Hi Chris and All:
First, thanks Chris for your post and contribution to this web site. I
hope we’ll continue to have the benefit of your thoughts.
I gladly admit that a lot of what you said is over my head,
especially the things you discuss in depth in your paper “A
General Outline of a Model of Generating Meaning.” (GOMGM) So
if I’ve misinterpreted your views, which is likely, I trust you’ll not
hesitate to say so.
I think most of us are aware of the paradox inherent in the MOQ
occasioned by the necessity for Pirsig to express his beliefs using
the assumptions of SOM even as he rails against its
shortcomings. As he pointed out himself, “A ‘Metaphysics of
Quality’ is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity.”
(Lila, Chap. 5). He admits to the irony of having to use SOM to
question SOM.
What’s more, there’s no question (in my mind at least) that
meaning is dependent, as you say, on the fundamental A/ not A
dichotomy, and that this basic SOM division is embedded in the
deepest layers of our perception neurophysiology. I will even go
further and state that the SOM assumption of an independent
reality (there are tigers and bears out there) is essential to
meaningful thought and social cohesion. We objectify to think, we
think to survive.
One of my favorite authors, the Yale professor and computer-guru
David Gelernter, confirms what I take to be your view:
“If a running program is an information process, does that mean it
is just like the brain? After all, the brain is an information
processor, too, right? Wrong: the brain is no mere information
processor, it is a ‘meaning creator’ – and meaning creation is a
trick no computer can accomplish.” (From ‘Machine Beauty,” by
David Gelerntner, p.23)
Since the bulk of your post stressed the value--indeed necessity--
of SOM, your final paragraph came as somewhat of a surprise.
You wrote:
“You can believe whatever you wish. The feedback processes,
sourced in harmonics analysis, add quality and since the
feedback is sourced ‘out there’ so we can make the linkage of
‘quality=reality’ but always with the method of analysis in that it is
the method that sets the context within which we find/create
meaning.”
By which I take you to mean that the MOQ is as much a legitimate
metaphysics as SOM. Further, your acceptance of a basic MOQ
principle seemed to be evidenced when you wrote at the end of
your GOMGM paper:
“We will always be able to find meaning in anything once we pass
our analysis beyond the INITIAL DICHOTOMY. By this I mean that
once we think something is ‘OF VALUE’ or could be ‘OF VALUE’
we shift into dichotomous analysis and that part of our brain
assumes there is means as a fundamental!” (my emphasis).
In other words, if I interpret you correctly, from an state of Quality
(pure experience) our initial slice of reality is to determine whether
we are in a situation of high or low quality FOLLOWED by the
basic A/not A division. Or, as Pirsig says in describing his famous
hot stove example:
“Later the person may generate some oaths to describe this low
value, but the value will always come first, the oaths second.
Without the primary low valuation, the secondary oaths will not
follow.” (Lila, Chap. 5)
Quality first (value), oaths second (dichotomous analysis). Is that
the way you see it?
Finally, I’d like to toss in a quote from zoologist and Nobel prize
winner Konrad Lorenz that confirms your implied suggestion that
the initial value dichotomy goes way back in evolutionary history:
“What the organism leans about its environment can be
expressed in the simple phrase, ‘It’s better here’ or ‘It’s not so
good here.’” (Unfortunately I’ve lost the source for this quote.)
Thanks again for your insights; I look forward to more.
Platt
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