Hi, Bo and alii,
Sorry Bo for such a long delay in replying to you, but I'm finally...
BACK ON THE SOLAQI FRONT
>> 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.
>
>OK, your reasoning is valid, but see the later [X] part .
>About the SQ/DQ unbridgeability. Pirsig removed the fundamental
>divide from mind/matter to the more probable dynamic/static place,
>but it is still a duality. I don't think it's useful to deny that.
No one's denying it. In fact, Pirsig makes it clear that he intends to
create a new duality. He only wants to make a better "cut" than the one
invented by the Greeks, as stated in the following quote.
"Actually the issue before him was whether there should be a metaphysics of
Quality or not. There already _is_ a metaphysics of Quality. A
subject-object metaphysics is in fact a metaphysics in which the first
division of Quality - the first slice of undivided experience - is into
subjects and objects . Once you have made that slice, all of human
experience is supposed to fit into one of these two boxes. The trouble is,
it doesn't. What he had seen is that there is a metaphysical box that sits
above these two boxes, Quality itself. And once he had seen this he also saw
a huge number of ways in which Quality can be divided. Subjects and objects
are just one of the ways.
The question was, which way was best ?" Lila, Chp 9
You'll note that the MOQ Pirsig is intending to create here is clearly an
intellectual map. As a matter of fact he equates SOM with MOQ, adding that
SOM is incomplete only because it doesn't acknowledge the "top" box. The
difference he intends to make here is only one of "betterness". Which way is
best ?
>
>> 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. :)
>
>Well said, but this metaphysical divide doesn't mean that we can't
>be dynamically influenced. The older static levels can't give birth to
>any new development, but (as I visualize the MoQ universe)
>Intellect "borders" on to the ambient dynamism and is where the
>action is.
Yes and no.
Of course, if you understand evolution only in the sense of "paradigmatic
evolution", Intellect is where the action is (or should be, at least). If
you are waiting for the next jump in level, it makes sense to say that the
Dynamism of Quality should emerge *from* the Intellectual level.
OTOH, if you understand DQ in the larger sense of "the unexpected", it is
clear that it can appear at any level. A new specie would be DQ on the
biological level, a new form of interaction (like MUDs on internet) would be
DQ on the social level, a new scientific theory would be DQ on the
intellectual front, etc.
Because levels have been "taken over" by their successor doesn't mean their
evolution stops. They are still capable of Dynamic breakthrough.
>
>> [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.
>
>My mathematics is not much and maybe I HAVE produced
>something that sounds contradictory to you, but the gist of it is:
>The assertion that the MoQ is an intellectual pattern creates - to
>my sense of logic - the impossibility of it being a part of a lesser
>part of itself. (Agree?) Now my proposition (that it is a growing 5th
>level) may pose a logical loop, but all all-encompassing systems
>are themselves ...no?
>
>This time I appeal to you to examine this point thoroughly.
So, that is the big crunch.
The MOQ is (as the name indicates) a metaphysics, which defines a set of
"things" that include an intellectual level, in which resides metaphysical
systems, and therefore the MOQ itself resides in it. Big logical loop and
headaches forthcoming...
First, I'd like to point out that the MOQ isn't a part of *itself* but of
the intellectual level, which is a part of Static Quality, itself a part of
Quality. So, the MOQ isn't "a part of itself" ; or you would have to add
that I am myself, and France, and this Earth and the whole solar system,
parts and
parcels of the MOQ (since it also defines social, biological and inorganic
levels). That would clearly be a ridiculous claim since the MOQ only came
into being somewhere between 1974 and 1991, when Robert M. Pirsig, american
author, first thought it up.
Second, you'll remember that the MOQ defines Dynamic Quality as "the
Conceptually Unknown", the surprise, the glitch in the machine. I agree that
we can think about things that are not clearly defined, notions like "the
mind" or "Destiny" or "Nirvana", that are left vague and imprecise. But the
"Unknown" ? Like zero in mathematics, the Unknown only defines an absence,
not a "thing" in the ontological sense. Therefore, it is only logical to say
that the MOQ DOES NOT INCLUDE EVERYTHING (and is therefore different from
Quality). This precision was (I think) needed to avoid the confusion you
seem to make between the MOQ (as a supposed new level) and Quality.
It also sheds a new light about the properties of metaphysics in the largest
sense. Metaphysics are maps about what we know, and in the MOQ, DQ
represents the blank spaces at the borders where the only sign is "There Be
Dragons", the places where no one has ever gone. I'd like to add that the
MOQ was the first metaphysics I've read that DID include such a blank space.
There's something to say about humility, here...
To come back to your point, since you've read Russell, you are probably
aware that the kind of paradoxes you're talking about have existed ever
since Plato's era. One of the most famous is the one about this Cretoan who
asserts that all Cretoans are liars. Is he lying ? If he lies, then Cretoans
aren't liars, and so he says the truth. But if he says the truth, then
Cretoans are liars and so this man must be lying, etc.
Like self-containing sets, this kind of propositions poses a problem for
logicians because the validity of such propositions cannot be verified.
Mostly it has been called a "trick of language", that must be corrected by
creating a language that would leave no space for imprecision. This
pipe-dream has long been prevalent in occidental philosophy, from Leibnitz
to Wittgenstein, and the results have never been conclusive.
