IN THIS MESSAGE BO STARTS AT A SLOW PACE, BUT AN
INSIGHT DESCENDS AND HE BELIEVES HE HAS FOUND THE
REASON BEHIND STRUAN'S DISLIKE OF THE QUALITY
METAPHYSICS.
I leave to Elephant and other who have taken on Struan to work out
what constitutes a metaphysics ... the logics of arguments ... how
many strawmen can be constructed ..etc. It is with awe I watch
such verbal giants clash - our non-native English cannot match the
eloquence here. The brain-prodding example, however, is highly
interesting and when the dust has settled we may discuss it.
STRUAN (citing PIRSIG):
> 'There is no direct scientific connection between mind and matter.'
> Instead they are linked through social and biological patterns.
Remember our off-squad discussion about it some time ago? At
that time Sperry (him with the split-brain discovery) was your
witness.
STRUAN (continues)
> 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.
The above is excellent, but first. In a message to Roger you say
this:
> > ............................................ For the last time, (honestly), I am
> > not 'continuing to deny these commonly shared characteristics of
> > Western philosophy'. I am continuing to deny that they constitute
> > either a metaphysics or a family of metaphysics. Have I really not
> > been crystal clear on this?? Am I not saying for the umpteenth time
> > that I affirm the subject object dichotomy?
This is news to me. You affirm the subject/object dichotomy as
long as it isn't called a "metaphysics". OK, I slowly begin to
understand. The brain-prodding experiment you see as ......
> .....an 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.
and I agree completely. It works the other way too, we contemplate
moving a finger and "makes up our mind" and the material finger
moves, or take a drug and have altered thoughts. This is the very
problem in a nutshell: Everything: Intuition, experiments,
experience point to UNITY, but as soon as we start theorizing the
S/O's metaphysical slash forbids unity: It superimposes its eternal
division upon reality and forces us to ask how mind can move
matter and vice versa, and when you say ...there is no trick to be
performed, they are one...well, everyone given time to theorize will
ask how a thought can change from a mere contemplation to an
physical action. One may follow the finger movement backwards
into the nerve system where it is electro/chemistry and into the
neurons firing charges across tendon gaps ...however far you
recede this will for ever be matter, no-where will it meet thought.
And vice versa. It is this impossibility that the QM remedies.
You complain that the QM just shows where things are and not
how they interact and moreover that Pirsig does'nt tell how any
Society can come into play. To you this is an "ugly complication"
and now - seeing your premiss - I see what you mean - and where
the misunderstanding has its root. Eureka!!!
While the S/O dichotomy split runs between mind and matter the
QM split runs between dynamic/static, so at the static side no
dichotomical abyss must be crossed. The static levels - from
inorganic to intellect - is a UNITY, no interaction across borders is
needed. Look at the spatial dimension for an analogue; discrete yet
one, we move in all dimensions simultaneous. Your
misunderstanding of Pirsig's idea is based on:
1) Equalizing S/O's "matter" with the inorganic level and - most of
all - S/O's "mind" with intellect something that ....
2) ....puts the first on one side of the old S/O slash and the last at
the other side. This makes QM's biological level unnecessary and
the social level complete nonsense.
I don't blame you, as a critic you attack the weak spots and Pirsig
(who has no problems in understanding his own ideas) has created
some by saying that Intellect .."exactly matches mind". (That
Inorganic matches matter follows unsaid). To the less initiated, to
whom the everything-is-value claim is some mysterious mumbo-
jumbo, Pirsig's statement rebounds: Intellect becomes "mind" and
nothing is achieved; QM becomes one mind-theory and the SOM
another - exactly as you point to. Both eternally removed from
reality ..... which is UNITY ....as you also correctly states.
> I wonder if Pirsig (or anyone else) can explain to me
> exactly how that mind/brain interaction is mediated through society
> as he claims.
I will go on to what the Inorganic-Biological-Social-Intellect "tour"
means in Quality terms, and also the brain experiment seen in this
light, but this is more than enough for one message. See you all in
2001.
Bo
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