ROGER AGREES WITH HORSE
To Horse and all the spillover crowd:
HORSE:
Rog, I've done a cut and paste job on your post - hope you don't mind
- which I hope gets to the core of the argument. I haven't included all
the Pirsig quotes, just the last 2 you included, as commenting all of
them would probably end up going off at some tangent or other.
Anyway...
ROG:
Actually, I appreciate it when I am quoted instead of being labeled and
misquoted as has been the case lately by numerous other squaddies. (the evil
ones). In fact, I wish you had addressed the quotes I used in my argument
rather than in my post script, but beggars can't be choosy, and we do end in
100% agreement.
PIRSIG [Post script] QUOTE #1:
> In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which
> gives rise to the creation of intellectual patterns which
> in turn produce a division between subjects and objects.
> Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern that says
> "there is an external world of things out there which are
> independent of intellectual patterns".
HORSE COMMENTARY:
Pirsig obviously didn't mean that first there is quality and then there
is intellect with nothing in between and I know this isn't what you
mean either. But this is pretty much the message that seems to be
coming out and which is probably responsible for the accusations of
Solipsism. The experience that is referred to here is intellectual
experience as far as I can make out - correct me if you disagree
ROG:
I basically agree. That experience which is referred to as intellectual
experience is intellectuallly explained as arising out of social and so on.
This is a very high quality intellectual or metaphysical pattern. It is far
from universally recognized, but I think you and I would agree to it.
HORSE COMMENTARY CONTINUED:
OK. So reading the above it looks like Pirsig is saying that
Intellectual patterns are one of a number of patterns - why else use
the term 'among'.
ROG:
Not so fast Speed Racer. The subject being discussed is 'INTELLECTUAL
PATTERNS." "These patterns" is referencing back to the intellectual patterns
in the prior sentence. He says the two words together three times in one
short paragraph. Here he deletes it for artistic sake, but references that
it is not some separate type of pattern with his use of the word 'these'.
HORSE:
This seems to me to be intellectual value creating
a space which distinguishes it from other patterns or combinations of
other patterns of value. In other words asserting its independence
from other patterns and attempting to dominate other patterns - this
is where we get to the root of the problem and what seems to have
strangely disappeared from much of the conversation.
It is moral for Intellect to dominate other patterns of value but that
dominance does not mean that patterns of value other than intellect
no longer exist.
This is the residue of much of the contest between prior
metaphysical systems - where materialism (and some of its unwieldy
offspring) seems to currently dominate.
ROG:
This is the root of the problem. I view the issue holistically. Patterns
imply a pattern maker as subjects imply objects. In the MOQ, of course,
both sets emerge out of Quality. Without the intellectual slices, reality is
'dynamic and flowing". It is the intellect that adds the conceptual static
and discontinuous slices to reality.
Let me attempt another angle.... Below is a cut and paste of the relevant
terms for 'pattern' out of my online dictionary.
PATTERN:
1. a decorative design.
2. decoration or ornament having such a design.
3. a natural or chance marking, configuration, or design:
4. a distinctive style, model, or form.
5. a combination of qualities, acts, tendencies, etc., forming a consistent
or characteristic arrangement:.
6. an original or model considered for or deserving of imitation
7. anything fashioned or designed to serve as a model or guide for something
to be made:
ROG:
Patterns are defined as models, designs, configurations, forms, consistent
combinations of qualities, characteristic arrangements, etc.
Do you think these models and forms existed absent the intellectual model and
form maker? The terms define each other like Yin and Yang. You cannot have
good without bad, you can't have white without black, and you can't have
patterns without pattern recognizers.
Again, reality is dynamic and flowing. All the above combos are static
intellectual slices. They are consistent, codefining slices derived from
direct experience.
Pirsig Quote #2:
> When we speak of an external world guided by evolution it's normal
> to assume that it is really there, is independent of us and is the
> cause of us. The MOQ goes along with this assumption because
> experience has shown it to be an extremely high quality belief for
> our time. But unlike materialist metaphysics, the MOQ does not
> forget that it is still just a belief - quite different from beliefs in the
> past, from beliefs of other present cultures, and possibly from
> beliefs we will all have in the future. What will decide which belief
> prevails is, of course, its quality.
