Hi Bo,
Before I went on holidays we were having a discussion that I'd like to
resume now, if you don't mind. You might have to back log a bit, it goes
back to the end of august/beginning of september (where I took off).
So, I'll go back to your last post on this thread.
>Denis, you said:
[snip]
>> Where on earth have you found that I proposed an "all-inclusive
>> consciousness" ?
>
>
>In a previous post..
>> > The gap between human societies and animal ones is so ENORMOUS that
>> > there MUST have been a jump in level between the two ...etc.
>
>..you postulate a fundamental jump. I don't know if you mean a
>jump inside the Q-social level or if it is the social-intellectual jump,
>but you stress that it takes place in CONSCIOUSNESS and when
>you describe this interior world it sounds much like MIND, and
>once such a realm is evoked it's not easy to show what is not in it.
Perhaps I did not explain myself well enough. I meant that the social
patterns that exist in animal societies (like wolves or killer whales) had
to originate from what we had talked about before as "animal intelligence",
which has NOTHING to do with Intellect (except as the "supporting hardware"
of the upper levels, to abuse Pirsig's analogy).
AWARENESS was meant in that sense, with some input from Wilber who makes a
distinction between a *within* point of view and an *outside* point of view.
A bit SOMish, I agree, but not totally devoid of interest, especially
regarding social patterns. But that's fodder for another thread...
So, IF we accept that social patterns exist in the animal realm (as opposed
to the human one ; nothing to do with the Bio-level), and that biological
intelligence is the "machine-code" of these social patterns, then the next
jump of levels is from the social level to what I've called the
"mythological" level (as a bridge between animal societies and the greek
birth of Intellect; see my post of August). This latter can then use
Language (the human mode of communication : a social pattern of value) as
its "machine-code". And then Socrates and Plato can use a subset of Language
(dialectics) to create Intellect.
As you can see, each level spawns from a subset of the previous one, and so
by an unfortunate reduction I lumped all these into the term AWARENESS. As
stated, the final product (Intellect) is far from being all-inclusive, since
it is a subset of a subset of a subset of biological intelligence (itself a
subset of the biological level, which is a subset of the inorganic realm).
It's like a russian doll, if you prefer, where every smaller doll is more
precious than the previous one.
AWARENESS, as I used it, is just a term englobing a variety of phenomenons
from very different levels, but it is not a level in itself. I used it as I
use the term "human" to refer to the vast diversity of patterns that compose
a human being. Awareness is just such a catch-all term to describe the
evolution of patterns that led to human Intellect. As such, it is a
characteristic shared by other living entities (even if they are lower on
the evolution scale), but there is NO reason why it should be deemed to
contain "everything". Only Quality does that, because Quality IS
"everything".
This misunderstanding (hopefully) dissipated, let's go to the rest of the
post...
[snip]
>> As for your argument that once the DQ/SQ split is done, you cannot go
>> back to S/O logic to differentiate Quality from the MOQ, I completely
>> disagree with you. The S/O position, generally known as positivism,
>> basically states that there is an objective world, and our
>> representation of it, which is more or less subjective, and the less
>> the better.
>
>
>I think you somehow see what I mean. That the S/O position is
>known as positivism is quite a shortcut, they (the positivists)
>merely say that it is no use to speculate let's only relate to facts.
Another simplification, I know. SOM is less a philosophical theory than a
series of presuppositions underlying most of western thought ever since
Plato.
>
>> OTOH, Pirsig says that there is Quality, and good or bad intellectual
>> representations of it. It might sound the same for you, but it isn't.
>> S/O has nothing to do with this because the notion of an objective
>> world has already been destroyed.
>
>
>The destruction of a notion of an objective world is merely the
>idealist claim (sorry:). The Quality Metaphysics DESTROYS THE
>NOTION OF A SUBJECT/OBJECT WORLD! I know that Pirsig
>sounds the "philosophologist" here (you know my explanation), but
>clearly Quality is part and parcel of the QM.
I should have said : "because the notion of an objective OR SUBJECTIVE world
has already been destroyed". But we were (and still are) in agreement here.
Except, perhaps, for your last sentence : it is the MOQ which is a part of
Quality, not the reverse. Pirsig makes it clear that the MOQ is an
intellectual way of dividing Quality that leads to an intellectual map of
(static) "reality". The levels themselves only describe Static Quality (the
Conceptually Known, as opposed to Dynamic Quality that is the Conceptually
Unknown).
