David - you are right in that the article needed to bridge the academic world
with the authors ideas on Quality. His attempt is beautiful, just didn't have
the philosophical background to address the SOM problem as Pirsig did.
If you want to look into it i believe the nature of this problems is in the
idea of the Quality of an object is inherent in its qualities (the information
we perceive). In ZMM Pirsig was wrestling with his Quality idea while
teaching in Montana and conjectured that Quality resides in the qualities. In
ZMM he rejects this idea, but in LILA his brings it back as the cornerstone of
the MOQ. What is the Inorganic Level but the usefullness of its Quality? We
go into a second dimension when we jump to biology, a third in social level,
and a whole new dimension in intellectual level but it goes back to the values
we perceive in the increasing complexity. We must look for value because of
so much background noise and data. But Utility will always reside in the
qualities(or information) of the subject or object regardless of the level.
xcto
Sorry for reproducing the whole mail so don't read it!!!!
In a message dated 1/30/99 9:58:41 PM Pacific Standard Time,
DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org writes:
<< Subj: MD A FUNDAMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Date: 1/30/99 9:58:41 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org (David Buchanan)
Sender: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
Reply-to: moq_discuss@moq.org
To: moq_discuss@moq.org ('moq_discuss@moq.org')
Bodvar, Platt and the gang:
Thanks for taking the time to look at the paper titled "Implications of
a Fundamental Consciousness". I was very thrilled to discover it and
was desperate to find out if other Pirsigers could verify the
similarities between it and the MOQ.
For anyone who hasn't seen the paper, you can get it at
http://www.cop.com/cmtu3htm.html.
( I'm sure some of Lithien's questions about "observation" at the first
three levels would be answered in reading this paper.)
Bodvar: Like you, I also alternated between "this is it!" and "oh, that
doesn't really work". Reading the paper was kind of a bi-polar
experience. The author doesn't tackle SOM directly and I'm sympathetic
with your disappointment in that. I want to be generous to Macdonald and
say, perhaps the problem is better handled in a seperate paper. Also, he
seems to address the issue indirectly, effectively saying that every
"thing" is both subject and object simultaneously. I don't recall any
specific claim, but it seems to me the overall idea implies that the
subject object split is not valid. He trashes SOM in his own way, don't
you think?
Bodvar wrote, "What creates the mental-physical riddle is that between
those two there are no direct connections except over the organic and
social bridges"
I agree and think its a very important point. One the main problems with
SOM in the physical sciences is that it entirely denies the necessity of
social level mediation. The attempt to remove unwanted prejudices has
left science on the wrong side of the "social bridges". The organic
level mediation is a standard practice in the classical scientific
method, with it's insistence on biological proofs. (Sensory data)
Incidentally, Pirsig saw Bohr's complimentarity as approaching this
social level mediation issue with it's demand for "unambiguous
communication".
Platt wrote: "I kept asking myself, where in this author's theory are
the values? Where are the morals?"
I asked myself the same questions. Macdonald's "patterns of
information" certainly has a cold and clinical feel compared to Pirsigs
"pattern of vaules". I suspect any other style of description would
have landed the student in some hot water with his thesis advisor. I'm
guessing he uses words like information instead of values or morals
because it seems more scientific and scholarly to the folks who will
judge his work and grant his doctorate or not. I'm saying the difference
could be one of mere style. Pirsig works in a literary form, whereas
Macdonald has to accomodate certain academic standards if he wants his
degree.
Also, I thinks it is not too much of a leap to see the similarity
between quality, value and morality on the one hand and information on
the other. It seems to me that the words Pirsig use imply information.
On what basis can quality and value be determined? Clearly, some kind of
information is required to make such a determination. In the MOQ one
might say "A values B" instead of SOM's "A causes B". In Macdonald's
treatment one could say "A knows B is correct and values it for that
reason". Its a little more clumsy, but its essentially the same idea.
I've read some mysticism that seems very MOQ to me, but instead of
values and morals they use words like love and ecstasy. Can you imagine
a credible University granting a degree to the author of a Metaphysics
of Love? I doubt any scholar could get away with it outside of certain
theology schools.
Finally, these views can be reconciled in the Buddhist idea that
"ingorance is the cause of all suffering". (Please say it with an Indian
accent.) Put another way, immorality is caused by a lack of
information. In fact, the original meaning of the word "sin" was "to
miss the mark?" And the original meaning of "repent" was something like
"re-examine your thoughts and beliefs". Do you see the connection
between information and values in this explaination?
Thanks again for taking the time.
David
>>
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