From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Thu Apr 28 2005 - 05:50:40 BST
Hi Arlo --
In reply to Ham's "reality check", Arlo said:
> I'd start with Pirsig's
> notion of "taking a handful of sand from the endless landscape around us
and
> calling that sand 'the world'" (not verbatim, I am writing from memory).
But,
> as Pirsig says, what's vital is that there is process of discrimination
going
> on, that is there is a figure in the middle of the landscape, sorting the
sand
> into categorical piles, selecting what is included and what is dismissed
So your perspective of reality could be defined as a kind of "process",
then -- the sorting and arranging of sand into piles. And because the
reality is not the sand itself or the figure sorting it, it is neither
subjective nor objective. Interesting, but not altogether surprising,
considering Pirsig's anthropological background and evolutionary viewpoint.
(Is that analogy in LILA or ZMM?)
The animated tableaux you've described has a certain Eastern flavor to it.
Like a passing cloud, it's an impressionistic analogy with no substance. I
see it as having three components -- the sand, the sorter, and continuous
motion -- the existence of none of them being accounted for. I find the
reality missing.
Also missing is the sorter's proprietary awareness. Does he (she) not have
thoughts, feelings, purpose? Don't these human values count in your reality
system, or are the sorted sandpiles more important?
Arlo's explanation:
> This figure, as Pirsig eludes, makes these critical divisions not because
of
> some inhernet feature of the "sand" (objectivism), nor does it create the
sand
> out of mind (subjectivism), but it sorts the sand based on
culturally-learned
> (semiotic) attention. That is, "cows" do not exist in the objective world,
nor
> is a subjective manifestion, but a culturally-attentive category made
salient
> for participation in our particular, historic, cultural milieu.
I looked up semiotics sometime back, and know it has something to do with
symbols; but your phrase "based on culturally-learned (semiotic) attention"
totally eludes me. (No wonder I had problems understanding Pirsig!) I
don't see how anyone can believe in a reality this fuzzy -- especially when
there is no ultimate reality to back it up. But then, it's not my purpose
to criticize another's belief system.
Arlo continued:
> Quality "differs" for people not because Quality is relative (subjective),
but
> because our cultural-attentive systems (the figure sorting the sand) is
> predisposed to select and categorize based on the semiotic system of the
> individual. Thus, to an Eskimo, it is Quality that leads them to perceive
so
> many variations of "snow", while to us, that Quality is not
culturally-salient
> (likely due to our instantiation in warmer climes).
I also recall Pirsig asserting that we only experience what we value.
> To extend away, Russian cultural psychologists studied this categorization
> process (via "literacy") (the study I'll mention briefy was conducted by
A.R.
> Luria). Illiterate peasents were shown a series of pictures (a hammer, a
log, a
> saw, and an axe) and asked to say "which one doesn't belong". Responses
were
> all similar, here is one: A 25 yr. old peasant: "They're all alike. The
saw
> will saw the log; the hatchet will chop it. If one of these has to go, I'd
> throw out the hatchet. It doesn't do as good a job as a saw."
>
> To this culture, the category of "tools" (as objects) was not Quality.
Instead,
> a process category of activity (chopping) was Quality (and you need a log
in
> that category, or you have nothing to chop!).
The fact that you need an object at all to recognize Quality means that it
is an SOM attribute. (I've never understood how Quality could be considered
an absolute or universal principle with no referents.)
Thanks, Arlo. If you can locate the sandpile analogy or another passage
from Pirsig that states the MoQ perspective as you see it, I'd like to read
it.
Essentially,
Ham
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