>> The difference between a SOM
>> criticism and a MOQ criticism is that the SOMist has already defined
>> good and bad (as objectivity / subjectivity) while the MOQist will try
>> to keep an open mind toward the goodness of any intellectual pattern.
>
>
>I don't follow you here, what the SOM does is to deem value
>SUBJECTIVE, and naturally balks when someone wants it to be
>primary to both S and O !
You're describing SOM's blindness to value. I'm only saying the same thing
from a MOQ perspective, where the SOM analogy between subjectivity and
"unreal" is clearly a moral judgment (even if SOMists would deny it since
morals are subjective). That's the difficulty of speaking about SOM in
MOQist terms : both sides speak about things that have LOW VALUE, from the
other point of view. Morals are subjective for SOMists,
Objectivity/Subjectivity are low-value intellectual patterns for MOQists. So
of course they accuse each other of misrepresenting them.
[snip following agreement on a MOQist's take on goodness]
>> You've just gone too far within the intellectual maze of the MOQ to
>> remember your starting point : Quality creates both Subjects and
>> Objects. You are not different from Quality, you *are* Quality. Your
>> "separateness" is just an illusion, so nothing can be said to be
>> objective, not even Quality since it is BEFORE objectivity. It creates
>> it as a sense of Intellectual quality.
>> Differentiating Quality from the MOQ is ESSENTIAL, not because of an
>> S/O split, but because it leaves the door open to further growth.
>
>
>Do I convince you if I say that there is no maze in (my) Q-intellect?
No. ;)
>The "separateness" you speak about is a problem only for those
>who postulate an intellect where the MoQ - along with its
>intellect!!! - is a model.
No, it isn't. If the MOQ is a intellectual pattern of value, then it is a
part of Quality, subject to growth and evolution, and able to become a
better intellectual pattern. If it is equated with Quality, there is nowhere
else to go, since Quality is everything.
There is no "separateness" between the MoQ as an intellectual pattern and
Quality, no unbridgeable gap like the one that existed between mind and
matter. The MoQ is firmly linked to the process of moral evolution of the
levels, and just as firmly linked to Quality, since we have all been
"touched" by its DQ when we read it... or we wouldn't be here. :)
The problem of MOQ-as-an-intellectual-pattern does not exist. At least, not
in regard to a simili-mind/matter separation. They might be other logical
problems I'm not yet aware of.
>And why you want me to be an "objectivist"
>is beyond me.
Because you seem to forget that you're only speaking. That whatever you're
typing on that email software of yours, it is still a pattern of
intellectual value, and not a pattern of "moqtual" value or a pattern of
Pure Quality value.
I'm aware I'm grossly exaggerating what you're saying, but since I'm still
not sure WHAT exactly you're saying, you can hardly blame me, can you ?
NB : OTOH, the fact I don't "get it" might mean I'm REALLY operating at a
lower level... or that you're not making sense. Choices, always choices...
;)
>
>About growth. My interpretation of the MoQ at least allows for a 5th
>level, but what can possibly grow beyond the intellect in your view?
As you've often said, a lower level is always blind to the upper one. And
idle speculation is not my forte... Moral evolution IS possible, but since
it'll grow out of DQ, it will surely come out as a surprise, no ? :)
>
>> We
>> do not separate Quality from the MOQ because of a map/terrain analogy,
>> but because we do not presume we know everything about Quality,
>
>
>Hmmm. I admit that this sentence sent me reeling and it took a
>few days until I came to grips with it. OK, in the MoQ all static
>level/patterns are "maps of Quality (Quality=Reality) and not it.
Exact.
>Intellect is the last map and MoQ (as-an-intellectual-pattern) is
>separate from Quality.
Not in the "mind/matter gap" sense. See above.
>But this is the logic bend again of Quality
>being a lesser part of itself. If your "intellect" however is some
>God's eye view outside of everything you have found Archimedes'
>leverage point :-)
Bo, you seems to have reached a point where you make contradictory
statements. Just look below in this same post for this sign : [X]
Also, and that's why I *think* you might be confusing Quality and the MOQ,
sometimes you speak of Quality being a part of itself (as above) and
sometimes it's the MOQ that's a part of itself (as below). While the first
proposition is an absurdity since Quality is our "axiom", OTOH the MOQ can
be, as an intellectual pattern, a part of itself. Please answer after
reading the [X] following.
