From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Fri Jul 08 2005 - 21:02:46 BST
Hi Reinier.
7 July you wrote:
> >Please enlarge on your doubts about SOM=the intellectual level. From
> >a particular statement below it looks like you agree.
> Maybe you can point out the exact statement that you're referring to,
It was your ...."or else you keep intellectualizing about MOQ in a
SO-way" that I found so exact.
> meanwhile I'll try to explain my thoughts on this. I find it hard to
> define the intellectual level, and put down criteria that it much
> adher to.
You will surely find it difficult to define any level, but for instance
"static inorganic ...etc" signifies something else than we up to
now have have called matter. In LILA Pirsig speaks al ot about
SOM's "substance" is gone, that must necessarily mean that
NONE of the earlier (SOM) designations corresponds to the
Quality counterparts.
Many don't heed this but uses the SOM indiscriminately inside
the MOQ and intellect is abused the most. It is seen as SOM's
mind where thoughts, theories - even metaphysics - slosh
around. This regardless of the fact that the mind/matter divide -
as metaphysically valid - is rejected. But to reject it and to keep it
simultaneously (as Pirsig says we must) the only solution is to
see intellect as the VALUE of the S/O distinction!
> So I'll not go define it. Concerning MOQ and SOM, they're
> both metaphysics, i.e. they're both theories trying to explain our
> perceived reality.
Yes they are metaphysics, but are they intellectual patterns?
Stone Age people surely made up theories about their reality, but
as this was before intellect .... not intellect.
> They're just completely different. Most of us on
> this Mailing list will say the MOQ is the better one. But at best its
> a perfect description of our world, whereas SOM is a faulty
> description of our world. The key is the word 'description'.
Descriptions come in grades. To say that the sky is blue is a
innocent one, but to say that it is blue because a Blue God paints
it was the social "metaphysics" description, while saying that is it
because sunlight gets refracted by ...etc is an intellectual
"metaphysics" description
> A
> manipulation of language (symbols) to intellectually reflect our
> reality.
Language (manipulation of symbols) can be used for all kinds of
descriptions - intellectual ones too! But to declare symbol
manipulation to be intellect is just not correct. Intellect is the
value of the Description/Reality distinction ...or the Symbol/What
is symbolized distinction
> But then if we not abandon it, we must realize that it's not a
> metaphysical truth, so maybe in that sense you're right, and it's
> enough to drop the 'M'. I'll have to give that some more thought, but
> I think I see your point.
Good! You sound dynamic enough to see the SOL-ution. I badly
need a "lieutenant" ;-)
> I don't say intellectualizing is bad perse, just intellecualizing in a
> S/O kind of way. Or how else would you call this mailing-list and the
> books of Pirsig, and you're own written contributions to the MOQ?
IMO Phaedrus was an individual who started from SOM's
premises (intellect before the MOQ) and pursued them to the
bitter end and beyond, then had the Quality insight. After that his
premises was there. Now, all levels utilize the values under them
for their own purposes and the MOQ definitely uses intellect for
all it's worth so you're right ...intellectualizing isn't bad per se.
One thing though, the MOQ is not a level, but in its relationship to
intellect some level characteristics are apparent.
> From a MOQ point of view, I'd say that because you cannor experience
> time and space they don't exist. Think about this, has there ever been
> a direct experience of either time or space?
> Another little step aside:
> In the quest for the smallest particle science has arrived at quantum
> physics. They're no longer on a level of directly experiencing things,
> at best they conclude how a smallest particle will look based on
> in-direct observations. So what if they do find a smallest, solid,
> dimensional particle? (This is all very SO). Imagine there exists one,
> now zoom in on it a few billion times, make it as big as a soccer-bal
> (let's asume for simplicity it's that shape). If there is a smalles
> particle then we can do this, just zoom in and make it this big. What
> we'll have is a very solid, undividable soccer-ball. Now inside this
> ball, it's still called the universe... what laws would there be
> there? Push the left side of the soccer-ball. The right side will move
> at exactly the same time, so we can transmit information with a speed
> greater then the speed of light. Put another soccer-ball next to it?
> What's in between them? How do they 'know' of each others existence if
> there's nothing in between them? Every consequence you describe when
> you assume there IS a smalles partical goes against everything
> tradition science believed in if you closely look at it.
> So then assume there is no smallest, dimensional particle (like the
> MOQ does). Now, if something has no dimensions, can it have a
> position? If so, what will you see when you arive at that position?
> Does energy have a position, then where is it limited by? If nothing
> has dimensions, and nothing has a 3D position (3D coordinates) then
> what's the meaning of space?
OK, Reinier I'm not sure if I understand all the "suspended"
questions you pose here, but I like your attitude. I was once
obsessed by physics and its philosophical ramifications. Being
elderly my focus was mostly relativity, but I also followed
Quantum Mech. as it developed in the seventies and eighties. I
remember the experiments that were to decide if Niels Bohr,
Heisenberg and the so-called Copenhagen school were right or if
Einstein was. He was gone by that time but had earlier devised a
thought experiment (that only later was possible to carry out
practically). The most famous was Alain Aspect's that confirmed
the so-called "strong" interpretation", Einstein was wrong, there
were no hidden parameters. The Quantum reality was just as
weird as it seemed to be, something the Schrodinger Cat
example is the best demonstration of.
However after the MOQ I see quantum weirdness as the
inorganic level's "lower fringes" where it borders on to the
ambient dynamic ...everything. All levels start to get fuzzy and
mix with its origin when pursued far enough downwards, however
only the inorganic leve's origin is dynamic. I see a similar
weak/strong interpretation going on about the MOQ and I see
Matt and Paul (an most of the group) as the latter days Einsteins
and myself in the Bohr role. I just wish that an experiment like the
Aspect one could be devised that could prove them wrong ;-).
Bo
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