Denis, Roger and MOQers:
Yes, dear readers, we are still discussing wether or not the levels of
static Quality have "existence" outside of our ideas of them.
This post is a response to the post Denis sent on Friday. It was pretty
long and so I won't reproduce it as part of my answer and would ask any
interested persons to look at the Parisian's post for themselves.
The debate began with my attempt to dispute one particular quote, which
doesn't fairly represent Denis's entire view, but which struck me as a
mistake with wide implications....
DENIS SAID "All we (Roger and I) are saying is that the levels were
located in the Q-intellect and that discussing dogs was discussing an
intellectual pattern deduced from Quality." AND "All patterns of value
are also intellectual patterns of value."
I explained that this perspective is Solipsistic, a pretty radical form
of subjectivism and essentially paints a SOM picture where we are locked
inside the mind. It strikes me as a profound amplification of the
mind-body problem and puts us in the lap of Cartesian skepticism. Denis
pretty much agrees with this part of the criticism and does not endorse
Solipsim, but says my refutation paints an equally SOM picture. Because
I argue for the actual existence of the lowest three levels, he calls me
a materialist. (OK, so I guess we're even.) I've been called worse
things than that, but still I have to deny it. In fact, I'm neither a
realist nor an idealist. I've been trying to make the case for as long
as I've been here, that the MOQ is mysticism. In terms of a
philosophical position, I consider myself a mystic. It's my view that
Pirsig is also a mystic in this sense. The only thing that troubles me
is that I must have been mis-understood. I work very hard to be clear.
(And you may feel this way too.) I look forward to debates and
disagreements and only feel I've failed when I'm not understood.
You may have noticed that I tend say the same thing several different
ways. I like to do this with the comments from posters and with quotes
from Pirsig. By using variations in sentence structure and vocabulary we
can see the same idea expressed a number of different ways. I like to
use several different metaphors to point toward the same idea. I like to
make the same point from several different perspectives. But this only
works when you, dear reader, use your imagination to add it all up and
paint a picture using all the various pointing fingers. Maybe that's
obvious, but I thought it was worth pointing out for two reasons. The
first is simply because someone (Marco?) said he found my stuff hard to
read. The second reason is more important. I've noticed that folks can
trade a direct quote back and forth several times before it occurs to
anyone that they are interpeting the exact same words in two completely
different ways. And it's pretty obvious that there is no real debate in
situations where each side is talking about the same words, but there is
an unspoken distance between interpetations of the quote. As odd as it
may seem, precise quotes can actually be misleading. I don't mean to
pick on Roger. We've have some rich and lenghtly debates, and I always
look forward to his input. But he has used quotes from Pirsig and others
and interpeted them in ways I just can't go along with. I've found this
leads to alot of frustration on both sides. Anyway, on with the
debate...
Denis feels he's been made into a straw man when I said, ""Denis and
Roger have mis-interpeted the basic structure of the MOQ by doubting the
existence of the three lowest levels and by putting evolution,
revolution and Dynamic change into ordinary consciousness." Denis asks
where I got such an impression. And so I point to the quote at the top
of the page where he'd said that the levels were located in the
intellect, although the second quote apparently has him saying that
these levels are not JUST in the intellect. He says the "also" is
crucial and saves him from Solipsim. So we really agree more than not on
this matter and I'm not going to split hairs at this point. Instead,
I'll focus on an area where I think we have a genuine disagreement and
not just a misunderstanding. Roger has apparently stepped back from full
fledged Solipsism too, admitting that ZMM's Phaedrus can't really speak
for Lila's MOQ. I'm not saying the whole matter is settled, but I'd
rather address other issues that have been raised by Denis.
The topic upon which we REALLY disagree is centered around the
difference between the social and intellectual levels. I've been making
this same point under several different headings, but I'm going to
continue until there is some indication that I've made the point
clearly. I can't emphasize this enough, apparently. I'm talking about
SOCIAL LEVEL MEDIATION. Please, please, please address this issue in
your responses. SOCIAL LEVEL MEDIATION is the pivot point around which
all the other ideas revolve and yet everyone has ignored it almost
entirely. It is related to the question of the existence or
non-existence of the levels, but it's much more than that. The idea of
SOCIAL LEVEL MEDIATION solves the problems with SOM without resorting to
Solipsism OR materialism. Feel free to disagree, but please don't ignore
this issue any more. To ignore this issue is to ignore the main point.
In a way, its the only thing I care about right now. If you, dear
reader, should respond with out taking up the issue of SOCIAL LEVEL
MEDIATION, then we're not really communicating at all.
