From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jun 12 2005 - 17:11:12 BST
Continued from Part A.
Bodvar stated in his SOL essay:
After I had harped on the SOL for a long time Anthony McWatt (now hopefully
Doctor Philos. with the MOQ his field) produced this Pirsig comment that
seemingly contradicts the SOL:
"To prevent confusion the MOQ treats “mind” as the exact equivalent of
“static intellectual patterns” and avoids use of the term when possible"
(Pirsig to McWatt, Jan. 1998)
Again I must repeat that after the mind/matter dichotomy has been declared a
fall-out of Quality its “mind” can’t be MOQ’s intellect. It’s poison to
introduce either single-handed inside the MOQ and the later development
showed that this had started to bother Pirsig too, after some more debate
Paul Turner wrote to Pirsig to have his opinion and received a letter in
September 2003.
You continue with a Pirsig quote:
"If one extends the term intellectual to include primitive cultures just
because they are thinking about things, why stop there? How about
chimpanzees? Don’t they think? How about earthworms? Don’t they make
conscious decisions? How about bacteria responding to light and darkness?
How about chemicals responding to light and darkness? Our intellectual level
is broadening to a point where it is losing all its meaning."
Now, this is my Pirsig! Exactly what I have tried to say all the time.
"You have to cut it off somewhere, and it seems to me the greatest meaning
can be given to the intellectual level if it is confined to the skilled
manipulation of abstract symbols that have no corresponding particular
experience and which behave according to rules of their own.!”
You state:
But here he goes again. Abstract/concrete is another SOM off-spring and
abstract symbols with no corresponding experience is SOM’s chimera of its
two halves having an independent existence.
I note:
However, if you read this quote carefully, Pirsig states “no corresponding
PARTICULAR experience” rather than “no corresponding experience”. So, for
instance, mathematics has evolved from GENERAL experience of the inorganic
but there is no single inorganic object that corresponds directly to numbers
such as one or two (because the latter division of the inorganic into ones
or twos or threes etc is only done for pragmatic reasons – there isn’t a
“two” out there by itself in the inorganic world – “two” only exists in the
intellect).
You state:
Pirsig’s argument in ZMM was that the SOM developed via Plato’s “ideas/
shadows” and Aristotle’s “form/substance” and even if we today see no
subject/object content in these early dichotomies, they were precursors to
the later mind/matter. Thus a symbol may have no “concrete” opposite, but it
always represents something – an “idea” even.
The argument that the MOQ is not an intellectual formulation but some kind
of other level is not clear to me. There is nothing in the MOQ that I know
of that leads to this conclusion.
This one is for me, but I can only say that an intellectual level
“containing ideas” – SOM one idea and the MOQ another - is incompatible with
the SOL.
I note:
Well, I’d agree with that!
You state:
Earlier in this letter Pirsig says that intellect can’t see itself. That’s
just right!
I note:
Well, that’s not strictly accurate. Towards the end of the letter (to Paul
Turner) Pirsig states: “It MAY be that the intellectual level cannot
describe itself any better than an eye can directly see itself, but has to
find itself in mirrors of one sort or another.”
You then state:
A higher ground is needed to see the outline of something and that is what
the MOQ provides! It sees intellect for what it really is – a mere static
level of its own system.
I note:
But still it remains the fact that the MOQ is a type of intellectual pattern
itself. It might be one that also recognises the Dynamic (which is one of
its improvements on SOM) but it still recognises itself as an intellectual
pattern.
You state:
Having criticized Pirsig for not having followed the light of his first
insight in ZMM I again point to the “standard procedure” as the culprit.
I note:
I don’t understand what you mean by “standard procedure” here. Do you mean
Pirsig’s understanding of the intellect in Paul Turner’s letter, SOM or
something that Pirsig wrote in ZMM or even LILA?
You state:
It’s a Trojan Horse that lets the SOM spread itself across the static
levels. Pirsig himself is of course immune to any infiltration, but a
newcomer to the MOQ will be led astray by it.
I note:
Yes, you’re correct here. I understand that there is a “hidden assumption”
in the loose correlations between subjective-objective and the four static
levels of the MOQ but a newcomer might not. This is why I wrote in my PhD
that Pirsig should have possibly maintained the MOQ’s original distance from
SOM (as found in LILA).
