Our current ontology must be replaced! Pirsig's MoQ, IMO, is
a fine
candidate, now.
IMO, if we do not adopt a new ontology, the classical concept
of
truth-over-value will
continue to confuse Western culture. As long as
that confusion exists, value will not bear its full fruits. Quantum
science describes a new nature meme: value-over-truth,
but classical
science still has its claws deeply embedded in the minds of lay,
classical, and quantum thinkers.
Newtonianism today, is popularly understandable and explicable.
Amazingly, as you pointed out —
[in general] it is just plain wrong, demonstrably
wrong. But we are still using it, ubiquitously!
The new Value/Quantum naturalism is not popularly
understandable and
explicable.
Dr. Irving Stein of Merritt College propounds the ideas I broached
in
the last three paragraphs above. He says we need a new ontology:
A
quantum-natural ontology which is, "exegetic and exoteric."
We agree.
I plan to do a full review of your book on our site. It won't
happen
immediately, however, since we are preparing a syllabus and course
materials for our MoQ classes which start 5June1999.
We will use some of your case histories in our class materials
to
exemplify MoQ's Value-subsumes-truth ontology. We will offer copies
of
The New Pioneers for our students to purchase.
Please accept our sincere gratitude and admiration,
Doug.
—
Doug Renselle
In Quantonics
http://www.quantonics.com/
—
—
"Coupled cycles are the ultimate wisdom of nature."
By Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, in 'the Rainbow and the Worm,' p. 49, World
Scientific, 1993, paperback.