From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Fri Jun 17 2005 - 16:46:40 BST
Scott,
Scott:
[Barfield] does start with the SOM vocabulary, ('subject', 'objective
reality', 'representation', etc.) since that is the vocabulary of his
audience. But where does he end up?
- with evidence of the mutual dependence of the growth of alpha-thinking
("thinking about things") with our notion of 'objective reality', that is,
that the latter developed in recorded history starting (in the West) with
the Greeks, and so is contingent and not fundamental.
Paul: "The particles" or "the unrepresented" remain throughout all of this
-- from original to final participation -- so it certainly seems to be
fundamental to Barfield's thesis.
Scott continues:
- that our current belief in nature as objective reality did not become as
it is until about 1500, i.e., with the rise of SOM.
Paul: As said previously, all he has done is said that macroscopic nature
is not part of the objective realm (i.e. as independent of consciousness,
where, according to Barfield, it has been placed since c1500) and was
actually always in the subjective realm (dependent on human consciousness
i.e. the unconscious).
Scott continues:
- that before then and after this current stage, this SOM-like separation
does not hold
Paul: The unrepresented is, by definition, what remains of reality when
representations/represented are subtracted, is it not? So, unless....
Scott continues:
- that what we (as SOMites) think of as 'that which is to be represented',
i.e., truth by correspondence with external reality, has it backwards, that
instead, the supposed objective external reality is in fact a representation
-- that it is semiotic.
Paul: So "the unrepresented" is, in fact, also a representation? This is
nonsense isn't it?
Scott ridicules:
So it seems to me to accuse Barfield of SOM is ridiculous.
There is, though, a major difference between what he does about it with what
Pirsig does, and that difference lies in Pirsig's being a nominalist, and
Barfield not.
Paul: See below.
Scott:
That which the inorganic represents, according to Barfield, is what is
traditionally called by such names as 'spirit', 'mana', 'waken', or 'life
principle'), and which can also be called Quality. So it "represents" in the
same sense that your words in this post represent what you think.
Paul: So "spirit" speaks in particles? I'm afraid I'm losing the thread
here. I may need to reread the old cat.
--------------------------------------------
Scott:
What about the problem of whether a computer can be aware? or electrons?
Paul: The problem of whether a computer can be aware is solved or
disregarded by either making a computer act the same as something else that
we think is aware or failing and giving up.
One would only get worried about whether it is *really* aware as opposed to
ostensibly aware if one held on to the Platonic notion that one can know
what is *really* the case with respect to anything. The same goes for
electrons; in LILA Pirsig says that thinking of electrons as patterns of
stable preferences is a better description than thinking of them as
following deterministic laws. The MOQ isn't suggesting that electrons
*really are* expressing preferences, as if that would be their answer if
only they could speak English.
Scott:
How are we aware of things changing?
Paul: Because our current set of static beliefs and descriptions become
more/less valuable in the current context of our experience.
Scott:
Was there awareness before there were sense organs?
Paul: If awareness is something like a description we apply to anything
that can actively respond to the quality of its environment then yes e.g.
plants seem to be "aware" of where the sun is. If awareness is equated to
sentience, then, by definition, no.
Scott:
Furthermore, the only alternative to objective reality is NOT the subjective
self (in my philosophy, nor in Barfield's).
Paul: I know, but you said -- "As for "reality insofar as it is independent
of our awareness", the only way to not consider such a possibility is
solipsism. -- So *you* said the reality of the subjective self was the only
alternative which, of course, you have now retracted.
-----------------------------------------------------
Paul previously: [Barfield] is still talking about the unrepresented reality
behind the appearances of collective representation, right?
Scott:
Yes. See above. It is "unrepresented" because we have the lost the ability
to "read" the inorganic. When regained, we regain the experience of its
being expressive, rather than "just there".
Paul: Do we have to learn to speak inorganic, like subatomic Braille? ;-)
Sorry, I just can't imagine what this means, which I know is my problem.
Paul previously: But static patterns (e.g. menus and colours) are not
classified as appearances or representations in the MOQ and are not caused
by objective particles.
Scott:
Surely the menu is being thought of as a representation. If it isn't, how
can it inform one of what there is to eat?
Paul: In that analogy, perhaps it is, because I think Pirsig is talking
about the standard mystic view of the futility of trying to get the words of
metaphysics to correspond to non-linguistic reality.
However, it is tempting and, of course, generally unproblematic,
(particularly if one is sat in a restaurant) to think of items on a menu as
representing dishes one-to-one but this relationship only makes sense within
a much larger context of customs and rules which don't have such a
representational relationship to anything. So, from an MOQ point of view,
one could say that the social patterns of the menu simply enable one to get
the biological patterns of a meal through a customary exchange of socially
learned marks and noises.
Scott:
Do you agree with Matt that the question of the origin of language is to be
found in Darwinist presuppositions, that it was a matter of clever apes
creating language to cope with its environment? That is what I am mainly
criticizing under the name "nominalism". In origin, it went hand in hand
with a correspondence theory, but it remains when the correspondence theory
is rejected.
Paul: I agree with Matt, and Pirsig, in that I think language evolved, yes.
I still think you have sucked the meaning out of nominalism, Scott. The
presupposition -- that there are things which are real and particular
*anyway* and it only remains to be agreed on whether they really manifest
universals or not -- is not one that the MOQ makes.
Scott:
My view, by the way, is that there is, in language, correspondence, but it
is with another form of language, not something non-semiotic.
Paul: Okay. Again, this is lost on me.
Scott:
Well the issue is with the relationship [of static patterns] with other
static patterns, not to DQ, no?
Paul: I'm not sure what "the issue" is. Do you mean -- "Don't static
patterns of intellect correspond to or represent the other levels?"
Scott:
And I think your last sentence there raises all sorts of questions.
Do we have free will if it is DQ that produces and changes patterns?
Paul: The quick answer, from LILA, is - to the degree that one's behaviour
is Dynamic, e.g. has no fixed static purpose, one has free will.
I've snipped the rest because this post is already too long and I don't
think there is anything we haven't batted around before (correct me if I'm
wrong).
Regards
Paul
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