Hi oiseau (hope you don't mind my license with your
name),
Thanks. Here goes...
> > Heidegger
> > basically says people are "fields."
>
> :or "patterns of values"...
A dictionary of translation would be cool to start...
fields = patterns of values...
> Subject Object metaphysics has committed suicide,
> and has arisen
> transfigured in existential thought.
This is where Derrida enters too... He tries to show
"why" SOM committed suicide... he points out the flaws
in Plato's thought that gave rise to this behemoth
known as SOM (it's hard to critique it because think
about it: calculus, science, etc. came from this
"error" called SOM)
> > valuing of presence led to dualities,
>
> Can you explain what that means, please? (esp. last
> part)
This is a pure play by Derrida to place blame on SOM
in Plato's thought. Plato had a dialogue, which I
don't recall on the top of my head, that talks about
the valuing of the presence of someone over the
absence. Like when you write something and then
someone reads, the author is not there. I am not there
with you as you read this note. Plato said it would be
"better" for me to be there when you read this.
Derrida shows that abscence can "make the heart" grow
fonder. Like, you can research this without me there,
so that is better. Anyway, it's his effort to define
the rise of duality in Plato. For Derrida, everything
is "writing" even speaking in someone's presence.
Thus, he calls one of his books "Of Grammatology", "of
the study of writing". He does exactly the same kind
of "movement" that Pirsig does, but with "writing."
For Pirsig "everything is quality", for derrida,
"everything is Writing". Thus, my interest in Pirsig
and Derrida...
> But "Quality" is only subject to belief as the
> intellectual word/concept of
> "Quality" (the map, our way of finding our way).
You lose me [hear]... is belief intellectual?? I
hesitate if that is so. Belief for me involves will,
which is not intellectual... I have to "will"
belief...
> Quality-in-itself is a
> radically empirical experience,
"radicallly empirical" is Jamesian...
> the "thou art that"
> that dissolves the
> intellectual categories of subject and object. As
> the cutting edge of
> experience, it is not subject to belief, since it is
> existence itself -
Does Pirsig really say this? As "Quality" is beyond
categorization, there has to be a movement of faith or
belief otherwise it falls back into intellect....
Here's James though from Varieties of Religious
Experiences...
1. The viable world is part of a more spiritual
universe from which it draws its chief significance
2. A union or harmonious relation with that higher
universe is our true end.
3. Communion with the spirit thereof is a process
wherein work is really done; spiritual energy flows in
and produces effects in the phenomenal world.
> Kierkegaard ... but by taking a leap of faith
into
> the preintellectual
> abyss.
I suppose then this is where I leave Pirsig...I'm
probably a Kierkegaardian... I like to be SOM at
times, and I like to be "leaping into faith" at times
too. I want my cake and I want to eat it too....
> I think
> Heidegger might have been
> working on something like that when he died.
Please expand on this point if you could... maybe I am
thinking now "what" Heidegger would have wrote...
because I have the benefit of being alive now... and
can integrate his thought with that of the thinking
now.. and maybe my scholarship loses something...
> This is as I understand it from Lila:
>
> QUALITY(Reality)
> / \
> static patterns of value<--->Dynamic Quality
this would be Derrida...
BEING
/ \
center/marginal(frozen dyads) <-> Deconstruction
> [evolution--->this way please--->]
I am not sure of what Derrida would say is the driving
force. I must say I shirk at Pirsig's use of
evolution. Has anyone critiqued that? It reeks of a
Hegel master system of sorts (zeitgeist)... a telos to
higher forms of being... Derrida has a book on spirit,
maybe I'll research this I'll get back to you...
> Each level of static pattern of values can
> encompass/control the lower rungs
> on the value ladder. At the junction of each level
> is a Dynamic Quality
> transition to the next.
I don't like this hierarchy, I don't believe I am mor
e quality than H20. S***, I am h20, everything else is
just a matter of semantics.
> E.g. an amoeba (Biological pattern of value) is
> aware of Quality/Reality
> to the extent that it can absorb Inorganic patterns
> of value into itself -
> it doesn't 'evaluate' any other difference / any
> other difference is of no
> utility/value to it.
This would be self organization from Systems theory I
would think...
> Each
> level of values seeks cohesion and dominance over
> everything else,
This is Nietzsche view of life... "where there is life
there is will to power" A leaf falling from a tree is
searching to form a new tree....
> The higher quality static patterns of value /
> levels are those which
> permit the maximum amount of Dynamic Quality, with
> the minimum amount of
> reversion to lower levels of values.
This seems like a Nazi doctrine... right? I mean you
could take this to humans and say there are higher
quality humans... and one step away from eliminating
the lower quality ones... what stops one from doing
that???
> Our current experience of these levels is of
> course filtered through the
> patterns of our intellects - it is true to say that
> they are a creation of
> our intellects - but like a work of art they are
> created in communion with
> experience/quality.
See point 3 of the james quote above...
It's like having a
> globe (MoQ) to refine ones understanding of a flat
> map (SOM).
I like the metaphor...
>
> It is important to realise that our entire language
> (social/intellectual
> static patterns of value) is structured around our
> own intentionality.
"Intentionality" a huge phenomenology word...
> Thus
> it sounds silly to say an amoeba 'evaluates' its
> environment because it
> seems we are projecting the DQ of a higher level
> onto that of a lower, but
> MoQ means that our intellectual/social
> intentionality is *one* species of
> value only.
Here's that evolution metaphor again...
> I believe Heidegger tried to define a new kind of
> philosophical language
> precisely to avoid the intellect being colonised by
> subject/object duality
> (though I took a look at one of his texts once, and
> wanted to run, screaming
> into the night... perhaps the german does not
> translate well... ;)
Read Barret's Irrational Man or some sort... Heidegger
is tough to read...
> Dynamic Quality and static patterns of value could
> be analogous to
> transcendence/'going beyond' and
> 'facticity/giveness' repectively, in
> existential philosophy.
More for the dictionary...
>ZAMM was one big deconstruction of SOM, perhaps?
> I think he wants to move the potential effects of
>his deconstruction
>of SOM beyond the arena of just being a mystical,
>artistic or even intellectual
>pursuit, and into the arena of regular folks on the
> planet. It's his attempt
> at a 'catechism' of Quality, which of necessity is
> going to transfer
>less quality than his original deconstruction -
Makes sense..
>And sure, maybe a man's entitled
>to a bit of pride in his life's labour of love...?
Agreed...
> In terms of philosophical quality though, I think it
>is invaluable, not because it 'solved' everything,
> or even most things,
> but because it provides a starting point for new
> intellectual inquiry.
Agreed...
>No, I have to disagree that he resorts back to
>subjects and objects,
>and
>honestly, I don't see where in the book you got that.
Through his use of language... I had another post that
describes my thoughts more extensively...
Angus.
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