On 26 May 2002 at 12:27, David Buchanan wrote:
> Previously, Bo said:
> > BO: Firstly, to say that both are intellectual patterns makes Q-
> > intellect identical to SOM's "mind"; everything is mental
> > constructs, theories, maps (with the inevitable "just" in front),
> > you know the argumentation, and what the MOQ was supposed to be a
> > relief from comes rushing to the fore again.
> DMB says:
> The inevitable "just" comes rushing to the fore again? I think not.
> The MOQ says ideas are NOT just subjective. It says that ideas are
> just as real as rocks and trees and that they are connected to these
> other levels in a matter of fact evolutionary relationship. Properly
> understood, the MOQ does not allow us to view mental constructs as
> anything less than the highest level of reality. Therefore, your
> SOLAQI attempts to fix what is not broken.
Hi DMB.
Of course it's not just the "just" that returns, the whole SOM is
smuggled in by the back doors by the idea-intellect, because the
"continental divide" is then removed to (between) the social and the
intellectual levels - not as Pirsig himself wants it to be (in his
demonstration how the MOQ "contains" the SOM) at the bio/socio gap.
I know that ideas (abstractions) are as real ...etc. "properly understood",
it's just that kind of understanding which is made impossible.
> Bo said:
> The "ordinary" understanding of the MOQ is that its intellectual level
> is the realm of ideas, and consequently that SOM & MOQ are
> intellectual patterns. This (ordinary understanding) however makes
> everything intellectual patterns for what is NOT ideas - just in our
> minds, and we are back in SOM's mind/matter quagmire.
> DMB says:
> I have to guess what you mean here. I think you're objecting to
> solipsism, the interpretation that says even organic and inorganic
> patterns are just in our minds.
Had the "proper understanding" prevailed there would have been no
problems, but as I say lower down even old-timers discussers lapse into
somism with their notions of the intellect a super-level where the lower
levels have counterparts. And if this isn't SOM's mind/matter nothing is.
> Is that it?
Yes it is because it is SOM and SOM carries this solipsism bomb which
will explode on anyone persistent enough to pursue it.
> This is just SOM's
> idealism taken to extemes and is an incorrect interpretation of the
> MOQ.
Of course it's SOM and of course it's an incorrect interpretation of the
MOQ, that's what I'm driving at
> Pirsig says thoughts are just as real as rocks and trees, but he
> does not say they're the same thing as thoughts.
Again intellect as "thoughts". Rock is inorganic value while trees are
biological, what about a social example? Are there no abstraction or
"thoughts" at that level? Intellect isn't thoughts - as such - rather a very
special way of thinking.
> Bo said:
> Some discussers postulate that all q-levels are "out there" but have
> an intellectual counterpart, but this is just working themselves
> deeper into the mire. Som radical measurement must be taken to get out
> of it, and I believe to have cut the Gordic Knot by my
> SOL-interpretation: Q- Intellect is the S/OM itself!! Thus seen the
> MOQ is a "rebel" intellectual pattern.
> DMB says:
> Yea, we can have thoughts about what is "out there". This creates no
> problems. Its only natural because the higher levels include the lower
> ones. We need no radical measure to get out of it. We don't want to
> get out of it. We want to be totally embedded in it. The MOQ itself
> even includes SOM, but also transcends it. It does not eject SOM
> completely out into space, it embedds it into a larger system. It
> explains how mind and matter are connected in, again, a matter of fact
> evolutionary relationship.
I agree to every word.
> In annotation #43 Pirsig said (about the above idea):
> > > This seems too restrictive. It seems to exclude
> > > non-subject-object constructions such as symbolic logic, higher
> > > mathematics, and computer languages from the intellectual level
> > > and give them no home.
> Bo said:
> It's tough to argue with Pirsig, but these "...non-subject/object
> constructions" are merely other forms of languages and "language" is
> the social pattern that served as a vehicle for intellect ... at
> least let's suspend this for a while and go on to Pirsig's next
> sentence.
> DMB says:
> Ha! Its easy to argue with him. The tough part is winning that debate!
> ;-) But seriously, these non-SOM intellectual construction are
> language-derived, but transcend language itself, which is a social
> level artifact.
Artifact? The single most important social pattern and the one that
evolution rode to the next level, yet we know that early humankind
(social level) did advanced calculation and doesn't it include LOGIC
and THINKING? Non-SOM, I agree to, but also non-intellect! It's easy
to fall into the trap of equating intelligence with the intellectual level,
and how many has not reported here with THAT notion.
