ROGER RE-ENTERS THE METAPHYSICAL
DONNYBROOK
Let me start from the top with Platt.....
PLATT:
For most people, primary reality is thought to be a perception of an
object of some kind located “out there” in physical or mental space --
a structure, theory, photon, map, self, etc.
ROGER:
Some of our group have definite time/space, in here/out there paradigms stuck
onto their
world view.
PIRSIG:
"In the MOQ, the higher up the evolutionary ladder you go (from sub-
atomic particles to people) the more freedom you have in making
preferences. This is why generally a person’s experience will be that
much richer and complex than a dog's while the dog's experience
will be that much better than a tree's which will be better than a piece
of rock's and so on."
PLATT:
For Pirsig, perception occurs at all levels.....
What these patterns
perceive expands as you go up the ladder. A human pattern of value
perceives more patterns of value than a fish pattern of value.
ROG:
The only problem I have with Pirsig’s statement is that it is cloaked in 2500
years worth of
SOM baggage. He has used subjects and objects to describe the unknowable. I
am okay
with acknowledging the existence of subatomic experience, or tree
experience. However,
these experiences are not differentiated subject/object experiences. A
meteor does not
create the s/o moon/meteor duality. Only the intellectual humans experience
or create this
unique form of experience (or are created by it) BUT, THAT WHICH *WE* DEFINE
AS MOON/METEOR EXPERIENCE DOES EXIST.
PLATT:
So if I'm getting Pirsig's meaning right, primary reality in the MOQ
consists of some patterns of value observing other patterns of value.
But there's really no difference because “patterns of value” are
intellectual concepts that are derived from and are secondary to the
perceptions themselves.
ROGER:
Minor correction. I would say that the eternal flux of DQ creates what the
intellectual
level refers to as patterns which can interact with other patterns. Note the
intellectual
level is not necessary to its creation, just to its abstraction.
PLATT:
In other words, what see is you-seeing, and what you are is your
perceptions. If your talking about ultimate or primary reality, there
really isn't anything else except you. That's why I claim, “Mine is the
only world.”
ROG:
The alternative is that we all see many sides of a shared world of
experience/quality.
Which ‘mine’ are you refering to Platt? The one that wrote this phrase last
week, or the
one that wrote it last month? How about the one that was you in high school?
Who do you understand and empathize more with A)a current friend, or B)
yourself as a
teenager. You know very little if anything about this ‘younger you’ other
than some
distant memories of what he may be going through.
Now to David B.
DAVID .:
Each healthy individual is a collection of static patterns of value from each
of the four
levels, a unique culture of one.
ROG:
Each of us is a unique part of Quality, from which the levels are a later
abstracted.
DAVID:
As beings with intellectual capabilities, we have thoughts and ideas and
ways to classify everything in the phenomenal world. And its perfectly
legitimate to claim that there is a difference between our concepts and
the thing in itself. But again, this ought not be construed to mean that
the "object" of perception has no real existence, or that its existence
depends on our perceptions. It just a re-imagining. In the MOQ there are
no claims about ultimate reality, its just a better map. It's a better
way to explain our perceptions, conceptions and place in the world.
ROG:
Objects are the output of an intellectual experience. I also do not doubt
that the
undifferentiated conceptually unkown flux of DQ is real, that it exists
(though more as
events or experience than things). But we create the object... the model.
DAVID:
This is what Magnus was getting at by saying a meteor can
"experience" the moon as well as we can.
ROG:
No. That which we call moon/meteor interaction is an experience as well.
DAVID:
The inorganic level depends on experience for its
existence and evolution, but it DOESN'T DEPEND ON OUR PERCEPTIONS FOR
ITS EXISTENCE. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Our perceptions depend
on their existence. Our perceptions are also dependent on the biological
and social levels too. Our perceptions are are conducted, at least
consciously, at the intellectual level. Obviously, subatomic structures
experience a reality completely different than our own.
ROG:
Undualistic experience indeed does not depend on our existence. Sorted,
leveled,
objectified models sure do depend on us though. David, just ‘cause we named
and built
models of gravity does not imply that reality floated prior to humans. Our
naming created
objects, but it did not change preconceptual reality.
