From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Sep 26 2004 - 00:07:08 BST
[Scott said:]
The reason for the confusion is that SOM has as part of its
baggage nominalism, the idea that ideas only exist in humans. It is that
SOM assumption that I am trying to overcome.
dmb says:
I think you don't understand nominalism. Here's a definition....
"Nominalism is the designation usually applied to any philosophical system,
ancient or modern, that denies all objectivity, whether actual or potential,
to universals; in other words, nominalists grant no universality to mental
concepts outside the mind. In this sense, the philosophical systems of
Epicurus, William of Occam, George Berkeley, David Hume, John Stuart Mill,
and of contemporary linguistic analysis may be called nominalistic in that
they attribute universality only to words (nomina), mental habits, or
concepts and maintain the objective existence only of the concrete,
individual thing. Nominalism is simultaneously opposed to the philosophical
idealism of Plato and to the moderate realism of Aristotle and Saint Thomas
Aquinas. The principal objection of nominalists is to the attribution of
objective existence to ideas formally as they exist in the mind and
fundamentally (or potentially) as they exist in particulars having some
similarity to each other in any given class or species." James A. Weisheipl
dmb continues:
See? If nominalism denies the objective existence of mental concepts, it is
saying that ideas are just subjective. This is exactly what Pirsig attacks.
By contrast, Pirsig insists that these concepts are as real as rocks and
trees. What could be more opposite? To charge Pirsig with nominalism is just
plain incorrect. I can produce dozens of quotes where Pirsig is either
attacking nominalism or making assertions that contradict it, but you got
nada. You criticism is conspicously baseless AND is repeatedly contradicted
in his books. I honestly don't know what else I can do to convince you, but
I'm quite certain that you're barking up the wrong tree.
[Scott:]
Nowhere does he [Pirsig] say that DQ is intelligent. Instead, he calls it
pre-intellectual.
dmb says:
Saying that DQ is pre-intellectual does NOT mean that DQ is dumb. The
distinction here is between Dynamic and static, not between smart and
stupid, or whatever. The idea here is simply that reality is ultimately and
primarily dynamic, but that our ideas about it are not. In other words,
reality is something that happens BEFORE you have a chance to think about
it. Immediate experience is called Dynamic and pre-intelllectual because it
is not yet static. The creative force, the force of value that gives order
and structure to the universe is not static, and it isn't intellectual in
the way persons are intellectual, but is the ground of all that.
[Scott:] I came to philosophy as a student of computer and cognitive
science, and was confronted by the question of whether or not a computer
could be conscious. I didn't think it could be, but couldn't specify why.
People can do things, like identify a pattern from a bunch of particulars.
They turn photons into color and air vibrations into sound. How? Most of
all, people are aware of things, and can reflect on them. Why can't a
computer?
dmb says:
Why can't a computer reflect upon things? Only a materialist could ask this
question, right? MOQers know that between mind and matter, there is society
and biology. That's why we can't go from sand to mind.
Scott continued:
The MOQ's partial answer to this is to reject the materialism that forces a
belief that human abilities are reproducible in silicon. But that is only a
partial answer, for it still doesn't provide what it is that is different
between a human and a computer. The MOQ keeps the assumption that intellect
developed in time from a universe without intellect. Ok, there is something
called DQ that can do it all. But that is no more helpful than saying God
did it all unless DQ is also Dynamic Intellect, that is, if the
universal/particular distinction is present at all levels. For that is what
intellect does: finds patterns, reflects on them, and makes better ones.
(Of course cosmic intellect wouldn't have to find patterns, since it
created all of them.) Pirsig explictly calls DQ "pre-intellectual". So if
DQ is a "cosmic intelligence" then it is a pre-intellectual intelligence.
So now who is being confusing?
dmb says:
A universal/particular distinction at all levels? Cause that's what
intellect does, finds and reflects upon patterns to make better ones? I get
the impression that you're saying intellect drives evolution. If that were
true how could evolution occur at the other levels? You're not saying that
biological evolution depends upon intellectual reflection are you? That is
way too confusing. BUT, the MOQ does assert that even particles express
preferences and therefore act dynamically, although in a limited way.
Biological evolution, especially through sexual selection, proceeds
dynamically. Social reformers like Moses or the Zuni priest can precipitate
cultural evolution without necessarily involving the intellect. And then
there are the creative moments on the intellectual level too. The value
force that gives order to the cosmos acts differently depending on which
level we're talking about. The values that hold a glass of water together
are different than the values that hold a nation or a theory together and
yet DQ acts upon them all, infuses and supports them all. That's the cosmic
intelligence I'm talking about. It is not static nor intellectual nor
patterned and therefore shouldn't be confused with the fourth level of
static intellectual patterns.
Its like the difference between the wisdom of all creation and my limiting
ideas about creation, which is a rather substantial difference!
