Donny-
Thanks for the explaination. I found it very clear, maybe even (dare I say
it) clearer than RMP himself at some points (some not all). It seems to
set things right for me. Thanks again. Altough I would love to see of
Bodvar's former posts on the subject.
Rick
At 02:48 PM 10/28/98 -0500, you wrote:
>RICHARD wrote:
>>I've read ZAMM over ten times and LILA about
>>six and so far I still regard ZAMM as the far more impressive and important
>>work (despite what RMP himself thinks).
>>I know this attitude isn't going to win me any friends here, but
>>hey, popularity isn't necessarily Quality, right?
>
>Actually I agree, and I know one or two others do as well. LILA just isn't
>half as well written as ZMM. I think ZMM will never go out of print while
>LILA will probably be forgotten completley in 40 or 80 years -- partly
because
>ZMM really is one of the best-written books in American literature, and
partly
>because it is (as RMP called it) a "culture-bearer" of that period (along w/
>EASY RIDER and WOODSTOCK... it's become an American icon). (I did an
>unscientific poll of teacher-education students here at UT and found that
most
>of them recognized the title "ZMM" [and a few had even read it] while not
one
>of the 30-or-so I asked could name the title of a single work by Plato.)
>Anybody (even RMP) would have a very hard time convincing me that ZMM isn't
>the higher quality of the two books.
>
>GLOVE wrote:
>________________
>Donny, i tend to disagree with your assumption here and i believe Pirsig
>does as well in Lila, page 344..."Within this evolutionary relationship it
>is possible to see that intellect has functions that predate science and
>philosophy. The intellect's evolutionary purpose has never been to discover
>an ultimate meaning of the universe. That is a relatively recent fad. Its
>historical purpose has been to help society find food, detect danger, and
>defeat enemies. It can do this well or poorly, depending on the concepts it
>invents for this purpose."
>
>after reading this passage, the monkey opening a coconut with a stone is
>clearly an example of the intellect at work. certainly it is a biologically
>driven need that the monkey feels, but how did the monkey learn to use the
>rock to smash open the coconut? i would guess by seeing other monkeys do it,
>perhaps its mother. so the monkey is using a social event to learn an
>intellectual exercise to facilitate the satisfying of a biologically driven
>desire for food.
>__________________
>
>ME:
>As I view it, Poincare's rule of "conventionalism" still applies to the
MoQ. I
>do not believe that the 4 ststic levels are "given," or "out there." I
think
>this is a system not unlike euclideian geomitry. Their are numerous ways we
>could divide it up. The shape the 4 or 5 or 10 levels take all depends on
how
>we make cuts w/ our analytic knife. The question is: what is the most
>convinent, usefull, functional way to do it. Nobody uses non-euclidian
>geometry to build a house, but euclideian geomitry is poorly limiting when
>mapping space tensors (or so I hear).
>
>Try this out:
>
>What is a proof? Fundamentaly a proof is a particuler type of social
exchange
>designed to bring about consent. If you and I have a dissagreement, then
>their are a number of ways I can get you to agree that I am right. I can
>offer you a bribe. I can threaten to with-hold money. I can send Rocko and
>Knuckles over to your house to beat the hell out of you. I could charm you
w/
>my winning smile and rapier-like witt.
>
>But we all hold that their is a best, morally/socially correct way for us to
>settle our differences. This (whatever form that method may take) is for me
>to offer you a proof. I say "whatever form..." because what counts as a
proof
>varies from one society to another and from one era (age, epoch,
period...) to
>another. 17-18th century gentelmen may have fought a dual. Of course if a
>17-18th (or even 19th) century commoner disagreed w/ a gentelman, then it
>would be perfectablly moral (socialably correct) for the gentalman to
simplely
>have his retainers beat or whipp the man. If a black man in the south
>disagreed w/ a white man as late as the 40-50s then the white man would
pretty
>much be correct by default. And Native Americans were not allowed to
testify
>in coart until as late as 1940 (as I've heard it told) because they were
>considered a basically dishonest and untrustworthy people.
>
>But now, today, we live in more enlightened times, right? Because we hold
>that social statuss has no bareing on proof. In the activity of proving,
the
>social playing field is leveled. (Of course this is only an ideal, as O.J.
>Simpson proved quite nicely -- social status, wealth and celebrity still has
>everything to do w/ proof in most cases.... But it's a nice, enlightened
>ideal.) This ideal of proof independent from social statuss really comes
>about first in the 18th cen. Enlightenment (we call it the value of
>"objectivity"), but it doesn't really hit the main-stream until the first
>World War -- the birth of the Modern world.
>
>(Am I to interpret those of you who say society is of higher moral value
than
>"intellecet" as meaning that we should not resort to rational, [relative]
>objectivity when setteling social debates? Should we insted resort just to
>social class? Force? I'm afraid you crowd are going to have a very hard
time
>selling your version of the MoQ to the public, indeed.)
>
>True facts are the results of proofs. They are nothing more than this.
There
>is no Truth "out there" independent of our proving activities -- our
>moral/SOCIAL proving activities. Only societies can generate true facts.
As
>someone else has said: "A fact that can't be communicated is like money that
>can't circulate -- it has no value."(Dwight Van de Vate) What has no value,
>does not exist.
