From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Sep 26 2004 - 18:35:49 BST
DMB,
> [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....
<what follows is a definition of nominalism that I have agreed does not
make Pirsig a nominalist>. But you ignore that I said "My disagreements
with Pirsig arise from his nominalism (in Peirce's meaning, that universals
are restricted to humans)."
So there are two definitions of nominalism. If you know of a better term
for Peirce's use of the term, let me know, and I'll use that instead.
>
> 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.
So if you read what I said for example:
> Scott said:
> Yes, I have flip-flopped. If nominalism is the idea that
> "universals aren't real", then the MOQ is not nominalistic, and that is
> where I agreed with Paul, acknowledging that the MOQ regards universals as
> real. But if nominalism is the idea that universals only exist in humans
> (which is how Peirce defines it), then the MOQ is nominalistic
Perhaps you wouldn't waste posting space with the above.
>
> [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.
Correct, and I maintain that intellect, yours and mine, is Dynamic and
static, while Pirsig says it is just static. (I never said anything about
dumb versus smart, of course.)
> 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.
By this view of intellect, a creative mathematician like Poincare
apparently does nothing but take dictation from DQ. I don't believe that,
and I don't think Pirsig believes it, but from his definition of intellect
as static, what else can one say?
>
> [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.
Yes, as my very next sentence acknowledges.
>
> 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.
That is what I am saying.
> If that were
> true how could evolution occur at the other levels?
By not restricting 'intellect' to humans, as Pirsig does. Why does he do
that?
> You're not saying that
> biological evolution depends upon intellectual reflection are you?
Not human intellect, no. Cosmic intellect, yes.
> 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!
What do you use when writing posts? Are you just taking dictation or are
you thinking, and thereby creating new ideas? I think it is the latter. You
are creating new patterns, You are being dynamic.
As to what you said above, you are using the word 'intellect' the way
Pirsig wants you to. What I am saying is that I think this way (Pirsig's)
of using 'intellect' is a bad way to use it, as it is unempirical, since it
ignores the dynamic inherent in our creative thinking. And because it
suggests a limited interpretation of mysticism (see below).
>
> [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.
It is thrown out only in humans. I want it thrown out in the other levels
as well.
> 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.)
Once again you ignore what I said. Peirce defines the scholastic realist
(i.e., the opponent of nominalism) as one who holds that "general
principles [i.e., universals] occur in nature". The nominalist in this
sense holds that in nature there are only particulars. Now Pirsig does hold
(and of course I agree with him) that in nature (the inorganic and
biological levels) there is value. So what I am saying is that if there is
value, then there are particulars and general principles, and an awareness
of them. That is, there is Peirce's triad. That is intellect. So at all
levels there is intellect.
What this means is that Pirsig and I are using 'intellect' in different
ways, and I am arguing that my way is better than Pirsig's. So it is beside
the point for you to keep quoting Pirsig in his use of the term, as a way
to rebut what I am saying.
>
> [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.
It is dishonest to disagree with Pirsig? Are you a fundamentalist of some
sort? This argument of mine is all about how I think that Pirsig is
misusing the word 'intellect'.
> "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
I agree. But I also maintain that if one has ethical activity one
necessarily has intellectual activity.
>
> [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.
I am using 'ideas' in the way pre-SOM philosophers did, and in the way
Goethe, Coleridge, Peirce, and other non-nominalists do. It is only
nominalists, in both definitions of the term, who use 'ideas' as something
that only occurs in humans.
> 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.
It is not good enough because it denies the connection that I (and Goethe,
etc.) believe exists between our ideas and the ideas that exist in nature.
>
> 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 now
> where you ever got the idea that human intellect is contaminated cosmic
> intellect.
Eckhart: "There is one power in the soul: intellect, of prime importance to
the soul for making her aware of, for detecting God...The soundest
arguments expressly state (what is the truth) that the kernel of eternal
life lies rather in knowledge than in love....The soul is not dependent
upon temporal things but in the exaltation of her mind is in communication
with the things of God."
ShankaraCharya: "The Yogi, whose intellect is perfect, contemplates all
things as dwelling within himself..." [This and the Eckhart quote from
"From Intellect to Intuition" by Alice Bailey.]
[As I quoted earlier: Plotinus:] "In a certain sense, no doubt, all lives
are thoughts -- but qualified as thought vegetative, thought sensitive, and
thought psychic. What, then, makes them thoughts? The fact that they are
Reason-Principles. Every life is some form of thought, but of a dwindling
clearness like the degrees of life itself. The first and clearest Life and
the first Intelligence are one Being. The First Life, then is an
Intellection and the next form of Life is the next Intellection and the
last form of Life is the last form of Intellection. Thus every Life is of
this order; it is an Intellection." [Enneads III.8.8, translation by
Stephen McKenna]
Merrell-Wolff: "The primary value of the intellect is that it gives
command. By means of science, nature is manipulated and controlled in an
ever-widening degree. This fact is too well known to need elaboration. The
same principle applies to transcendent realities. Through the power of
thought this domain, too, becomes one to be navigated. Immature mystics are
not navigators, and therefore realize the transcendent as a sea in which
their boats of consciousness either drift or are propelled by powers that
they, individually, do not control. In such cases, if the boats are
controlled, the unseen intelligence does the work. Many mystics give this
controlling power the name of "God". The real and genuine reference here is
to a Power beyond the individual and self-conscious personal self that is
realized as operative but not understood in its character. On the other
hand, the mystic who has control may drop the term "God", with its usual
connotations, from his vocabulary. However, he knows that the term does
refer to something quite real though very imperfectly understood by the
larger number of mystics. This control depends upon the development of
understanding and thought having quite a different order of reference from
that which applies to experience through the senses." ["Experience and
Philosophy", p 245]
>
> [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.
I am *disagreeing* with Pirsig, so how do I quote Pirsig to support my
disagreements?
> 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.
You've been quoting things I agree with him on.
> (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!
Not by the definitions I have used. You have ignored my explicitly stated
distinctions, yet find blame with me. Curious.
>
> [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'!
Of course. I didn't say that he does think that evolution "just happened".
I agree with him that Quality drives evolution. Read what I say. I am
*also* saying that value implies intellect, so one can also say that
intellect drives evolution. They would not be opposing statements *except*
that Pirsig has chosen to define intellect in an unnecessarily limited way.
And note that by jumping on this, you have again managed to ignore my
reasoning for why SQ are universals.
>
> "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
I agree. But they are also "laws", that is , general principles, and that
means change is a matter of changing universals. That is intellect.
>
> [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.
No, language and intellect are about dividing and reuniting. In seeing the
limits of existing SQ and thereby creating better SQ. That creating is DQ.
> 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.
Since "nous" means "intellect", that is not a confusion. There are, of
course, levels of intellect, and I've stated many times that one does need
to distinguish between our limited intellects and cosmic intellect. But at
the same time one must keep in mind their connection.
> 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.
You have consistently misunderstood what I have said (for example, thinking
that I said there are no particulars, ignoring my distinction on
nominalism, ignoring how much I agree with Pirsig, and so forth). I
understand what Pirsig has said, and I agree with 90% of it (or whatever).
I am only arguing that his use of the word 'intellect' is a bad
metaphysical move. It is a bad move because it denies what Eckhart, et al
say (see quotes above): that intellect is our road to transcendence.
- Scott
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