[Scott:] My point is that we do not need to assume that those abilities
"came into existence" in a cosmos that didn't have them. That assumption is
called nominalism, and it arose hand in hand with SOM. Throw it out, just
as the MOQ throws out the idea that value is only something subjective in
humans. The logic for throwing nominalism out is that intellect is
irreducible, as Peirce argues. It involves what he calls thirdness: a sign
(a particular, such as the physical word), a referent (the universal it
signifies), and an interpretant (that which connects the particular to the
universal). Such a triad cannot be produced from dyads (e.g., an electron
absorbing a photon, or one billiard ball hitting another), which are
strictly particulars.
dmb replies:
You hanged yourself with your own rope here. When Pirsig attacks "the idea
that value is only subjective" he is attacking nominalism, the belief that
mental concepts aren't really real. It has ALREADY BEEN THROWN OUT. This is
what I mean when I say your criticism isn't valid. You want Pirsig to drop a
postion that he does not hold. Pirsig has a different logic for throwing it
out. His rejection of materialism and his expanded empiricism and the
deniability of value has more to do with it than Pierce, if Pierce has
anything to do with it at all. (I think the there is no mystery to the
triad; the word, the concept it conjures and the actual referent are the
three parts of the total system and no "production" is required.)
[Scott:] I do not deny that intellect belongs on the top of the heap. It is
a really new thing that intellect has started operating within the physical
universe, in human beings, during the last couple of millenia. The spoiling
comes from treating intellect nominalistically so that people, especially
many with mystical inclinations, fail to appreciate it (John Beasley was a
notable example in this forum, though there have been many others). It is
our connection to godhood, not an obstacle. What obstructs are lingering
social and biological attachments. Intellect is not just analysis of
existing SQ. It also creates new SQ. It is DQ/SQ.
dmb just quotes Lila:
Some of the most honored philosophers in history has been mystics:... They
share a common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside of
language; that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of
reality is undivided. Zen, which is a mystic relgion, argues that the
illusion of dividedness can be overcome by meditation." page 63
"Metaphysics is not realiyt. Mataphysics is NAMES about reality. Metaphysics
is a restaurant where they give you a 30,000 page menu and no food." page 63
"Static social and intellectual patterns are only an INTERMEDIATE level of
evolution. They are good servants in the process of life but if allowed to
turn into masters they destroy it." page 374
"But waht she has to do is take a vacation from ALL patterns, old and new,
and just settle into a kind of emptimenss for a while. And if she does, the
culture has a moral obligation not to bother her. The most moral activity of
all is the creation of space for life to move onward." page 376
"KARMA is the pain, the suffering that results from clinging to the static
patterns of the world. The only exit from the suffering is is to detatch
yourself from these static patterns, that is, to kill them." page 398
[Scott:] Intellect is dynamic (in the MOQ sense of 'dynamic', i.e.,
creative). By reflecting on existing SQ it can create new SQ. The other
three levels cannot. So intellect should not be categorized as just SQ.
dmb says:
Again, you have misunderstood some MOQ basics. Evolution takes place at all
levels of static reality. Evolution is not driven by the intellect. You are
misuseing almost all of Pirsig's key terms. And if you've been reading my
posts over the past several years you know how much that buggs me. Nothing
personal. It angers me no matter who does it. I think its destructive and
intellectually dishonest.
"In traditional, substance-centered metaphysics, life isn't evolving toward
anything. Life's just an extention of the properites of atoms, nothing more.
It has to be that because atoms and varying forms of energy are all there
is. But in the MOQ, what is evolving isn't patterns of atoms. What's
evolving is static patterns of value, and while that doesn't change the data
of evolution it completely up-ends the interpretaion that can be given to
evoltuion." page 139
"So what Phaedrus was saying was that not just life, but everything, is an
ethical activity. It is nothing else. When inorganic patterns of reality
create life the MOQ postulates that they done so becasue its 'better' and
that this definition of 'betterness' - this beginning response to Dynamic
Quality - is an elementary unit of ethics upon which all right and wrong can
be based" page 157
[Scott:] While I think that your inability to see the vital role of ideas
in all of nature as symptomatic of SOM. It is SOM that isolated ideas
strictly to humans. Instead, it is better to say that we understand
something in nature when we connect to the idea that the natural object
expresses (if it is a true understanding).
dmb replies:
How do you figure "natural objects" express ideas? You must be using "ideas"
is a very unusual way, a way that only confuses. Why is it not good enough
to say that valuing is built into the very fabric of reality, as Pirsig
does? Why is it not good enough to say subatomic particles expresses
preferences and respond to DQ? Why do you insist on saying ideas and
intellect belong on these lower levels? Why not simply concede that
awareness on that level is so different from our species of consciousness
that it constitutes a different level of reality, deserves its own name, a
label that marks a very important distinction? Undermining these
distinctions does not help your case and I think it shows heaps of
disrespect for the author and for everyone who is trying to keep things
straight.