>> and
>> because we keep a mesure of modesty before the mysteries of the
>> Universe. Finally, we differentiate Quality from the MOQ because
>> Quality *cannot* be defined.
>
>
>Point taken, but it is difficult to say something important being
>modest. A metaphysics is an Universe and there is no bridge to
>the SOM* universe; a "transformation" is needed which I hope I
>have provided with the SOLAQI (see my Relativity-Newton
>analogy).
I cannot remember if it was Imre Lakatos of Thomas Kuhn (physicists working
in the field of epistemology) who made the remark, but one stated that often
when a important change came in the scientific field, there was no real way
of comparing the two paradigms because the questions they asked, the
presuppositions they made and the axioms they worked on had so little in
commun that any comparison or talk of "filiation" was pure bogus. For
example, the notion of "forces", so prevalent in Newton's paradigm, has been
(according to Bertrand Russel) invalidated by Relativity. Relativity does
NOT "include Newton's Law", they just talk about the same phenomenon from
vastly different points of view. Under Newton, gravity was a force, under
Einstein it is a property of space-time (for a vastly more comprehensive
discussion about his subject, I can only direct you to 'The ABC of
Relativy', of B. Russell - a great book).
The MOQ is such a Copernican Revolution, in my view. There are, as I've
stated above, no real ways of bridging the gap. It is a question of beliefs,
where no one can be sure of having the right answer. It is a question of
whether or not you "feel" that one set of axioms has more value than the
other, and whether or not one solves more problems than the previous one
did. But "Truth" is definitely out by the window.
It lands out of SOM, but I'm not sure it lands us out of Intellect. Or
perhaps is it just a matter of where we decide to draw the line...
>
>*) In the SOL interpretation it loses its metaphysical flavour.
>
>
>> Once you lose sight of the mystical insight that is the ontological
>> starting point of the MOQ, you start uttering gibberish (sorry, but
>> that's how it sounds to me) about the MOQ being an über-level equal to
>> Quality itself, and other statements so vague or bizarre that I cannot
>> even begin to make sense of them.
>
>
>Appealing to mysticism after Pirsig having declared the mystics his
>toughest opponents doesn't sound very convincing.
The argument used by Pirsig (yes, the MOQ is degenerate but degeneracy is a
part of life) hardly seems to me a firm condemnation of the mystical
viewpoint. More like an arrangement with it for the sake of Intellect,
IMHO...
Mystics have always been enemies of Intellect for the sake of Dynamic
Quality. Pirsig chose a middle ground by acknowledging their moral
superiority, but refused to disengage himself from the Intellectual level
and tried to heal western thought of the SOM disease.
While some, like John Beasley, would have prefered him to forge a new mystic
path (I know, I know, another simplification), rather than fall back into
intellectualism, his efforts were still a moral action. Forging a better set
of intellectual thoughts is nothing to scoff at, in my book. And perhaps
that decision will ultimately do more good than a straight dive into
mysticism would have.
>You could, for
>instance, address the "MoQ-a-pattern-of-a-level-of-itself" logic knot.
>Admittedly, the claim that it is itself creates a logic loop, but that's
>allowed IMO.
[X] Bo, would you care to explain to me why it is allowed here but not, to
take your point of view, at the intellectual level ? Don't you see that this
is still the intellectual level ? In mathematics, for example, you're
allowed to define the set of the sets including other sets. Therefore, the
set you've defined is a part of itself. I don't see why the MOQ containing
itself as an intellectual pattern of value is any more problematic.
Recursivity has been a tool of the intellectual level for quite some time,
now.
OK, time to earn my salary, now. I hope you won't grumble at the thought of
restarting and old (but I hope, not stale) conversation. I'm not despairing
we'll be able to get at the root of that SOLAQI thing. I'm still seeing some
good in it (greater precision in defining the social and intellectual
levels, for instance), but some inconsistencies still exist, IMHO.
Of course, ICBW. ;)
Seeya
Denis
PS to all : Shouldn't we put an abbreviation list on the MOQ.org site ? A
short thread would be enough to list all the SQ, DQ, SOLAQI, ICBW, PoV that
we use most frequently. I'd also like to know why people talk about
Q-Intellect, instead of just "Intellect". Is there a difference ? Just my
2c. ;)
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