> The difference between a simple sentence and an
> equation in symbolic logic is striking, for example. You can NOT do
> symbolic logic without sentences, however. Again, it transcends, but
> includes the lower patterns.
OK, mathematics as an academic discipline is more recent, but there is
a "gliding transition" (we say) from calculation to math. Heck, even
language in itself is "symbolic logic": Manipulation of symbols by the
logic of grammar. Much more could be said here, but here we are in
touch.
> Pirsig's next sentence:
> > > Also the
> > > term "quality" as used in the MOQ would be excluded from the
> > > intellectual level. In fact, the MOQ, which gives intellectual
> > > meaning to the term quality, would also have to be excluded from
> > > the intellectual level.
> About which Bo said:
> Here is the very crux: He says that the Quality idea (the MOQ) can't
> be a true intellectual pattern!
> DMB says:
> No. He's saying that IF your SOLAQI were true, then the MOQ would have
> to be excluded from the intellectual level. This is exactly the
> problem with SOLAQI. It doesn't solve any problems. It only creates
> problems, big problems, such as the need for a fifth level.
Yes, he does say so, and it's right ... the MOQ isn't at home with
intellect. But tell me, now that you speak for THE TRUE MOQ: How
could ANY new value level have formed in the past if "inclusion" by the
parent level was a must? For instance and as it says in LILA ,
everything forbids life to grow from matter, and this goes for all levels:
It's the very exclusion which is the dynamism.
And speaking of logic. If the Quality idea is an all-intellectual pattern it
makes the MOQ itself a part of a part of itself - that's a smaller-vessel-
containing-a-bigger-one problem. While the MOQ as something beyond
intellect makes it itself which is - at least - logically "allowed".
It need not be a 5th level, the MOQ as a "rebel"pattern goes a long
way.
> Pirsig ctd:
> > > If we just say the intellect is the manipulation of
> > > language-derived symbols for experience these problems of
> > > excessive exclusion do not seem to occur.
> DMB says:
> And this excessive exclusion is another problem created by SOLAQI. And
> please notice that operative phrase that defines the intellectual
> level in a way that includes both SOM and the MOQ; "intellect is the
> manipulation of LANGUAGE-DERIVED symbols". Symbols derived FROM
> language is different than language itself, as I said above.
As said I hoped to return to this point (Elliot's objection).
> Previously, Bo said:
> > BO: A solution is to call SOM a low intellectual level and the MOQ a
> > high one, but are there any such examples at the other levels. Is a
> > tribe a low social pattern and a modern state a high one? IMO no,
> > the former is a purer social pattern while the latter is heavily
> > overlaid with intellectual value.
> DMB says:
> Are there higher and lower patterns within each level? I think I'm
> with Erin on this issue. You can bet your ass there are. (Think of the
> horror involved in losing a bet like that!) How else can we describe
> the difference a single-celled organism and one that's built of
> trillions of cells? How else can we describe the difference between a
> prehistoric clan of hunter gatherers and the first agriclutural
> empires? How else can we expalin the difference between Galileo's
> telescope and the Hubble space telescope? The difference between
> Newton and Einstein?
I have called it a development from simplicity to complexity. Can you
really say that a single-cell organism is of low biological VALUE? It's the
pattern that carries the rest of life's great edifice.
> Bo said to Erin:
> Good point, but no serious problem as I see it. Human beings are (of)
> all value levels (a "jungle" it says in LILA) so a modern state may
> well be a social pattern overlaid by intellectual value.
> DMB says:
> Not to put too fine a point on it, I'd say that a modern state may
> very well be intellectually directed, but it would always have to
> include the social level. Otherwise, there would be nothing to direct.
Agree about the social nucleus.
> > Annotation #41-- The virus is the boundary because it is the
> > simplest organism that contains DNA. I have read there is some
> > dispute about the virus being living or dead, and I take this
> > dispute as evidence that it is the boundary.
> Bo said:
> RIGHT! And the new Pirsig annotation shows that he sees this
> fuzziness.
> DMB says:
> I have no problem with the idea of such a boundary between levels, but
> the problem with putting the MOQ at the boundary between the 4th and
> 5th levels is simply that there is NO FIFTH LEVEL in the MOQ.
Right, and once it was no fourth level!
> Finally, there is another problem created by SOLAQI's excessive
> exclusion. It excludes you, dear Bo, from having meaningful
> discussions about the MOQ with the rest of us. It un-necessarily
> creates a rift, as if all debate must come to a screaching halt until
> this SOLAQI idea is accepted. It just doesn't work.
You know I respect your opinion David and this is a problem. I'll think
about it. Promise
Bo
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