ROGER GIVES FEEDBACK TO BO ON SOTAQI AND DISCUSSES THE EVOLUTION OF MIND INTO
INTELLECT. ALSO DISCUSSES JONATHAN’S POSTS ON EMERGENCE/CHAOS
……………………………………………………………………………………
Bodvar and Jonathan:
I recently asked Bo to summarize SOTAQI. His full post follows. At first I
tried to give my thoughts point by point, but it was soon apparent that it was
a moving, evolving target. Most of my thoughts were more than addressed by the
end of the progression. Instead, I thought I would concentrate more on just
two parts ….. the emergence of intellect from mind, and relationship of SOM to
MOQ.
Bo, I think my thoughts are similar, or at least compatible, with SOTAQI, but
you be the judge. However, before I address this I would like to set the stage
with comments on the recent discussion you have been having with Jonathan. I
completely agree with his posts on the emergence of life and other higher
level patterns from the complexity below.
JONATHAN: <<<<<"….as soon as you make the system just a tiny bit more
complicated…….the whole system suddenly realizes a potential to drift toward
order. I find this fascinating.">>>>>>>>
As JM shows us, chaos, complexity, attractors, simplicity and emergence are
fascinating newer scientific concepts with incredible capacity to complement
the MOQ. Pirsig may not have been too familiar with these rapidly developing
ideas when he wrote Lila, but in my opinion, overlaying them with the MOQ
advances and clarifies both.
The broader question is no longer why did life emerge from Inorganic patterns
of value, it is why do complex, dynamic systems ever drift to order. This
doesn’t just explain life or intellect, it explains all the levels and the
dynamic / static split as well. I look forward to more posts along this line
from members.
Now to the emergence of Intellect……..
As I understand it, mind is a TOOL used by biological patterns to give them
more dynamic responses to stimuli. It allows them to store old static
instinctual patterns, but also to anticipate the environment and create new
reactions, etc.
Once minds became advanced enough to recognize other minds, a new level of
patterns began emerging ….. society. This is where creatures used the mind’s
ability to recognize patterns and communicate to control, influence, care,
cheat, lie, steal, protect, love, nurture, teach, etc.
The biological mind allowed society to form. As society gained in the ability
to store (static) and communicate (dynamic) knowledge or thoughts, the
intellectual level emerged from society. Originally, knowledge patterns were
a tool for society, just as mind was a tool for biology. Society used
intellectual patterns to advance its cause when needed, and suppressed
knowledge when not needed. However, both tools gained in complexity and
dynamic value until they led to the emergence of new levels. (I think this may
be partially due to the ability of the higher level’s values to adjudicate
relative morality at the lower level – leading to higher overall DQ and
pattern survival/advancement. This is still a trial balloon though.)
The emergent higher level of Intellectual PoV’s includes philosophy, science,
metaphysics, logic and truth. SOM has been the dominant intellectual truth.
It is now being threatened with a newer, more advanced pattern called MOQ. By
more advanced, I mean more dynamic, more truthful (in describing reality),
broader (in pointing to new ideas outside of SOM’s narrow perimeter), and
deeper (than SOM’s shallow inorganic/biological is all that really exists
"objectively"). The MOQ is a better reflection of reality than SOM.
BO WRITES: <<<<<" Subject-objectivism cannot - and should not - be gotten rid
of, it's VALUABLE; it has given us civilization as we know it.
Seeing it as the Static Intellectual Pattern of Value solved it all
for me. It was the highest GOOD, but being static it was still
subordinate to the overall Dynamic Quality; it was not a
metaphysics any more; the subject-object division is not fundamental;
AS IT IS, but a mere STAGE in the unending quality climb towards
betterness".>>>>>>>>>>>>
I agree completely. SOM isn’t false any more than Newton’s law of gravity is
false. MOQ and General Relativity may not be absolute, but they are broader
and deeper truths than those which they build upon.
As for the issue of self-referential levels, your comment below on JM’s
solipsistic camera nails it. MOQ is an intellectual pattern describing
reality with itself as an object within that pattern that includes reference
to………
Bo, thanks for sharing a rich line of insightful thoughts. Squadies, let me
know if your SOTAQI or your understanding differs materially. The best ideas
are written in pencil.
