Hi, Bodvar !
Nice to "talk" to you again ! :)
>Denis
>Your essay triggered a whole string of comments and as you
>haven't replied your sojourn may be over by now, but I couldn't
>resist :-).
Well, nowadays I'm too busy to keep up with the discussions here at the
MOQ.org site. And I confess I post only when I have an idea I want to test
the validity of... then I throw it in the rhetorical snakepit and see how it
fares... ;)
>Self and Will ("free" goes without saying) is one and the same, as
>is Consciousness ....for good measure.
Perhaps, but I'm still unsure about what's Will, exactly. I sense a
platypus, but cannot see it yet...
>> But still according to the MOQ, the Self isn't part of Reality, it's
>> part of the Map.
> Even the map analogy isn't perfect because it implies an objective
> "terrain". In my opinion a metaphysics IS the reality, nothing fell
> outside the subject/object metaphysics and nothing can fall
> outside the MoQ - even DQ is part of it.
I'm starting to agree with you, but I wonder if Pirsig does. He seems to
have fallen into a SOM trap of his own, where objectivity is pure
pre-intellectual awareness (Quality), and subjectivity is everything else.
>> Because on the static side of the MOQ, the Self is a pattern of value
>> that is felt with as much force as the desire for social recognition,
>> hunger or gravity. Therefore, it makes no sense to talk about the
>> other patterns of value but ignore this one, only because it's
>> inconvenient... Our memory creates a sense of continuity from which we
>> deduce our Identity, which is no less real than the value of paper
>> money (a strange comparison seen from the SOM angle... ;). The Self is
>> an Intellectual Pattern of ourselves, to which we attribute qualities
>> and flaws, a past and a future. This image is partly constructed from
>> the ideas that influence us, parly from what images other people
>> reflect back at us, and partly from our biochemical makeup. This
>> *creation* then evolves with time, but in the end it's nothing more
>> than the reflection of the values which compose us in the mirror of
>> the Intellect.
>
>Agree! "Self" is an intellectual pattern - along with Self-
>Consciousness - but this assertion is meaningless before Q-
>intellect is defined correctly. You will probably spot old Bo with his
>SOL idea again, yet as long as Intellect is seen as "the thinking
>faculty" (mind) the MoQ will be (in Struan Hellier's words) "an ugly
>complication" (...of the SOM..in my words). With the mind-intellect
>at large, the statement that self-(consciousness) is an intellectual
>pattern, will be inverted (Q-intellect an attribute to self) ....and we
>are solidly back at the idealist stand-point of SOM.
Well, Bo, you'll be pleased to know that after having fought your SOLAQI
idea for so long, I'm starting to believe you might have had the right idea
all along. I found out that research into child development have uncovered
evidence that the subject/object split is a necessary stage for children,
without which they wouldn't be able to develop cognitive functions. The
works of Piaget and others bear you out on this account.
Problem is, most higher mammals make this divide too, and there aren't
intellectual animals (but intelligent ones nonetheless). If you remember, we
had a discussion where I stated that Intellect and intelligence are clearly
differentiated. For example, chimpanzes are highly intelligent, capable of
planning, deceit and plenty of other "intelligent" feats (up to and
including picking locks !), but totally incapable of passing this knowledge
in any other way than "showing". The conceptual side of human intelligence
is out of their reach.
My problem with SOLAQI was that SOM (according to Pirsig) had been created
by the Greeks, which meant that (in your SOLAQI interpretation) prior to
them, Intellect didn't exist, as such. That I (still) believe is an
aberration.
Religions are as much a product of the Intellect as Science is.
There are stages of development in human consciousness, and the philosophy
of the greeks and the rational age of Enlightenment certainly mark the
"adolescent rebellion" and "coming of age" of Intellect. But its birth you
can trace much further back, IMHO, into the first civilization of
cave-painters.
Our times seems to be the next stage, where Intellect, after having left
home (social conventions) banging the door behind itself, finally settles
down and starts to acquire a bit of wisdom, and a sense of its own
mortality. And starts thinking about having a child of its own, perhaps...
;)
At their lowest point, all levels consist of the highest manifestation of
the lower one plus one extra characteristic :
Intellect = cognitive functions + concepts
Society = nervous systems + communication
Biology = molecules + replicative system
Inorganic = no lower level, and I'm no scientist... :)
You'll notice that this extra characteristic has always the same function of
"passing the pattern", BTW...
So we can guess that a fifth level, if one ever comes to pass, will emerge
from the highest realisations of Intellect. Damned if I know what THAT is,
however... :)
But enough idle speculation...
>As you know unto nausea my opinion is that the Quality intellect is
>the value of the S/O divide, consequently every intellectual pattern
>contains an element of duality: A self different from other; a space
>different from infinity; a time different from from eternity ...etc etc
>etc...etc!!!
There is no un-Art. There is commercial art, bad art, but no antithesis to
art. With the exception of Celine Dion, of course... ;)
Seriously, I think you need to develop this part, especially your
understanding of an "intellectual pattern". Is the word "blue" an
intellectual pattern ? If yes, why hasn't it got an opposite concept ? If it
isn't, why is that ? It LOOKS like a concept to me. What's the difference
between "blue" and "time" ?
>Regarding memory I'm not sure of it as the (sole) source. All living
>things remember and compare observations with previous
>experience and thus learn - but maybe it played a role. I still lean
>to (your) idea about language as the social pattern that ....went off
>on a purpose of its own ...and became Q-intellect.
Yes, that's one I'm keeping too. First, communication. Then, arbitrary signs
for communication, which multiply the number of possible signs. Therefore
the dynamicity of the whole increases tenfold, making it possible to go for
the next DQ stage : meaning !
>> Nevertheless, in the jungle of pattern that make up an individual,
>> this IntPoV has a crucial role, since all of our patterns revolve
>> around this one : not because it *owns* them but because it REPRESENTS
>> them.
>This I find incongruous with itself or at least I don't agree. Intellect
>is the highest value, but does not "represent" the lower ones, they
>are in their own right ... if you see things from inside the MoQ that
>is, and don't believe that there is a Godlike vista outside it all. And
>if you ask from what standpont I see this, it is the probing 5th level,
>but that is inside the MoQ and from there Intellect is taken down
>several pegs.
"They are in their own right" ?! Bo, these are words about reality, not
reality itself.
The more I think about it, the more I understand that creating a perfect
metaphysical system IS impossible. You only get turned around and made to
bite your own tail... They are other ways to portray levels than the ones
Pirsig thought about. I'm actually following the advice of John Beasley, and
reading Ken Wilber's "A Brief History of Everything". While Wilber does not
use the four levels, or even something approaching them, his divisions also
make senses, and are sometimes more usefull than Pirsig's, especially for
understanding *how* the process of Dynamic change and Static latching takes
place. Reading him, I can imagine what criticism he would pass on the MOQ ;
a few of them make A LOT of sense, like one of undue romanticism about the
baby's "pre-intellectual consciousness", of course equated with direct
apprehension of Quality.
While the MOQ has its good points, confronting it to other systems of
post-modern thought would be a good experience for all members of this
forum. Philosophy does not end with Pirsig. Evolution goes on...
Be good.
Denis
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