From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jul 24 2005 - 16:02:44 BST
Bo,
Bo said:
If you now start to question that ZMM is about the emergence of the SOM, and
that its "modern" variety is the mind/matter distinction, what is there to
discuss? Even Paul can't let that pass, or is the common cause so important
that everything is suspended?
Matt:
I wonder. Do you even know what the "common cause" is? Because, given the
above, and what's below, I'm not sure you understand what I've been saying,
and vice versa. To pin down any possible disagreement, we need to get
straight about what we mean by what. I've been trying very hard to do that.
But then comes the stunner:
Bo said:
I have never said or meant that the SOM sprang into existence in the
mind/matter form, not even in the subject/object one it was that Pirsig in
his dispute with the teachers understood that their premises was the
subject/object one and THEN started to read Greek history with this as a
sieve and found how it had developed from the first search for eternal
principles, via Plato (where the S/O is most subtle) and Aristotles where it
had become more recognizable (form/substance), only with Descartes had it
got its final form, but we call the whole development SOM.
Matt:
I---okay, alright. I'm willing to simply say for the moment that _clearly_
we've been talking past each other. I must have been completely
misunderstanding you. There are still disputes hidden in the cracks here,
but clearly I had no idea that you in some way agreed with the narrative I
set out almost a month ago.
Hunh. I don't even know where to go now with the conversation. I have no
idea where you are now. We need to repair some terrain, because apparently
it wasn't what I for one thought it was.
Bo said:
Pirsig calls the romantic/classic a false start (as the basic split), the
dynamic/static one he arrived at is the final form. Your statement that it
sometimes is valid and sometimes not rests on the silly notion that the SOM
is a "quality" metaphysics in the sense that it is so divided. Quality is a
subjective pattern in the SOM, that's the whole point.
Matt:
That "silly notion" is supplied by Pirsig in the beginning of Lila when he
says that there always has been a metaphysics of Quality. But, I wonder why
you take the subject/object split with you in your reconstruction of the MoQ
and not the romantic/classic? Pirsig gets rid of the S/O in ZMM for the
R/C. If he thinks S/O distinction was a false start, and replaced it with
the R/C, and then thought the R/C was a false start and replaced it with the
DQ/SQ, why toss away the R/C completely? Seems to me one could make a
pretty good argument, from Pirsig's materials, that the R/C distinction was
what was created in Greece and that the Moderns perverted into the S/O. And
from there, from your line of inference, that the R/C distinction is the
intellectual level. Actually, I think that makes more sense of Pirsig, and
life for that matter, then saying the S/O distinction is the intellectual
level.
Bo said:
Intellect is very much pointed out as the S/O generator in ZMM, it's even
drawn in the said diagram.
Matt:
If a certain person wants to be more convincing, that certain person might
want to stop asserting the truth of something I've already attempted to
undermine by responding to my undermining techniques (set out a month ago in
that post you refuse to acknowledge).
And you accuse me of being Goebbels. "Even if Joseph Göbbels said so a lie
does not become true by repeating it."
Bo said:
OK, what is NOT intellectual patterns in your view then?
Matt:
Well, let's see: rocks, tigers, ham, computer screens, golf clubs, darts,
phones, refridgerators, bottled water, vinyl, hair, ants, fingernails,
toejam, shoes, frogs, houses, cars, trucks, SUVs, chimneys, brooms,
cantalope, hot dogs, baseballs.
You want more?
Bo said:
"Language as the currency of intellectual patterns". Wish I knew what that
means. Anyway IMO language is the "carbon" of intellect, but like inorganic
carbon didn't become biological in spite of being life's building block,
language does not become intellect for being intellect's building block.
...
As said above language is a social pattern thus when ancient people spoke to
each other that was not intellectual utterings. No more than cries from a
Mosque minaret or the words of a Christian mass are.
...
My opinions are not intellectual in the (true) S/O sense, but like intellect
in its time exploited social value (used language for forwarding its own
value) the MOQ exploits intellect for its own purpose.
Matt:
I have my doubts about the social/intellectual distinction. But, at least I
understand what you are talking about a little bit more. So language is
across the board in social and intellectual patterns. How about some
examples to go by:
Rocks are inorganic patterns.
Tigers are biological patterns.
Bo's opinions are social patterns.
___________ are intellectual patterns.
The MoQ is everything.
I don't know what to put in the intellectual pattern slot. What is an
example of an intellectual pattern?
Something interesting did come out of this. You say that intellect arose in
Greece during Socrates' time. Right? So, you're saying that when Pirsig
talked about rhetoric in ZMM he was talking about social patterns and when
he talked about dialectic he was talking about intellectual patterns. Which
makes sense of Pirsig saying that Socrates was the greatest Sophist (though
there is a bunch more interpretive work considering Pirsig was damning the
dialectic, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle).
Okay, you're going to have to be more explicit about what makes a social
pattern a social pattern and an intellectual one an intellectual one. They
both use language. How do we tell which is which? Why aren't you're
opinions intellectual patterns? Is it a contrast between being interested
and disinterested? Something pursued for the sake of something else and
something pursued for the sake of itself? That might make some sense. Is
it the contrast between Good and Truth? That would make sense of ZMM,
though it puts you on the wrong end again. You say when ancient people
talked to each other they weren't speaking intellectual patterns, but if
your opinions about the MoQ are social patterns, it sounds as though most
language since the beginning of language has been social patterns, up until
this very day.
The last bit is that the "MOQ exploits intellect for its own purpose." How
does it do that? If the MoQ is everything, how does "everything" exploit
"something" for its own purpose. What would be "everything's" purpose?
Perhaps "betterness." But "everything" and "betterness" have always been
with us, haven't they? I mean, particularly with "everything," how could it
not have been? Everything is always everything, no matter what somethings
make up everything. But maybe you would say that the MoQ _became_
everything when betterness pulled us from SOM, which _was_ everything. That
left SOM in its wake as another level. But if that's the case, if that's
the dialectic we're dealing with, wouldn't that mean that something like
language was everything before the intellectual level, SOM, was created?
Wouldn't that mean that something like DNA was everything before language
was created? But that doesn't make any sense. Just because the biological
level evolved out of the inorganic level doesn't mean that everything is
biological. Right?
Matt
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