From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Mon Jul 18 2005 - 00:48:02 BST
Paul,
Scott said (to Arlo).... which is why I see the MOQ as materialism
>plus DQ as a deus ex machina.
Paul: Every so often you make this statement in one form or another.
First of all, materialism is a system which says that everything can be
reduced to the behaviour of matter. In the MOQ, matter is explained as the
behaviour of one level of inorganic value patterns. Although events at the
biological, social or intellectual levels can, in principle, be described in
terms of events at the inorganic level this does not mean that that is "all
they are." So I don't see how you can say that the MOQ is materialism and
keep a straight face.
Scott:
I recognize that there is a difference between materialism and the MOQ.
There is also a difference between materialism and the Intelligent Design
theory of evolution. But I would describe both as "materialism plus X", DQ
in the MOQ, a fully transcendent God in ID. In both there is assumed to
have been a progression from inorganic to biological to human. What I am
attempting to point out to you all is that materialism arose as a way to
explain the subjective in terms of the objective, and to do so it does a lot
of arm-waving (known as Darwinism). Now the MOQ says it is a bad thing to
treat the objective as "all there is", and that I agree with. Yet the MOQ
preserves this materialist yarn, assigning to DQ the ability to get over the
rough spots. Why?
You say "Although events at the biological, social or intellectual levels
can, in principle, be described in terms of events at the inorganic level
this does not mean that that is "all they are." I do not understand it.
What else (according to you) are they, that makes the MOQ not materialism
plus DQ?
Paul said:
In the MOQ, space and time are high quality intellectual patterns postulated
to exist at the inorganic level in order to successfully predict and
calculate the behaviour of inorganic patterns but it is proposed that the
value that produces and maintains both inorganic and intellectual patterns
is not dependent on the prior existence of a spatio-temporal universe. So
your problem of how something essentially and necessarily spatio-temporal
can be aware of space and time doesn't come up, as I see it.
Scott:
I do not see how this addresses my questioning of the (supposed) fundamental
nature of space and time. I argue that space and time are produced in the
act of perception (since the act of perception transcends the
spatio-temporal nature of the perceived). Hence the one level they cannot be
assigned to is the inorganic, if the inorganic is not sentient.
In any case, if the value that produces and maintains both inorganic and
intellectual patterns is not dependent on the prior existince of a
spatio-temporal universe, why is intellect seen as the latest stage of
evolution? Why is it anathema to say intellect is involved at all stages?
(Of course, what I want to say is that all static patterns of value are
intellectual patterns, that there is no separate, late-arriving intellectual
stage, except in the sense that physical centers of intellect -- humans --
are late arrivals in physical reality, aka spatio-temporal reality.)
Paul said:
Secondly, with respect to DQ being a deus ex machina, if you recall from ZMM
it was DQ that Pirsig first set about trying to come to grips with. The
idea of the static patterns and evolutionary levels came later and so DQ was
not lowered onto the intellectual stage to wave away anything that Pirsig
found hard to explain in terms of static patterns.
Scott:
The waving away was not Pirsig's, since he never addressed the problems in
which DQ is used to wave away problems. I refer to such things as the origin
of sentience, of language, of intellect. It is people in this forum, Arlo,
for example, who have used DQ to "explain" such things. Of course, since
Pirsig did not address these problems, is why I find the MOQ to be
inadequate.
Paul said:
As we can see in LILA, it turned out that a concept of DQ could help shed
light on evolutionary growth, human cultural development, insanity, truth,
religion, morality etc. I would say that DQ, far from waving them away,
provides answers (or a new paradigm for answers) to a lot of hard questions.
Scott:
I sure don't see any light or answers. How do you get sentience from
non-sentience?
Paul said:
Finally, with respect to the waving away of hard questions, the path you
have taken is to assume that semiotic consciousness is fundamental to the
universe, has always been here but is too mysterious to explain. What can
we say to that? Bummer?
Scott:
One can never explain that which is fundamental, so I don't know why you
complain that it is too mysterious to explain. How does materialism explain
matter? How does the MOQ explain Quality? So what I am trying to get across
is (a) that intellect, like quality, is irreducible (and is implied in the
phrase "static pattern of value"), and (b) the resistence to acknowledging
it seems to me to stem from a lingering materialist conditioning.
- Scott
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