From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Mon Mar 07 2005 - 19:12:52 GMT
DMB et al,
Scott asked:
Was there consciousness before the biological level came into being?
dmb answered with quotes from Pirsig:
"In the MOQ empirical experience begins with Quality which generates
intellectual patterns. One of these intellectual patterns is named 'senses,'
but this pattern is derived from the study of anatomy and is not primary in
the actual empirical process."
"The MOQ agrees that the senses are primary in an anatomical explanation of
[the] empirical process. So the statement in Lila seems correct to me. But
at the cutting edge of the actual Dynamic empirical moment these anatomical
explanations are nowhere to be found."
To which Scott replied:
I fail to see how these quotes answer my question. Awareness does not
require sense organs (we are aware of our thoughts, and there is mystical
awareness).
dmb says presently:
I'm stunned by this glib dismissal and the failure even to see how the
quotes address your question. At the risk of insulting your intelligence,
let me spell out what it means. You'll notice in the quotes that the
anatomical explanation of the empirical process is an intellectual pattern
generated by a prior experience, and so are the biological sense organs
themselves. As a form of idealism, there is a sense in which the entire
world, the entire encyclopedia, is a construction of the intellect. Pirsig
makes this same point in another place that is less specifically about sense
organs. Maybe you recall. It asserts the same idea in broader terms,
qualifying the idea of the inorganic coming before life, which came before
society, which came before intellect. Within a static view, such basic
common sense notions of time and space can't be abandon. And we can accept
these ideas as very good and useful, true and correct in all practical
matters. But ultimately, he says, all of those ideas of bodies and senses
and the evolutionary history that produced them are just that. Ideas. You'll
also notice it in these quotes too. "Experience begins with Quality which
generates intellectual patterns." One of those intellectual static patterns
says that bodies and sense organs are a pre-requisite for consciousness. But
at the moment of Quality experience "these anatomical explanations are
nowhere to be found". This is how the quotes answer your question. Yes,
there is consciousness before the biological level. The biological level is
a construct of the intellect, which is generated by a prior experience.
Clearly this is a form of consciousness quite differnet from the SOM notion.
It this confusion, I thought, that prompted the question and which leads me
to conclude that you're sneaking the SOM self back in - inadvertantly.
Scott:
So why not just say the answer to my question is "no"? After all, I am
asking, within the intellectual patterns known as the MOQ, is there
awareness before the biological level? Pirsig says there isn't, since for
Pirsig, awareness starts with the biological level. Fine. But then you add
the last bit: "But at the moment of Quality experience "these anatomical
explanations are nowhere to be found". This is how the quotes answer your
question. Yes, there is consciousness before the biological level. The
biological level is a construct of the intellect, which is generated by a
prior experience." Well, that is changing the question and therefore the
answer. Since before any intellectual construct there is this "prior
[Quality] experience", about which absolutely nothing can be said, how can
you even say that it comes before any intellectual construct?
Anyway, sticking within the MOQ, I argue that to claim that there is value
at the inorganic level but not awareness is a very weird idea. It is that
that started this whole sub-thread. And one thing I asked about it is: by
what empirical argument (using the MOQ's definition of empirical: reasoning
about what the senses provide, including something called the "sense of
value") can one claim either that there is or is not value at the inorganic
level? Or that there is or is not awareness?
Ant McWatt said to Scott:
A conflation of intellect (as understood by Pirsig) with Dynamic Quality
will be confusing if applied to the MOQ. A real spanner in the works which
I'm opposed to. (dmb added more of the same criticism.)
Scott denied the charge:
[Scott: the following was not a denial of Ant's charge. It was a denial of
your different criticism that I was claiming that normal reason could grasp
Ultimate Reality. I am in agreement with Ant that to conflate Intellect with
Quality will confound the MOQ, but of course what I am saying is that the
MOQ is, in the way it treats intellect, bad metaphysics.]
...What I have said is that Quality and Intellect are two names for the same
(non-)thing. This does NOT imply that the normal, S/O-based intellect can
grasp Ultimate Reality. It does not even imply that a Buddha can
intellectually grasp Ultimate Reality. It does imply that we can -- and I
think we should -- think of everything as the play of Intellect. It was SOM
that removed intellect from nature. The MOQ, by its definition of intellect,
preserves that removal, by treating intellect in the same way that
materialism does, assuming that it came into existence from a reality that
didn't have it. I am arguing -- against materialism and against the MOQ --
that it be restored.
dmb says:
Let me start with your assertion that the MOQ's version of the intellect is
like the SOM materialist version. If you consider the Pirsig quotes and the
explanation I provided, then you should be able to see that Pirsig version
of the intellect is not removed from nature nor does it assume that
intellect arises from material reality. Instead, nature is a construction of
the intellect, a product of the intellect, synonymous with it in a very real
sense.In the MOQ, the intellect creates the subject and the object, it
creates the idea of a sensory creature in a material world. This very much
turns SOM and materialism on its head, specifically with respect to the
intellect. Unlike SOM, the MOQ puts both subjects and objects on one side of
the metaphysical split. Unlike materialism, the MOQ doesn't put matter
before mind or sense organs before consciousness. In other words, your
assertion that the MOQ is like SOM materialism is WAY wrong.
Scott:
What I am saying is that *within* the intellectual structure known as the
MOQ is the claim that first there was an inorganic level, then a biological
built on it (thanks to clever use of carbon atoms), then the social built on
the biological, then the intellectual built on the social. So the
intellectual construct known as the MOQ *does* put matter (the inorganic and
biological) before mind (the social and intellectual). Pirsig calls this a
"good idea" (LC #97: "Within the MOQ, the *idea* that static patterns of
value start with the inorganic level is considered to be a good *idea*".)
That is no different from the version of development found in the
intellectual structure known as materialism, except that the MOQ adds
something called DQ to carry out this development, while materialism
ascribes this to chance. A materialist *also* thinks it is a "good idea" to
say that mind developed out of matter. (And, a materialist, in his or her
philosophical moments, is just as likely (especially if s/he is also a
pragmatist) to say: "Instead, nature is a construction of the intellect, a
product of the intellect, synonymous with it in a very real sense.")
What I am doing (by conflating Quality and Intellect) is arguing for a
different intellectual construct, which sees both the MOQ's and the
materialists's ideas about mind and matter as bad, and so one which
constructs a different set of ideas of mind and nature.
A related question: There are materialists and others who will claim that
their intellectual construct is what it is because they assume a nature that
exists in itself in pretty much the way that their intellectual construct
describes (or at least, that is what they hope for their construct). Take
them as one extreme (call them realists). The opposite extreme is called
nihilism, that our intellectual constructs may, as far we truly know, be
completely arbitrary. Where do you see the MOQ in relation to these
extremes, or alternatively, how do you see the MOQ as escaping this
classification? To put it another way, in relation to Pirsig's LC #97 quote,
what is *not* "within the MOQ", and, if there is anything, how does the MOQ
relate to it? I am, of course, asking how you see the MOQ escaping the
charge of being nihilist, if you don't think it is.
- Scott
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