>
>F=ma is true. How is it true? It is proven scientifically. Science is the
>method of proof. Is science true? How so? Certainly it can't be
>scientifically true -- that makes no sense. What could you possibly use to
>*prove* a system of proof? We can resolve things w/in science, just as we
can
>find the winner of a baseball game. But what if a baseball team played a
>football team and neither could agree on what game they were playing?
>
>SCIENCE IS NOT TRUE. Science is moral. Science is a method *we* -- our
>SOCIETY -- values as a means to setteling arguments and generating facts.
It
>is socially correct. It is moral.
>
>There, in a nutshell, is my concept of IntPoVs and the the Int-Soc
interface.
>It probably does differ from Pirsig's, but I'm not after the "real" MoQ
(like
>the "real" painting in the art gallery), I'm looking for what's most usefull
>in most situations. This makes good sense to me. A lot of what I see
thrown
>around about IntPoVs (esspecialy, Int.= Mind, thought, ego, consciousness,
>etc.) does not.
>
>Monkey smashing coconut w/ rock for food = Bio. value -- makes sense. Makes
>good *intellectual* sense (it fits those Int. values of clearity,
simplicity,
>lack of internal contradiction...). THAT you can teach to grade school'rs.
>("Here, kids, is an example of natural values in action.")
>
>Back to RICHARD:
>>Individuals, not societies, are the source of ideas. Societies may
>>eventually grow to embody and value those ideas, but they start with a
>>person, be it Buddha or Jesus or Bodhi Dharma or Plato or Robert M. Pirsig.
>>Societies may seize on these ideas and combine them, but
>>they originate from individuals.
>
>Rick, I've argued on here before that it is un-usefull to look at
"society" as
>meaning "contra-individual." You will find it far more helpfull to give-up
>that notion and take "society" to mean "contra-biological."
>
>The diffrence between a person (social entity) and a homo-sapian
(bio-entity)
>is the "socializing process." Infants and feral kids and boys raised by
>wolves are purly biological entities. But children, hrough the socializing
>process, become people. This begins (and this is important; listen up!) by
>synching the Bio rhythms to a social rhythm. An animal empties his bladder
>whenever he gets the urge. *People* control ourselves. The domestication of
>wild animals and the socialization of homo-sapians is the same thing,
really,
>except that the one is something you do to other species and the other is
>something done to your own -- and it is a lot more extensive. Social
entities
>are what we call "people," and do note that not all hono-sapians are
people.
>Here in Tennessee, blacks weren't full people until recently. Women wern't
>either. In some parts of the world (India, China...) they still arn't. The
>most intersting thing that happens to crazy people is that lose their
"people"
>status. They are no longer allowed to manage their own affairs; they lose
>their rights to sue me in coart, to correct me in a logical proof, and so on.
>
>Another feature of the socializing process that needs to be noted is that it
>is the basis of the S-O distinction. "Personhood" is defined only
>reciprically. Only persons get to say who other people are, and if you can't
>tell people from non-people then you are not recognized as a person. A
grown
>man who talks w/ his teddy bear the way a child would is headed for the
funny
>farm. Children must learn the difference between knowing, mind-ed,
socialized
>Subjects and mere objects (be they a rock, a dog, or the criminally insane).
>(Hegel termed this 'S-O consciousness'.)
>
>But I digress. To return to my point:
>Donny Palmgren = a social entity
>Donny Palmgren is a set of moral/social rhythms/patterns imposed over the
>natural rhythms of homo-sapian biology. (This is why the personality could
die
>w/o the organism dying -- coma, psychotic break, schitzophrenic attack,
join a
>cult and get brainwashed by those pesky New Age'rs...) In turn these bio
>rhythms are imposed on top of the mechanics/rhythms of "this crude matter"
(as
>Master Yoda says). (The organism could die w/o the matter/energy being
>destroyed.) And to shift in the other direction: Donny Palmgren,
*because* he
>is recognized as a mind-ed, socialized personality -- a reasonable self (in
>the sense of "That nut has lost all reason!") -- he is allowed to engage in
>the proving activity -- to step up onto that "objective" playing-field of
>logic and reason (in the sense of "I'm trying to reason w/ you.").
>
>To keep it as simple (and usefull/convienent) as we can:
>InOrgPoVs = the laws (values) of physics/chemestry
>BioPoVs = the law of the jungle (Darwinian values of survivle/procreation)
>SocPoVs = how "one behaves" ("One does not do such things!") including
fashion
>values, manners, "morality" (in the normal sense), and 'the law.'
>IntPoVs = the rules (values) of logic and reason (comunicability,
>simplicity...)
>
>RICHARD
>>I would very much like to be corrected on this point. I
>>hate thinking that Pirsig may have something wrong. His ideas have changed
>>the way I see everything and I want nothing more than to understand them as
>>completely as possible.
>
>I can't say that this is the answer Pirsig would have given you -- I doubt
it
>is! My way of thinking here is mostly influinced by Erving Goffman and
G.W.F.
>Hegel. But I hope it helps. A few months back, Bodvar and I went in
circles
>arould the Bio-Soc-Int interface question, and (I believe) you can find that
>material archived on the LS websight. If not, Rick, or anybody, e-mail me
>direct and I can send some those older posts direct to you. If this turns
out
>to be our topic next month I might re-post some of that, anyway.
>
>TTFN (ta-ta for now)
>Donny
>
>
>
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