John B.
Thanks for being annoyed with my "seduced" and "smokescreen"
allusions, despite my age I sound the naughty boy compared to
your most civilized style, but I want to save the MoQ from well-
meaning sympathizers - even from its creator :-) - and slash left
and right, so bear with me when I make another go.
> Unfortunately, I am not sure just where the problem is for you. You
> seem to be suggesting that I am stuck in an idealist position, where I
> take intellect or words or thinking to be everything. This is so far
> from my position as to be laughable -
It is difficult to get a hold on what I find so disagreeable with your re-
presentation of the MoQ - not your writing which is excellent and
obvious based on a thorough reading of Pirsig's works. Not difficult
for me that is, I clearly see the source of it, but to convey it into a
readable form. Phew!
> Your question, so far as I can make it out, is "What is outside the
> realm where theorizing takes place?" You then say "My opinion is that
> nothing whatsoever is." Is this your real opinion or a rhetorical
> flourish?
I took a shortcut here because I believe that people who appear
with some authority know the general development of philosophy.
About the subject/object divide being highlighted by Descartes,
then the objective part coming under attack by the empiricists who
showed that the notion of values "out there" is an illusion.This tried
repaired by Kant who said that mind provides only a mesh that we
perceive objective reality through, ending up in a total reversal with
the German idealists who concluded that the mesh is everything;
there is nothing whatsoever outside mind. This is the reason for my
question-and-answer above: Once you split anything in the S/O
fashion you inevitably end up in the idealist position.
But you omitted the ending "...if one accepts the subjective
thinking vs objective reality premise" and that's the crux of the
matter.
The above mentioned Descartes did not "invent" the subject/object
metaphysics - possibly not even the Greeks - it has grown for
millennia and even if the said philosophers have demonstrated its
futility it penetrates our reality all the way and appears in countless
new ways. Everybody believe that they have found a new and
irrefutable way, but as often they end in frustration. Below you
wield it in a new guise "conceptual system vs ???" (the question
marks I leave to you to fill in)
> But a metaphysics is just a well thought out conceptual system. Pirsig
> acknowledges there is no such thing as a perfect metaphysics. In fact,
> he is quite clear that writing metaphysics is in itself a degenerate
> activity, a sort of unhealthy addiction.
OK, this is my sore point. I know that Pirsig says so, but as said
to Denis Poisson ....following the MoQ to its extreme would sound
megalomaniac from his position back then, and something he
couldn't afford. At least you can't accuse me of being a
fundamentalist who take the holy text to be "...the unchangeable
word of God" :-)
> Otherwise we can find ourselves caught up in "the
> tendency to do what is 'reasonable' even when it isn't any good".
Agree, but this IS the danger of subject-object metaphysics
(reason), not of the MoQ in which the whole range of experience is
brought back - emotions primarily.
> I suspect that you have confused quality with the metaphysics of
> quality. If so, this is a grievous fault. It is like those Christians
> who take the Bible to be the unchangeable word of God, and in so doing
> deny the Holy Spirit, which is God in action.
Again: The MoQ as a (subjective) theory versus Quality as
(objective) reality, but isn't Quality (the uppercase kind) an integral
part of the MoQ ... in the same way as lowercase quality is part of
the SOM? And does not your statement that value entered
existence only with life reveal your true position? You don't accept
MoQ' initial postulate which also makes the material world a value
level.
OK, fair enough, but why not direct your criticism to that early
assertion instead of this show of "finding some value" which is
clearly nonsense. If the first axiom is rejected the MoQ is nil and
void: "An ugly complication" in Struan Hellier's words which I agree
with.
> When you say the MoQ is "the top level of itself", you totally lose
> me. I see some truth in your assertion that the intellectual level
> operates in terms of subject/object categories, given that is how
> language is structured, and given that intellect must communicate
> through language. I have never been able to comprehend your SOLAQI
> idea, except as I have just stated it. It always seems to me that it
> has a more profound significance to you that I never grasp.
> To return to your question. "What is outside the realm where
> theorizing takes place?" My answer is, everything except ideas.
Ideas in the "thinking compartment" (aka "mind") while everything
else is outside, which is good old subject-object metaphysics?
As said unto exhaustion it's no use to return this question to me
because MoQ's divide is DQ/SQ and the "ideas/everything else" is
moved to somewhere in the static sequence .....my SOLAQI idea
is that the Q-intellectual level is the said S/O divide.
> Are
> ideas dynamic or static? Both. But surely if the dynamic/static
> divide is basic, ideas must be one or the other. [And here we come
> to the absolutely crucial point.] I experience dynamic quality in
> some ideas, static quality in others. The metaphysics is wrong. My
> experience of quality is the fundamental against which all else is
> measured, and if the metaphysics of quality does not mesh with my
> experience, then the MoQ is at least flawed.
This sounds reasonable, but a bit irrelevant in (my interpretation of)
the MoQ. It will however require another round so I leave it for now,
only this: The DQ/SQ split does not run vertically down through the
static sequence: DQ is always the dynamic space surrounding the
static world.
Bo
PS. The above is the essential part but I may add something that
may help you understand the SOLAQI idea. Those who have heard
it before, bear with me.
The SOLAQI interpretation of the MoQ may be compared to the
Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Physics. As you will know
nobody no longer make any effort to reconcile QP with "normality" -
not after the shock of the Schrödinger Cat thought experiment
demonstrated what is at stake. I am not too familiar with QP, but
know a little more of General Relativity which is almost as weird
and as difficult to align with "normality" (Newton Physics). There
are those who have found the snag with GR's postulates of warped
space and distorted time, they ask: "Warped and distorted
compared to what straight and un-distorted space and time?" It
sounds like a disproof, but the scientists don't care, they use it
when extreme speed and mass are calculated and it proves
infallible (just like Quantum Physics does at the extreme small
scale). To go back and forth from GR to Newton reality a procedure
known as "Lorentz Transformation" must be applied (there is
something similar regarding QP). My claim is that the SOLAQI is a
SOM/MoQ transformation. I have no intention of leaving
subject/object (Intellect) "nornality", which goes a long way, but
applied to the extreme big view only the MoQ counts.
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