DAVID:
I think this is where part of the confusion lies. The MOQ's whole
ontological scheme, the four static levels evolving dymanically, is
based on experience. But its based on a broader and deeper meaning of
that word and it goes way beyond what we think of as experience, namely
our human experiences and observations. In the MOQ even atoms have
experiences, if fact it pretty much describes reality as a verb. Its an
infinite series of quality events, of direct experiences that leaves
phenomenal reality in its wake. Its an infinite dance of freedom.
Experience in this sense is built into the very fabric and process of
reality. The epistemological issues are certainly tied in to this whole
scheme, but that doesn't mean they are the same issues. The question of
our perceptions, of our human experience, is a distinctly different
matter.
ROG:
Here I agree completely.
DAVID:
Unlike the inorganic level, the biological level is not directly in
contact with Dynamic Quality except at Quality events.
Rog:
Are these on Tuedays and Thursdays? Everything is composed of quality events.
DAVID:
Experiences of biological patterns are mediated through the inorganic level.
Matter, time and space are reality for the bio level. We can recognize
this in our own sense organs. As a biological organism with a central
nervous system our eyes tell us something about the size, shape and
color of other static patterns, but that's a far cry from our social
level values or intellectual descriptions. What I mean is that not even
basic sensory perceptions can be counted as direct experience. Even the
second level of reality is once removed from direct contact with DQ. The
inorganic level stands in ints way, so to speak. The social level is yet
another step removed from its source of being. Its reality is mediated
through two levels. The intellect, in case you haven't guessd by now, is
removed from direct experience by that third layer of phenomenal
reality, by that third level of static patterns. This is how questions
of our perceptions are tied in with the overall scheme of the MOQ.
Epistemologically speaking, our perceptions are indirect. They are
heavily mediated through all the layers of reality that preceded the
intellect in historical evolution. (Oh, please don't pull out that tired
old quote again. It makes no sense by itself.)
ROG:
This I totally disagree with. Intellectual experience is not buffered
experience. It is rich
and dynamically varied. Intellectual versions of inorganic experience are
pale shadows of
what they reference. See the difference? (BTW , the quote makes total sense
if you have
the proper mind set)
DAVID:
Its like Rich said, "the intellectual level is one fourth" of phenomenal
reality, but experience is common to the whole shebang. Experience
creates reality and our perceptions are a part of that reality, the top
part.
ROG:
I would say that intellectual experience is one fourth of experience, but all
of our
conceptual model. The ULTIMATE REALITY is infinitely grander than our models.
Now to Avid.......
IN RESPONSE TO PLATT’S:
> For Pirsig, primary reality is a perception of Quality, something
> which you, being a pattern of, are already.
AVID WROTE:
This is true only for Static Quality, and because Static quality HAS to be a
pattern, I suggest using SPQ[static pattern of quality] to remind us of it.
ROG:
I agree with most of Avid’s writing. (I prefer Patterned Quality, because sq
is not strictly
static.)
And finally to Rich..........
RICH:
Are you both asserting the MOQ is an idealism?
ROG:
Not if this means that it is ‘all in our heads’. However, if you mean it
ain't materialistic -- then of course. I do think that mind and matter are
models abstracted from experience. I am reluctant to get into another debate
with you on philosophical terms though, for fear you will again say...."well
that isn't what I meant by idealism"
RICH:
If so, I honestly can't get
around one thing. Suppose -- according to the idealism -- that there are
only experiences. By what mechanism do our experiences coincide with the
exact same 4 levels?
ROG:
Remember, you and I share 99.9999999999% of reality (experience) together.
We are
probably 100% related if we go back less than a hundred or two hundred
thousand years.
Since then, we share a same social history, and a shared intellectual
upbringing. We see a
very slightly different facet of the infinitely sided consciousness called DQ.
In summary, I think Walter was right. We need to spend the next few days
agreeing on a
set of questions. Then we need to all give our answers to these same
questions. We can
then iteratively try to reach clear consensus or clear lines of disagreement.
Responses are always appreciated.
Rog
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:09 BST