Scott said:
Please don't ignore the quotes around "confuse". I meant: let us not
separate completely our intellect with cosmic intellect. Human intellect is
cosmic intellect extremely muddied up with social and biological
attachments, and bad assumptions. By purifying our own intellect we recover
cosmic intellect. This will take a very long time, but the first step is to
quit talk of "going beyond" intellect.
DMB replies:
Where do you get this stuff? Seriously? It sounds like Zoroasterian
mythology. It contradicts Zen, Pirsig, Wilber, and every mystical
philosopher of which I'm aware. It contradicts the perennial philosophy. Do
you have any kind of support whatsoever? I'm just curious, really. I feel my
only task here is to refute your criticisms of Pirsig, but I'd like to know
where you ever got the idea that human intellect is contaminated cosmic
intellect.
[Scott:] The only distinction I want to correct is placing intellect solely
on the SQ side. By correcting this distinction, I believe I am making an
improved metaphysics, one more adequate to experience. Pirsig specifically
denies that there was any intellect before humans (as you quoted a while
back from a source I don't have). I say he is wrong, and have given my
reasons for saying so. Also my reasons for why it matters to correct it.
Just repeating the MOQ at me does not show my reasons to be invalid.
dmb replies:
Just repeating the MOQ at you? Um, its called supporting material. Its
called evidence. You might want to try it sometime. Normally, intellectually
honest people are persuaded by evidence and support. And the quotes I've
been throwing at you are the central part of the case against your
criticisms. (While we're on the topic, I should add that deleting and
ignoring that part of the case is evasive, maybe even cowardly, and only
demonstrates the weakness of your case.) By contrast, you have nothing to
support your criticisms. You've criticized Pirsig for holding views that
he's already rejected and replaced!
[Scott:] Well, I hope my remarks above help you understand. If all that
exists are particulars, then there is no value. Value lies in what
particulars can do, how they relate to other particulars, etc. Such
relations and functionalities are universals. Without universals, without
awareness of universals, and appreciation of how well the particulars
manifest the universals, all there is is mindless mechanism, and evolution
"just happened".
dmb replies:
Mindless mechanism? Pirsig is NOT saying evolution "just happened". That's
what he's disputing! He's saying EVERYTHING is an ethical activity. He is
saying NOTHING 'just happens'!
"The MOQ says that if moral judgments are essentially assertions of value
and if value is the fundamental ground-stuff of the world, then moral
judgemnts are the fundamental ground-stuff of the world. It says that even
at the most fundamental level of the universe, static patterns of value and
moral judgement are identical. The 'Laws of Nature' are moral laws." page
157
[Scott:] My disagreements with Pirsig arise from his nominalism (in
Peirce's meaning, that universals are restricted to humans). Since he just
assumes it, he does not give arguments for it, so there isn't much to
quote. I have frequently quoted his characterization of DQ as
"pre-intellectual", and have frequently brought up his view of Zen as
working to go beyond intellect, and why I disagree with it, as does the Zen
Master, Robert Aitken, as well as other mystics like Franklin Merrell-Wolff
(which is not to say that we can't go beyond where our intellect is now).
These are two cases where I think his metaphsyics has been skewed by his
nominalism. I am arguing that intellect is better thought of as being both
dynamic and static, but Pirsig does not consider that possibility, so
again, there is nothing to quote.
dmb's final response:
Based on the way you've treated Pirsig and Plotinus, I can only assume that
you've misunderstood Aitken, Merrell-Wolff and the others as well. The
mystical reality is undivided, but intellect and language are ALL ABOUT
divisions. Every genuine mystic stresses the importance of this distinction
and you want to undermine it? Without any support from logic or authority?
The worst philosopher in the world would be skeptical! Sorry, but I'm not
buying it either. Again, if you have some actual supporting material, even
for these others, you've kept it secret from me. When asked for actual
statements by Pirsig that would support your view you openly admit there
aren't any. You got nothing! I pretty much consider the case closed. You've
been knocked out in the second round. You're lying flat on your back with
little birds and stars swirling around your head.
But seriously, I think you're trying to saying something of substance, but
are not quite able to get it across. I suspect you're trying to get at the
noetic quality so often reported as a part of the mystical experience, but
it seems you have confused that kind of knowledge with intellectual
knowledge. I also think you've misunderstood Pirsig and predict that someday
you'll see that he's already offered what you're looking for. I suspect
you're only rejecting the same things that Pirsig has rejjected and the
actual problem is that you don't yet understand that.
I don't suppose I've written anything to fix that, but I've tried.
Thanks,
dmb
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