HORSE:
The important part of the above is in the first sentence. Independence
and Cause. Most materialist positions will support the above. First
comes matter then comes everything else. This is the position
accepted by most/many in one form or another. Pirsig has proposed
with the MoQ that prior to matter is Quality (or Value) which is the
great creator! But, as far as I can see, the MoQ supports the position
that Quality creates Inorganic patterns of Value, which is effectively
another name for matter. As an evolutionary process
Organic/Biological patterns of Value emerge from Inorganic patterns
of Value, Social patterns of value emerge from Biological patterns of
Value and finally Intellectual patterns of Value emerge from social
patterns of Value. At which point Intellect declares the whole lot to
be "really" Intellectual patterns of Value.
Talk about a lack of gratitude :)
>From the Intellects point of view this is correct as what we are
referring to as patterns of Value is a system of classification
constructed by Intellect which also happens to be self-referential.
This is the Static latching that Pirsig refers to.
There is only Quality, but as this is ultimately unknowable (or not
expressible adequately) and the Intellect seems to have some need
to know and to explain what it experiences then it is inevitable that a
complex classification process will arise. So we have Science,
Metaphysics, Religion, Art etc. Processes which attempt to explain
and classify experience.
But at the same time Intellect is recognizing that there are patterns
of value that are distinct from the Intellect and that the Intellect is an
emegent product of these patterns of Value. A classification into 4
levels is a convenient way to dissect and examine 'reality'. Quality
events are not confined to the Intellect. Quality events are the
essence of experience for all patterns of value as it is what creates
static patterns of value.
ROG:
I would say it slightly different , but basically agree.
OLD ROGER QUOTE:
>Q1)Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns?
>Patterns are conceptual classifications of experience. The levels are
>intellectual distinctions of direct experience. The levels and the
>DQ/sq split are intellectual patterns derived from dynamic and flowing
>experience.
HORSE ANSWERED:
What seems to be getting confused here is the terminology which
describes and what it is that is being described.
If you re-read my answer to this in my LS post you'll see that I DON'T
disagree with you. The point I was trying to put across is that it is
intellect that sees patterns as distinct and separate but to assume
that this is an exact decription of reality is literally a non-sense - no
better in a final analysis than a sub-division into subjects and
objects.
Like you, I subscribe (generally) to the Santiago theory and
Autopoiesis and would, for the most part, agree with Maturana's
interpretation:
"... a living being brings forth a world by making distinctions.
Cognition results from a pattern of distinctions, and distinctions are
perceptions of difference" (Appendix, Item 2 - Web of Life - Fritjof
Capra).
The differences we perceive in the web of Value in which we exist are
real. They are not 'Ghosts' - they are experienced values and very
real in the most valuable sense of the word. When we 'bring forth a
world' it is a perception of the totality of existence in which we
participate. The levels are an expression of the distinctions we
perceive and a way of catagorizing the differences.
ROG:
I agree completely. Sorry if I misunderstood you. I think I was guilty of
the same evil I accused others of, namely using other's distortions of a
person's position to define their position.
OLD ROGER QUOTE:
>Q2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created?
>The levels and DQ/sq were CREATED. They are intellectual divisions of
>the dynamic and flowing undifferentiated flux of experience. The judge
>of these intellectual classifications is Quality. We do not create the
>experience. The experience creates us. We do however create the static
>conceptual patterns of reality.
HORSE:
Again if you re-read my answer to this question there is not that
much disagreement between us. My objection by way of a paradox
was meant to show that care is needed when referring to patterns of
value as intellectual constructions - something which seems to have
occurred judging by the general perception of disagreement. One's
Aristotle is not a good place up which to disappear.
Strictly speaking the 4 levels of the MoQ are BOTH created AND
discovered. It is a process of discovery that there are distinguishable
patterns of Value which create a difference in our perception of reality
and a process of classification as a means of ordering the world we
bring forth.The subdivision of the experienced world into four levels is
a product of intellect and is (sometimes) a convenient and useful
means of describing the world but it is not THE world. In some cases
it is of great value and in other cases it is not. Context must also be
Considered.
ROG:
Very well said. Let us again be as brothers and let no man tear us assunder.
Roger Parker
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