Even though Denis and I seem to disagree, I'm extremely relieved that he
addresses the topic directly. It's tough to pin him down, but if I
understand him correctly, Denis doesn't see much difference between the
social and intellectual levels. I think this is a HUGE mistake. He says
"the mythos is static intellect", suggesting that the mythos is just
old, bad science. And while I certainly agree that we can have a
"scientific" mythos like SOM, I think its incorrect to fuse the two
levels into one thing. In my view, it is precisely SOM that has us
coming to the conclusion that our gods and mythos are just the
inventions of a low quality, primitive intellect. This is the attitude
that allows us to ignore the social level values and jump directly from
the body to the mind, hence the mind-body problem. I think Pirsig is
saying there is a connecting bridge between the two that solves the
mind-body problem. Obviously that bridge is the Mythos, which is perhaps
more accuratley refered to as the social level of static Quality. The
bridge also has the effect of putting "all there is" into a unified
field of evolution. Social level mediation plugs the gap between "mind"
and "body" and turn a universe of a zillion seperate "objects" into a
wholistic field of evolutionary progress.
I think Denis may have fused the two levels because "thoughts" and
language are common to both of them. He seems to equate the symbolic
nature of language with intellectual abstraction, but I don't think
these are the same thing at all. There has been some rather emphatic
assertions about the fact that no dogs come out of our mouths when we
say the word "dog", but I dare say even a three year old child
understands that. Maybe I'm missing the point here, but I don't think
anyone has confused words with actual experiences or that the use of
language is intellectual by definition. As I pointed out in the other
forum, even chimpanzees can communicate using orginial sentences, but
this can hardly be considered "intellectual". All I'm saying is that
language is prior to intellect. As Bohr says, "We are suspended in
language." I take this to mean that all our intellectual constructs are
dependent on the social level. There can be language without intellect,
but there is no intellect without language. Language is a necessary, but
insufficient condition of intellect. In the same sense, there can be
inorganic Quality without organic static patterns, but there is no
"life" without "matter". There is no tribe without organisms, but there
can be organisms without a tribe. The social level wasn't created by the
intellect any more than New York city invented its people.
See what I'm saying here? Each level depends on the lower ones for its
existence. The main problem with SOM is that it thinks social values are
an invention of the intellect instead of the other way around. SOM
doesn't see it as a distinctly different level of reality, its seen as
poor science or primitive intellect or just prejudice and superstition.
But the "truth" is that the social level is as different from the
intellect as rocks are different than dogs. Pirsig mentions Joseph
Campbell's "The Masks of God" toward the very end of Lila and says that
it would go a long way toward explaining exactly what the mythos is. And
fortunately, I'm a big fan of Campbell and have a pretty good idea what
Pirsig is getting at. You could say that Campbell is a Jungian and
Jung's ideas are extremely helpful in this area too. As a student of
history I have some idea what happened to our myths and gods as the
scientific method was being born. But I've already said so much about
the scientific revolution that I have to assume this aspect of my
argument is not in dispute?
Again, this is all about SOCIAL LEVEL MEDIATION. It is Pirsig's way of
re-connecting the "mind" and "body". Its not a denial of the existence
of mind or body, it is a way to bring them out of their estranged
relationship. Its Pirsig's way of explaining "subjects" and "objects" in
a larger context wherein they are no longer primary, but are just a
particular kind of static Quality. Pirsig isn't denying the existence of
that which we formerly refered to as subjects and objects, he's just
saying that there is a lot more to reality than that. He's saying that
subjects and objects themselves are the creation of something much more
primary, namely Dynamic Quality. He's saying SOM has misconcieved
reality in a way that leaves a blinding gap. The MOQ closes that gap by
reasserting the role of social Quality in our overall thought process.
Social level values are just as real and valid as any other static
value. Social level values at the level are built into the language and
are expressed in our myths and gods. You can think of our gods and heros
as the representatives of a society's beliefs and values. By learning to
respect and understand the vast amount of meaning and value contained in
the social level, it is rescued from oblivion and re-inserted into the
total picture. I'm not saying we should all become hero-worshiping
bible-thumpers. I'm suggesting that myths and gods are to be understood
as static social Quality, not just bad science or ignorant superstition.
That's SOM's big mistake.
I'm all out of time now, but if anyone is actually interested I'd be
more than happy to get more specific about Campbell, Jung, myths and
gods.
And please don't be distracted by something I smay have said along the
way, I'm just trying to get this idea of SOCIAL LEVEL MEDIATION across.
And that is a difficult enough task without having to do metaphysics at
the end of every sentence. Please look past my use of the words
"subject", "object", "mind" and "matter". Instead, please just look at
the issue I'm pointing toward.
Wet sloppy kisses, DMB
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