----cut---
You conclude:
Finally one example of how the MOQ could be the “Copernican Revolution” that
ZMM speaks about. The British magazine “Philosophy Now” had its October/
November issue dedicated to the “consciousness” problem, which we
immediately recognize as the subject looking out on the world. In the
magazine the physics behind consciousness and the psychics resulting from it
is pondered, but at the end one has a feeling of futility; no-one can
unravel this Gordian Knot.
If we assume the SOL interpretation that SOM is a sub-set of Quality – the
intellectual sub-set - none of its halves has an independent existence.
I note:
And where is their room for the MOQ in itself if you do this? It’s not a
social pattern and it’s not pure Dynamic Quality so if SOM = Intellect then
there is no metaphysical place for the MOQ.
You continue:
There’s no mind alone and no body alone (I can’t list all its off-shoots)
this is SOM’s chimera and the much sought for interaction between mind and
body will never be found because there is none.
I note:
Only in SOM. However, in the MOQ, mind (as intellect) can interact with a
physical body either through the social and biological patterns or through
biological patterns alone. There is just no direct connection even within
one person. However, as SOM tends to overlook social and biological
patterns as distinct from the inorganic and intellect, it leaves itself with
no possible explanation of mind-matter interaction.
You continue:
Yet, illusory,
I note:
It’s only illusory if you’re looking for a DIRECT interaction.
You continue:
…it’s a most valuable illusion that has given us modernity. The thing is
that it has no metaphysical reality, no static level has. The only thing
real is the DQ/SQ union.
I note:
The DQ/SQ and SOM have both the same ontological reality (as intellectual
patterns). The difference being is that the DQ/SQ division is of higher
quality in explaining our world than SOM.
You continue:
Thus consciousness, mind, awareness as separate phenomena goes poof! This
will not be readily accepted, an example of a similar paradigm shift – and
its inertia - is ancient physics. It created a lot of enigmas – paradoxes
called – and the brightest minds of the age pondered why nature would be so
enigmatic. It was not until modern physics that the solution was found, but
this did not solve things from the old premises rather dissolved them, but
it took centuries to take hold. This is exactly what the MOQ does with SOM’s
enigmas, but the science will go on about its “angels on pin-points” for a
long time to come.
What the MOQ could have done .. more correctly, but because its creator lost
heart on one crucial point the MOQ is impotent and explains nothing. The
theory in LILA about how the mind/matter interaction works - where the
intellectual level is “mind” and the inorganic level is “matter” – makes no
sense.
I note:
Again, you’re forgetting that the biological and social patterns (in the
MOQ) make the interaction between mind and matter (metaphysically) possible.
See chapter 3 of my PhD thesis for more details.
You continue:
Nothing wrong with my opponents at the discussion, like the ancient
physicists they are the brightest, but from the wrong premises it doesn’t
help. Pirsig’s words in the Paul letter about his opinion being no “Papal
Bull” is notoriously neglected...
I note:
Good point.
You continue:
…everything issuing from that end is received as just that. Geniuses do
mistakes, Einstein regretted his “universal constant” that was supposed to
explain the static universe that later proved to be expanding. I wish that
Pirsig would reconsider his own blunder.
I note:
I have to sincerely say that I don’t think he has made a blunder as regards
his latter explanations of intellect in “Lila’s Child”, etc. Personally,
I’ve found them very valuable in nailing down what the MOQ exactly is and
think you’re overlooking something (maybe that hidden assumption of Pirsig’s
in correlating SOM ONLY LOOSELY with the four static quality patterns or
that the MOQ allows mind-matter interaction indirectly via the biological
and social levels).
You finally conclude:
Well, anyway, I want to make the SOL my legacy.
I finally note:
OK, Bo, many thanks for writing your SOL thoughts in another interesting
essay which has at least clarified a couple of issues in my own head about
how Pirsig understands the intellect, SOM and the MOQ, if not convinced me
about the SOL! I actually don’t think Pirsig elucidated the intellectual
level clearly enough in LILA (which is why metaphysical offshoots such as
the SOL can develop) but in explaining the MOQ it was probably more
important for him to concentrate on Dynamic Quality and clarify the
biological and social levels. There are numerous philosophy of mind texts
in Anglo-American academic philosophy already. As a sociology and art
graduate the reality of Dynamic Quality and a distinct social level is
pretty evident to me. However, if you’re not an artist or a social
scientist then I remember that they are easily overlooked and most
philosophers of mind (in modern academic philosophy such as David Chalmers
and the Churchlands) do just that.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
.
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