Re subject/object/unreal,
Spencer-Brown introduces the concept of imaginary boolean values, thus the
basic set of distinctions is:
TRUE : FALSE :: MEANINGLESS : IMAGINARY.
Neurologically speaking, the concept of TRUTH is an abstraction, a
generalisation from the LOCAL behaviour of marking territory. We find the
behaviour in amphibians/reptiles and up through rats to humans but in humans
the FEELING has been abstracted to become a feeling associated with SYNTAX.
Thus truth is derived from ownership, MINE vs NOT MINE is abstracted to
CORRECT/INCORRECT and here takes on it's EITHER/ORness.
What is implied by this is that truth comes in flavours, personal, cultural,
universal where personal truths can directly influence others nearby and can
be propagated outwards. This is 'flocking' behaviour where local
distinctions lead to expressions of non-local patterns IOW none of these
non-local patterns are directly linkable to an individual my name.
Laughter comes from a context switch and as such is IMAGINARY (or can be
MEANINGLESS). It is always a RESPONSE unless it is done 'out of context'
then the doer is considered 'strange'. Laughter is a DOING and as such comes
from relational space (even if the relationship is to oneself). Relational
space emphasises context sensitivity and so the playing with context
switching, based on WHAT COULD BE (a relational space property) being
switched to the unexpected or else a metaphor is taken literally. Laughter
has an element of the 'flocking' in it in that it can cause others to
resonate without knowing the particular reason; laugher is associated with
what COULD be etc
The major emphasis in the brain is identifying and the brain is well-tuned
to that task, as well as the task of illusion setting or RE-identifying to
either stick out from the context or blend back into it (and so confuse the
identification processes of others) (Re-identifying gets into humour etc)
Re-identifying stems from the MEANINGLESS/IMAGINARY pairings in that the
emphasis is some form of illusion/delusion when seen in the context set by
the identity seeking emphasis on TRUE/FALSE.
If we associate Subject/Object with the A/~A distinction then TRUE/FALSE are
EITHER/OR functions which is NOT the case with MEANINGLESS/IMAGINARY since
the latter emphasise MANY and the former emphasises ONE; thus the
MEANINGLESS/IMAGINARY are more associated with BOTH/AND functions.
MEANINGLESS/IMAGINARY distinctions belong to the world of the many, to the
world of what COULD HAVE BEEN, IS NOT, COULD BE and it is playing on these
distinctions that humour etc arises.
In information processing so SYNTAX is primary and thus TRUE/FALSE is
primary. SEMANTICS etc is thus SECONDARY and in the brain there seems to be
the assumption that any information that gets to SEMANTICS processing has
passed syntax processing (i.e. is deemed to be of some value).
IOW there is part of the brain that assumes meaning in all information it
receives, there is no such concept as 'random'. This part of the brain is
also associated with dreaming and the analysis and creation of metaphors etc
to the extant that a 'hiccup' in syntax processing can let in a 'pure'
random piece of data that is assumed by that part that links-in context etc
to be meaningful -- and so a 'random' event can create a dream which is
strived for... or a chord played at 'random' can generate a 10 minute set of
'interesting' jazz as the feedback processes that form part of the
meaningless/imaginary side of things take over the process of
identifying/re-identifying... the random chord is parsed at the syntax level
and what follows is a series of attempts to identify what is BEHIND that
chord, to identify the INTENT. Since there is none other than to sow a seed
of 'what could be' so the progression of things is determined by the
feedback processes in the other musicians, to set-off memories, associations
that link the original chord to a context even if that context is all
meaningless/imaginary.
In a way this is like firing off patterns of emotion without intent other
than to 'see what happens'.
Jazz has always had this bias, not to what IS/WAS/WILL_BE but to what
COULD_HAVE_BEEN/IS_NOT/COULD_BE. Sometimes it is meaningless, other times
imaginary but never true or false since these are concepts outside of Jazz
(and so the often link of Jazz with Zen :-))
best,
Chris.
------------------
Chris Lofting
websites:
http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
> [mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On Behalf Of Struan Hellier
> Sent: Friday, 22 December 2000 8:21
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: MD Strawman and Harmony
>
>
> Greetings,
>
> I have just been reading the 'problems with the moq' on MF with interest,
> having found myself 'drinking white rum in a Portuguese bar' with an
> afternoon to fill. I blame Bob Dylan myself. There is a lot left
> out, but I
> thought I should focus upon my old favourite, especially in the light of
> Diana's view that denying SOM simply demonstrates ignorance. When
> one starts
> from the premise that a very highly regarded Oxford metaphysician, for
> example, is ignorant about his own subject, one simply exposes
> either one's
> own ignorance or at least one's simplistic grasp of the critique.
>
> DIANA:
> "Those that say there's no such thing as the SOM are just demonstrating
> their own ignorance. Anyway it was answered when it was topic of the month
> and I've yet to see anyone challenge that. I think the only
> problem is that
> Pirsig didn't explain it enough. If you've already read Descartes
> then it's
> obvious, but not everyone has."
