From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Aug 05 2004 - 20:00:12 BST
Hi all,
I too am back, after a six month hiatus due to struggles with the Giant in
various ways (I lost, of course). It is good to see that something more
sensible, namely moq_discuss, keeps on.
But eager to pick up where I seemed to have left off...
Paul said:
> On the other hand (and I have not denied this throughout the dialogue),
> without society, and biology, and matter, there are no intellectual
> patterns.
Why do you (and Pirsig) assume this? True, our only experience of
intellectual patterns is as embodied beings, but some mystics (Franklin
Merrell-Wolff and Rudolf Steiner, for example) have different experiences,
of disembodied intellect. There are also probabilistic arguments against it
from the Intelligent Design folks, which, though not conclusive, should at
least allow for some doubt (though I have different disagreements with
them, namely that they are too theistic). And there is also my own argument
(which I won't repeat here) that you can't get intellect out of
non-intellect patterns, regardless of how complex the latter may be. To say
that you can, as the Emergence folks do, is so much arm-waving, a
non-argument forced by a dogmatic adherence to Darwinisim.
> But, finally, I really think it is important for you to appreciate that
> the individual is not containing the patterns. A glass contains water,
> when you pour out the water, the glass remains. If you "pour out" the
> patterns of an individual human, only Dynamic Quality remains, which
> doesn't contain anything.
I agree that the container/contained model doesn't work, but I would say
that the individual should be seen as a localized version of DQ, and not
just of static patterns, that the DQ that is left after "pouring out" SQ is
a part of the individual, though it would be better to say that a (human)
individual should be seen as a locus of DQ/SQ interaction. To limit the
individual to SQ denies our ability to observe and reflect on SQ, and to
create new patterns. Otherwise, one must explain how some SQ can observe
and reflect on other SQ *as* patterns (that is, as wholes), which I believe
to be impossible.
It is a slip back into SOM to begin with the
> existence of an individual who *has* experiences and therefore *has*
> patterns. It is also important to see that the patterns which compose an
> individual are changing and in a relationship with other patterns with
> boundaries that are also changing and so, as there is nothing fixed
> containing the patterns, an individual, as with everything, has
> permanence only by postulation.
But there is "temporary permanence", one might say, that is, duration. If
you see a light go on, there had to be some continuity from the state
before the light went on to the state after, or there wouldn't be any
noticing of a difference. It is a return to (dualist) SOM to account for
the continuity by saying that there is a self independent of the change in
light, but it is also a form of SOM (materialist nominalism) to say that
the continuity is "postulation". There is a mystery here that both SOM and
the MOQ are incapable of addressing. If you say that that the continuity is
supplied by DQ then you are saying that you are DQ, since you noticed the
change. If you say that it is one static pattern observing another, then
you are arm-waving.
The irony is that Pirsig had the solution (well, a pointer to it) in ZAMM,
when he said that Quality creates the subject and object in acts of
perception, but then lost it in LILA when he redefined subject and object
in such a way that it is impossible for the MOQ to account for perception.
- Scott
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