Walter and MD.
Thanks Walter for your welcoming words, but I am afraid I can't stay
long. It's simply interesting "unto destruction" for my other chores.
Apologies for using your name in the said context.
You asked:
> It is probably because of the height of my IQ, but can you please explain these
> words. Is it adressed to the whole Reality vs. Observation-thread or just to me.
I entered the R&O thread at Thomas T. Welborn's devastating
evaluation of LILA (17 Aug.) and admit that the previous posts
had been read very superficially - yours of 16 Aug. included. I have
re-read it now and can't retain my accusation of irrelevance re. the
MOQ. You discuss the SODAV paper very properly.
And yet, I have said this before: In the said paper Pirsig addresses
an assembly of non-moqers and goes to great lengths to sound
"realist". He is prevented from applying the MOQ on its own terms.
You say:
> For me the question remains however what Pirsig's take on this is.
> After reading Subjects, Objects, Data and Values again, I couldn't
> go around the fact that Pirsig refers to Reality as primarily
> human-experience based.
Reality as primarily human-experience-based? God, what is not?
You cite the paper:
>> "The Metaphysics of Quality
> > agrees with scientific realism that these inorganic patterns are
> > completely real, and there is no reason that box shouldn't be
> > there, but it says that this reality is ulimately a deduction made
> > in the first months of an infant's life and supported by the
> > culture in which the infant grows up."
It's painful to hear Pirsig having to say these impossible SOM
(cum MOQ) things. Once a theory the size of a metaphysics is accepted
(and this is the first time ever something of this magnitude has
been proposed) it immediately crystallize reality into its
patterns.....every last bit. For one who haven't heard about the MOQ
or don't understand the implications "Matter" isn't "inorganic
patterns of value", but REALITY itself. This causes all
what-goes-into-what-box talk. To reach this audience Pirsig should
have started with the basics, but he did not have the time - or was
wise enough to understand that having accepted the invitation he was
supposed to speak on their terms (something called "Principia
Cybernetics" arranged the conference I believe).
But we of this forum are supposed to know so the SODAV is not for
us. Bringing it (as well as ZAMM) into the MOQ discussion often
causes confusion. What enters the instruments are of course inorganic
patterns of value rising through the value levels to become
Intellectual pattern end products (theories) there is no issue to a
MOQer if the former is really out there or the latter is in here, or
any other SOM induced problems. But - again - imagine the
(lack of) reception such a statement would have received.
Reality is Quality and must necessarily be Observation as well.
Bo
PS. I know that Pirsig was disappointed with the whole Brüssel
conference affair, and when invited by the Danish science
writer Tor Nörretranders to a similar event in Copenhagen the year
after, he declined.
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