>
> Let us, then, be clear about what constitutes the strawman argument, as it
> has, ironically, been reduced to a strawman itself. The argument
> is not that
> there is no subject-object dichotomy and it is even less that there is no
> truth or value whatsoever in isolating this one particular aspect of human
> psychology in order to throw light upon something else. Rather,
> the strawman
> argument is that a position of an opponent is cleverly twisted into an
> insubstantial and highly simplistic caricature of its target, in
> order that
> it be shown to be flawed, thus giving credence to a second position. It is
> this symbiotic, contingent relationship which is so damaging to
> the moq. The
> subtlety of the strawman constructor is that he or she can, because of the
> partial truth inherent in their position, pretend that it is
> obviously true
> to the undiscerning, or lazy, reader, thus stifling dissent. And
> that nobody
> should challenge the 'answer' to the strawman critique on a forum infested
> with Pirsigophiles is hardly surprising really, now is it? But let me
> redress the balance for a few moments.
>
> When Diana presents the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy:
>
> "A subject-object dichotomy is acknowledged in most Western
> traditions, but
> emphasised especially in Continental philosophy, beginning with Kant, and
> carrying through idealist thought in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and
> Schopenhauer. It is also prominent in internationalist philosophy, in the
> empirical psychology of Bretano, the object theory of Meinong,
> Ernst Mally,
> and Twardowski, and the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl."
>
> she places the dichotomy in proper perspective. But, just one sentence
> later, the 'dichotomy' has become an exclusive 'metaphysics' with no
> indication as to why. Suffice to say that this paragraph constitutes scant
> evidence for SOM, which is, should it need pointing out, supposed to be a
> metaphysics not one type of psychological phenomena.
>
> But enough! Who cares what the dictionary says? Let us look at what Pirsig
> writes when he tells us about SOM, then we can see if he has
> invented it to
> prop up his own theory. At its deepest level SOM is seen to be
> the position
> that:
>
> "All the universe is composed of subjects and objects and anything that
> can't be classified as a subject or object isn't real" (pg121).
>
> and that:
>
> SOM initially slices everything up into subjects and objects (pg131).
>
> Just to make sure that I am being fair, can we agree that this is the
> fundamental difference between the MOQ and SOM? That SOM makes
> its first cut
> of undifferentiated experience between subjects and objects, while the MOQ
> cuts undifferentiated experience into dynamic and static quality,
> the result
> being that SOM only recognises subjects and objects thus
> excluding much that
> the MOQ recognises as real?
>
> If that is the case, (and Pirsig has re-iterated that this is the
> case many
> times) then I have proved empirically that nobody I have
> questioned on this
> matter subscribes to SOM and you can try the same experiment that I
> conducted with my philosophy students yourself if you so wish. I would
> predict that were everybody in the world to be asked this
> question, not one
> person could be shown to follow SOM and that this simple question is
> therefore sufficient to expose the strawman completely.
>
> Question: "What is laughter?"
>
> Now, if Pirsig is correct, our whole being, upbringing and metaphysical
> understanding (whether we are aware of it or not) will inexorably
> lead us to
> say that it is either a subject, or an object, or unreal. Of course, I am
> not claiming that we would all use those words, but clearly these would be
> the underlying concepts.
>
> The most common answer in practice (try it) is that laughter is
> 'what people
> do when they find something funny' and a perfectly good answer that is as
> far as it goes. Now, press on with the questioning.
>
> Question: "Let us take your own laughter as it is what you know
> best. Is it
> an object?"
>
> Answer: "No, of course not."
>
> Question: "Then is it a subject?"
>
> Answer: "How can it be?" or "Now you are being silly" or simply a
> blank look
> at how stupid the question is.
>
> Question: "Is it real?"
>
> Answer: "Of course."
>
> Now if this SOM is so deeply ingrained in our 'mythos' as a set of 'ideas
> that we picked up at a very young age and never bothered to question and
> that are fundamental to practically everything we do,' (Diana) then our
> questionee could not possibly come up with an answer which
> clearly indicates
> that laughter is neither subject, nor object, nor unreal. In
> doing so he/she
> has, from Pirsig's point of view, rejected a truth so ingrained and
> self-evident that such a moment would be one of huge revelation and
> considerable confusion. That not one of my students even batted
> an eyelid at
> this conclusion speaks volumes about their own metaphysics! There are
> hundreds of other examples that I could have used and they all
> serve to show
> that this simplistic blanket accusation of SOM is so spectacularly and
> preposterously false that insisting upon it goes beyond ignorance into
> bloody-mindedness.
>
> So what are we left with of SOM? Just a vague sense of everything that is
> disliked, a mythical 'mythos' (if you will forgive the
> expression) ascribed
> to almost everyone, and to be hunted down and conquered, but, at
> every turn
> is seen to be as insubstantial as a castle in the sand. We have a
> catch-all
> 'rage against the machine' metaphysics which is all things to all men,
> capable of almost any interpretation and the domain of the intellectual
> misfit who is not sure why they don't fit. The observation that we as
> subjects relate to other things as objects is accurate and good,
> but let us
> not pervert that truth into nonsense, please.
