From: David Harding (davidharding@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Fri Jul 22 2005 - 13:09:30 BST
Hi Paul,
Paul Turner wrote:
> David,
>
>
>>Paul said to Bo:
>>
>>>>>As I've said before, with no reply, I think generalised propositional
>>>>>truths
>>>>>are the "organising principle" of intellect and skilled abstract symbol
>>>>>manipulation (allowing ever more general constructions) is its
>>
>>mechanism.
>>
>>David:
>>I think that 'Quality' is the organising principle of intellect, in fact I
>>think that it is the organising principle of all the levels. I'll certainly
>>agree with the mechanism though. :)
>
>
> Paul: Yes, static quality is the organising principle of all levels but the
> static values that hold one level together are completely different from the
> values that hold other levels together. I am proposing that truth is the
> static quality that holds the intellectual level together,
I agree, truth as defined as a high quality idea.
> and in
> particular, what I have called generalised propositional truths - the
> platitudes and "institutions" of intellect - are central to each "web of
> belief," the sum total of which comprises the intellectual level.
Because I'm uncomfortable with belief for this discussion I'll take it that you
mean "web of truths" as you comment below that you don't think the distinction is
all that necessary. In my view a 'Web of truths' as you call it, is simply an
intellectual pattern because we can manipulate these patterns irrespective of the
patterns they represent. For example, they can be either *patterns* when looked
at as separate truths, or a truth *pattern* when looked at as a combined truths.
What organises these patterns is their quality and this applies for all patterns.
>
> I'm trying to offer a distinction between the social level and the
> intellectual level and it occurred to me that there has to be a particular
> organising element as there is at each level.
I think Pirsig gives a clear distinction in his letter to you. The social level is mostly
biological customs. Intellectuality is the skilled manipulation of either social, biological or
inorganic level symbols which stand for them, independently of these patterns they stand for.
As I say, 'Quality is the organising element at each level', that is, according to the MOQ the
thing which is more Dynamic should have moral precedence.
> The hierarchical structures
> of knowledge Pirsig talks about chimed in the webs of beliefs of Quine and
> Rorty as a candidate.
>
> So there were beliefs, of course, at the social level, but as part of
> stories and rituals (the purpose of which is social cohesion), not as part
> of an intricate structure of generalised beliefs existing in complex
> justificatory relationships in their own right. Once beliefs started to
> arrange into these structures, as was exemplified in the west in the
> Platonic dialogues and Aristotelian categorisation, I think we can see
> intellect going its own way into new static structures of its own.
>
Nothing wrong with that, so long as we are referring to patterns as I point
out above.
> Once the Sophists were pushed aside the intellectual dream has always seemed
> to have been the attempt to build one perfect web but I think Pirsig (and
> many others) have shown that firstly, each web is built on a particular
> social base, and secondly, that there are many competing webs and this is
> good in an evolutionary context. Even as individuals I don't think we have
> one consistent web of beliefs.
Agree.
>
>
>>David:
>>Statically speaking, I think the 'truths' which change the most often are
>>those
>>which we value the least. Moreover, the truths which change the least are
>>those
>>which we value the most. In Zen Buddhism and other oriental philosophies,
>>it's
>>shown that this attachment to these values causes suffering and can be
>>overcome
>> by meditation or another similar means that bring one back much closer to
>>Dynamic
>>Quality, the here and now, and away from the complicated, old, static
>>patterns.
>
>
> Paul: Agreed.
>
>
>>Moreover, to me a 'belief' is a relic of religion. As Pirsig says
>>eloquently
>>"Quality is not something you believe in, Quality is something you
>>experience."
>
>
> Paul: Well, translate belief into "static intellectual pattern." I'm not
> too concerned over whether "beliefs" or "ideas" or "thoughts" or "memes" is
> the best word. I used belief as a way to connect to a Quinean/Rortyan
> pattern which I happen to like.
>
>
>>> Or we may just unstitch, and
>>>thus erase, a whole range of beliefs and desires - we may stop having
>>>attitudes toward sentences which use a certain word (the word "God," or
>>>"phlogiston," for example)....
>>
>>This time he claims they're completely erased, just like that! If he had
>>said
>> we can "erase" them by getting them perfect then I would agree, he seems
>>to
>>think ideas just dissapear for no darn reason.
>
>
> Paul: I think the reason is that some patterns just lose their value in
> terms of their position in the web.
Yes but how do they lose their value? In other words I think, "ever more general
contructions" come as a result of koan like contemplation of the low quality
(aka "Does lila have quality?") and the results of this enlargen our understanding
and place old patterns in more morally correct spots.
> I think his use of the word "God"
> alongside "phlogiston" creates a certain reaction to the notion of erasure
> here. "The earth is flat" seems like a good candidate for erasure to me,
> for example. Would you want to get that pattern perfect?
I think that these ptolemaic patterns have already been intellectually perfected
by Galileo who was able to describe our current stimuli and place the ptolemaic
patterns in a more cosmically correct place within our patterns (not very high).
>
>
>>I don't think that 'shoving static patterns around' causes the creation of
>>Dynamic Quality as is implied here. As we know, Dynamic Quality is the
>>source
>>of all things.
>
>
> Paul: yes but I see Dynamic Quality as part of what Rorty calls the
> environment - the intrusion of new values which produce new intellectual
> patterns to be weaved in.
>
I don't think this is what Rorty intended.
Kind Regards,
David.
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