Roger
BODVAR’S FULL POST:
Many thanks for your kind words about my contribution, and for asking
me to bring the background for my so-called SOTAQI idea. I'll try to
comply with your request .....as shortly as possible, but.....
I have tried to trace the development (of the SOTAQI) from the first
posts, but Magnus' search engine brings up too many hits if I just
enter 'Intellect' or 'Mind' or any other single word, and I can't
recall the expressions or sentences used, so it'll have to be by
memory.
It started when we were on a thread of defining the Intellectual
level. You know, the Inorganic level is pretty straightforward: it is
"Matter" as we know it from SOM, so is the Organic (Life) and the
Social (the Collective), but the top notch is not so easily defined.
"Mind" comes to mind(!), but if so we have the old everything-in-the-
mind-problem of SOM back in force. Many use the ZMM where Phaedrus
asks where gravity was before Newton as a demonstration for the
idealist argument, but I'm not happy with it.
No, the MOQ isn't idealism, it rejects the subject-object
(mind-matter) division as fundamental, so - really - the Q-Inorganic
is not SOM's matter, nor is Q-Intellect SOM's mind. They really have
nothing in common ---- except as Pirsig claims that the SOM is
"contained" by the MOQ. At this first stage, however, we weren't so
deep into it, but tried to find what characterized the Intellectual
level.
It somehow ended in rationality, mathematics, language, but under it
all lurked the notion of "thinking itself" of ...MIND. I believe it
was Diana who hinted to the coincidence between the events described
in the last part of ZMM (which we interpret as the birth of
subject-object metaphysics) and the emergence of the Intellectual
level as described in LILA. The two looks identical. Subject-Object
metaphysics as the Intellect of MOQ!!!!
It struck me as correct and abbreviated it SAIOM and started to sell
it to the group :-). But there was a certain resistance to the M
(metaphysics) part, so I removed that and replaced it with
S-O-thinking (or logic), something which was understood and accepted
by most. However Anthony McWatt wasn't convinced and in a letter to
Pirsig he asked for his opinion, but either because it was presented
in the SAIOM form, or he - principally - won't take sides, Pirsig's
answer wasn't easily interpreted. At least I could not take it as an
affirmation for my idea :-(.
As said, Pirsig asserts that SOM is contained by the MOQ in the
sense that the Inorganic & Organic levels are "matter", while the
Social & Intellectual are "mind". I am not saying that this is wrong,
but a little "feeble" and felt that it was to accommodate for the
unprepared audience at the conference in Bruxelles, but someone
pointed to it being said in LILA too. So much for me as a quality
"scholar" :-).
Yet, Inorganic and Organic value as matter doesn't quite jell with
me. Life is made up of matter all right, but it is supposed to be a
realm of its own. Likewise Social value as mind!? It could with as
much reason be said to be matter too as it is made up of living
organisms made up of matter. Also - and this is my gravest -
objection: Subject-objectivism cannot - and should not - be gotten
rid of, it's VALUABLE; it has given us civilization as we know it.
Seeing it as the Static Intellectual Pattern of Value solved it all
for me. It was the highest GOOD, but being static it was still
subordinate to the overall Dynamic Quality; it was not a
metaphysics any more; the subject-object division is not fundamental;
AS IT IS, but a mere STAGE in the unending quality climb towards
betterness.
Besides, it is an important MOQ tenet that each level grows from the
previous which is easily demonstrated up to Society, but how can
Intellect in the "thinking itself" sense have originated from Social
value? It sounds much more like the good old SOM notion of mind out
of matter (or at least from the brain). Jonathan Marder once compared
Q-Intellect with a video camera trained upon a screen of its own
picture. That's pretty good "picture" and demonstrates the difficulty
of how anything can enter such a solipsistic loop, or how anything
can develop FROM it.
No, the MOQ rejects objects as a (fundamental) realm, but - even more
important: it rejects subjects as well: There is nothing objective
about the reality we observe from the Intellectual perch: we don't
see reality as it is, but are merely conscious of the subject-object
STAGE of VALUE (in the same way as we - when such focussed - are
conscious of social, biological and inorganic (?) values. It's of
course not anything "mere" about it, it's a realm of its own, but it
is STATIC all the same and Dynamic Quality will try to work itself
free of that straitjacket too. And I wonder if not the Quality idea
is such a first revolt....an attempt at it anyway.
Hope this was intelligible to you Roger.
Bodvar
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