>
> That being said, many have raised the perfectly reasonable objection that
> the moq does not need SOM as an adversary. It is said that the
> moq stands on
> its own two feet. Most often this is summed up using Pirsig's phrase, 'by
> the harmony it produces.' I disagree with this view, believing that it
> produces no harmony whatsoever and only appears to solve
> platypuses (and it
> is platypuses not platypi - Pirsig got that wrong too, but, as
> usual, nobody
> bothers to check for themselves) because those platypuses are
> constructions
> dependant upon the strawman. Once an insubstantial and brittle opposing
> argument has been set up, it is easy to show how another answer is more
> harmonious, but this is illusion. Hence the strawman critique is the most
> potent critique of them all as it dissolves the seeming harmony and shows
> nothing to have been accomplished. If SOM is not the unspoken 'mythos' of
> our culture (and the example above shows conclusively that it
> isn't) and if
> professional philosophers (or even those who take a cursory interest in
> philosophy) rejected any form of dualism long ago, then who exactly are
> these problems being 'solved' for? The 'man in the street'? How
> disgracefully condescending - and inaccurate.
>
> Let us take just pick out example of harmony for closer analysis. I choose
> mind v matter simply because this seems to be the most
> fundamental to others
> on this site.
>
> First the strawman:
>
> A SOM 'has to make [the] fatal division' of 'regarding matter and mind as
> eternally separate and eternally unalike' 'because it gives top
> position in
> its structure to subjects and objects. Everything has got to be object or
> subject, substance or non-substance....'
>
> Well we have seen that this is nonsense, but instead of harping
> on about it,
> I shall move on to the 'solution'.
>
> The standard response quoted by people on this forum (to the
> credit of some
> it is seen as a fudge) is that 'mind is contained in static inorganic
> patterns while matter is contained within static intellectual patterns.'
> This does not even address the question of how they interact, it merely
> tells us where they are, and the problem has always been one of
> interaction.
> In itself, this is clearly a fudge, but Pirsig does, also, tell
> us how they
> interact according to the MOQ and hence does offer a solution:
>
> 'There is no direct scientific connection between mind and
> matter.' Instead
> they are linked through social and biological patterns.
>
> Call that a solution??? There IS a direct scientific connection
> between mind
> and matter and to say their isn't flies in the face of modern science.
> Dennett's 'Consciousness Explained' is probably the best semi-technical
> discussion of this, but almost any coherent materialist account
> will suffice
> to establish the point. As an example, when a patient undergoing brain
> surgery has his brain prodded in a specific places this produces visual
> flashes, memories or hand raisings etc. I wonder if Pirsig (or
> anyone else)
> can explain to me exactly how that mind/brain interaction is mediated
> through society as he claims. The brute fact is that this is excellent
> empirical evidence of a direct link between mind and brain - no, that is
> misleading. Mind and brain are one and the same so the 'link' is
> superfluous, coming, as it does, from confusion about the question.
> Incidentally, if you actually bother to question 'the man in the street'
> about this, and I have, he will not be surprised by it, for the prevailing
> 'mythos' supports this 'link' emphatically. It, equally emphatically, does
> not support the notion that mind and brain are two eternally separate and
> unalike 'things' as the most rudimentary questioning will
> establish. Perhaps
> someone else here can be persuaded to test out this 'mythos' theory in an
> empirical fashion, rather than merely pontificating.
>
> So what has Pirsig done here? He has created a strawman position
> based upon
> discredited dualism and false understandings of the way we think about
> subjects and objects, then he has posited a solution contrary to
> (inharmonious with) modern science. It looks harmonious on the
> surface, but
> only if the reader is prepared to accept a caricature of a problem and
> remain in ignorance of empirical and philosophical fact and theory.
>
> The strawman critique, in a nutshell, is that if you don't understand the
> question you can't possibly come up with a sensible answer, and
> it underpins
> every other critique. No progress whatsoever will ever be made in academic
> circles if this is not recognised and I see no sign that it will be
> recognised given that if it were, the whole edifice would
> collapse. To write
> this argument off as 'ignorant' is, frankly, blinkered in the extreme.
>
> Looks like the jazz club over the road is just about to open, so
> I'm off. As
> an aside, it is interesting how some followers of a philosophy which
> emphasises that a dualistic either/or approach is flawed, can
> conclude that
> a person can only be either classical or romantic. How sad that some can't
> develop one side of their 'self' without compromising the other.
> Philosophising for the afternoon and jazzing for the evening; what a
> harmonious combination, as I am sure Platt, with his profound insight into
> the minds of jazz musicians, will understand immediately.
>
> Struan Hellier
> <mailto:struan@clara.co.uk>
>
>
>
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