Dear Wim:
> Social patterns of value don't defend themselves with biological
> means (warfare, police force, any threat or punishment), however,
> as Pirsig stated.
Social patterns don't defend themselves with soldiers or police? That's
news to me. Should England have simply surrendered to Hitler?
>Social patterns of value only utilize social
> means (tempting lower quality social patterns, labeled "criminal"
> if the quality difference is very obvious, to dissolve and to
> merge into its higher quality pattern of values; essentially by
> promising higher status to elements of the criminal pattern if
> they become elements of the higher quality pattern).
Would you be more specific, please? What is being promised by
whom to whom?
>Pirsig was
> wrong when He stated in Lila ch. 24 that "The instrument of
> conversation between society and biology has always been a
> policeman or a soldier and his gun." Social patterns of value and
> biological patterns of value don't converse at all, no more than
> computer hardware and computer software do.
That's Pirsig's point. A gun doesn't converse. It "talks" biological
language--pain and death. You fail to see the irony in Pirsig's
statement.
> Experiences/quality
> events can be simultaneously part of a biological and a social
> pattern of values (e.g. policemen/soldiers fighting criminals
> being part of the kill-or-be-killed biological pattern of values
> and of the
> include-"us"-and-exclude-"them"-that-don't-conform-to-our-mores
> social pattern of values), like a change of voltage level in a
> flip-flop is both part of a hardware and a software phenomenon
> (Lila ch. 12).
Agree that experience can simultaneously include more than one level.
But your comparison to voltage levels escapes me.
> Social patterns of value can only develop when
> biological patterns of value are already there and they develop
> because and to the extent that they make the biological pattern
> of values called "homo sapiens" more successful in its
> competition with other species by overcoming its (ecological)
> limitations. That's about all there is to say about the
> relationship between "society" and "biology".
Actually there's a lot more to say. . . like social patterns keeping
biological pattens (terrorists) from destroying a society. But let's move
on.
> In my opinion Pirsig's metaphor of "intellect" siding with either
> "biology" or "society" in their fight with each other confuses
> "things" and "patterns".
A "pattern" is a "thing." Ideas are things. Experiences are things. When
is something not a thing? Even nothing is a thing.
> In his efforts to gradually nudge his
> readers from SOM-thinking to MoQ-experience, he had to start
> explaining matters using Subject-Object-Metaphysics: anecdotes
> about subjects experiencing objects (things like hot stoves).
No question but that the MOQ is expressed in SOM language. But,
that's not surprising considering that's the only language we have
(unless you count mathematics as a language).
> After making plausible that value-experience comes first, he took
> some time to make clear that value-experiences form patterns and
> that these patterns have different levels. Language tempted him
> to go on treating these patterns as "things" that "act", however,
> whereas he should have made clear that once you think in
> "patterns" even the "self" that "experiences" the patterns is not
> a subject any more. It doesn't "act at (free) will" nor "behave
> as determined". The "self" is just consciousness of experience of
> patterns that are conformed to (experienced as static quality) or
> not conformed to (experienced as Dynamic Quality). Once you
> recognize that even an individual "self" should not be thought of
> as "acting" or "behaving" like an animated "thing" (a subject),
> it is obvious that you should not think of collective,
> abstractive entities like "intellect", "society" and "biology" as
> subjects either.
Sorry, I don't get it. You seem to be saying that nouns (names of
things) are not things. I honestly don't know how to think without
thinking about things. As noted above, our thinking in language is
subjective-object thinking. From that I see no escape other than
understanding by means of art. (That's why Pirsig used a novel form
instead of an academic paper.)
> Do you let yourself be tempted to follow my thoughts and to allow
> the MoQ to migrate towards Dynamic Quality or do you still want
> to conform strictly to the static pattern as set by the Word of
> Pirsig?
I'm tempted to follow your thoughts but find it extremely difficult. I'm
afraid you're dealing with a dim bulb and so have to amplify your
thoughts with concrete, everyday examples. Sorry to be such a drag.
Finally, I'm willing to allow the MOQ to migrate, but so far I haven't seen
anything better to migrate to. An "amorphous soup of sentiments"
such as justice, brotherhood, and peace doesn't give us much to go on.
Best regards,
Platt
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