But Russel himself has thought up an answer to these problems, so I'll quote
him
now :
"When I define all the values of a fonction f(x), all the values that x can
assume must be determined if what I define must be determined. By this I
mean that there must be a totality of the possible values of x. If later I
creates new values in terms of this totality, this totality seems therefore
enlarged, and that's why new values refering to it will therefore refer to
that enlarged totality. But since they must be included in this totality,
this latter can never include them. It's like trying to jump on the shadow
of your head. The simplest example is in the paradox of the liar. The liar
says : "Everything I say is false." This, in fact, is a statement he makes
that refers to the totality of his statements, and only if it is understood
in its totality does the paradox appear. We will distinguish the
propositions that refer to a totality from those that do not. Those that
refer to a totality of propositions CAN NEVER BE MEMBERS OF THIS TOTALITY
[emphasis' mine]. We can define first-order propositions as those that do
not refer to a totality of propositions, and second-order propositions as
those that do refer to a totality of first-order propositions ; and so on ad
infinitum. [...]
It will appear that all logical paradoxes present a reflexive self-reference
that must be condemned for the same reason : to wit, it includes, as a
member of a totality, something that refers to this totality which can only
have a fixed meaning if the totality itself is fixed."
"My Philosophical Development", Bertrand Russell, 1959
So we can now safely assume that it is logical to say that "The MOQ defines
an level of intellectual patterns of values" is a second-order proposition
(since it defines a totality) that does not contradict the first-order
proposition "The MOQ is an intellectual pattern of value". QED. (aren't I a
smartass ? ;)
Frankly, if that was all I had to say about the problem you are exposing I
probably won't have taken the trouble of writing all this. The logical
device invented by Russel is great (and now taught in most Western
Universities), but it is still an intellectual trick and nothing else. Most
importantly, it is a clear example of how intellectual notions (like formal
logic) create new problems (like self-referential statements) that can only
be solved by the creation of newer notions, in an unending circle.
That little stunt, I believe, is a clear indication that whether or not we
believe in the MOQ, we are still trapped in the intellectual level when we
try to apply its principles. The MOQ is one of the first "second-order
metaphysics", because it can safely speak about itself and criticize its
aims and limitations. Mostly, it is not so much the MOQ in which I believe,
but in the fact that it has opened me to what Wilber describes as
"vision-logic", which is "aperspectival". By this I mean that reading the
MOQ has opened my eyes to the notion that while no system of thought offers
certainty (the aperspectival point of view) there is clearly a hierarchy of
systems, and that the fundamental axiom of this hierarchy is a value-based
one (ie. some systems of thought are better than others). Truth, in other
words, has been replaced by Quality.
Another point in which Wilber might come to the rescue of Pirsig's followers
is in rebukking the oft-thrown accusation of "contradictory statements"
("Quality is One, and Many", "all patterns of values are also intellectual
patterns of value", etc.)
Wilber in Interview at Enlightenment.com :
"My simple point is that if you bring in the non-dual traditions, they all
maintain that there are at least two truths. One is the truth of the
relative realm, and the other is an absolute or non-dual awareness."
http://www.enlightenment.com/media/index.cfm?id=MI0023
"Truth of the relative realm" translate quite easily into "the quality of
static intellectual patterns of value", and "an absolute or non-dual
awareness" into Quality itself. The statements I've made above are
contradictory and an offense to logic only if seen from a SOM rational point
of view. If understood as pointing toward a greater truth of non-dualism,
they are perfectly clear.
The "patterns" of Pirsig are intellectual devices derived from experience
(be it one of experiment or of simple "rote" lessons), but the "reality" of
experience is the undefinable event of Quality itself (or Wilber's Spirit,
or the Tao, Nirvana or whatever you want to call it. It doesn't matter
really...), non-dual and not so much "experienced" as experiencing itself.
It is primordial, "the face you had before you were born", if one is to wax
poetically Zen...
To say "The MOQ is an intellectual pattern" or "all patterns of values are
also intellectual patterns of value" simply is the MOQist way of pointing at
the limitations of language, and the deeper reality of Quality under it.
These are our koans.
I want to add in closing that I still believe our views are closer than you
might think. We both acknowledge a Copernican revolution of epic scale that
has thrown Truth from its pedestal by replacing it by Quality. Subject and
Object are still a thorn in Wilber's side, from what I've read of his
critics (who often ask if the Spirit is "really real" !...), and he would
greatly benefit from Pirsig's intuition that Subject/Object are in no way as
Primordial as he would like to believe, and that his Four Quadrants are far
from Universal, and more on the side of intellectual tricks (good ones, I'll
admit) of his own devising.
Pirsig gives these SOMish critics the "coup the grāce" by discrediting
"truth" from being more at the core than a "what you like" (and NOT *just*
what you like) that has reached a consensus, one supported and validated by
a direct apprehension of Quality.
That this realisation is a new stage in human Intellect is beyond
discussion, but if you want to call it by a different name, fine by me ! The
limits of levels are arbitrary anyway. Still, I do not believe that mixing
the non-dual perception that is Quality with the new duality (DQ/SQ) of the
MOQ is a good idea. It denies the Tao for the map, the Reality for words
about Reality.
Hope that helped
Denis
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