From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sun Oct 09 2005 - 09:33:29 BST
Hi Scott
7 Oct. you wrote:
> Rebecca said:
> > Another puzzle I've been toying with (suggestions from the group
> > would be more than welcome on this one): Do Aristotle's Categories
> > have Subject/Object logic 'hardwired' into their organization?y
> Bo said:
> Because Aristotle, according to Pirsig, is the first SOM
> "mechanic" who started to categorize the more lofty ideas of
> Plato's, all his work is subject/object-ish.
> Scott:
> I understand Aristotle's primary division being not subject/object but
> matter/form. And what is curious is that his matter/form division
> sounds very much like DQ/SQ, (matter, or substance, is undivided, has
> no pattern, while form is, obviously, pattern) but with the important
> difference that for Aristotle, the driver of change was form, that God
> is the form of form, and so on. That is, he privileges form over
> formlessness, while Pirsig privileges formlessness over form. Anyway,
> I don't see Aristotle as being any more subject/object-ish than
> Pirsig.
You have a very good point here Scott. The respective "divides"
with Plato's and/or Aristotle's was the start of a new metaphysical
reality. To Plato Ideas was what everything else was shadows of,
while Ari's Substance was the source.
The important thing is your observation that Substance/Form is
"curiously like DQ/SQ" which shows that the MOQ is a jump to a
new metaphysical reality ... from a totally different one. And
disproves that SOM is just another "quality metaphysics"
(Q=S/O).
Your further notes about what drives the change - what made
new shadows appear with Plato and new forms spring forth with
Aristotle - and if he (Ari) privileged the latter is interesting, but I
don't think they cared much about that. Pirsig privileges DQ over
SQ, that is sure, but it is the DQ/SQ divide which is MOQ's
nucleus.
> Bo said:
> You may know your Aristotle better than I, but the way Pirsig saw the
> development of SOM (in ZMM) Plato's Idea vs Appearance (ideas the real
> thing) was transformed by Ari to Substance vs Forms (substance his
> real thing). Pirsig says that with Aristotle "our modern scientific
> understanding of reality was born".
> Scott:
> No, for Aristotle, everything is both form and substance -- both are
> needed for something to exist, and as mentioned, for Aristotle, form
> is the driver of change, not substance.
OK, OK I you must. That substance had to attain a form (for
things to be) and that shadows only were visible to humans is
plain ... in the same way that value only appear as static patterns.
> Rebecca said:
> > If you interpret Subjective/Objective within the MOQ framework using
> > the definiton of Intellect I just gave you get: Something that is
> > 'Objective' is just really really socially accepted, 'Subjective' is
> > less accepted socially. The MOQ says it doesn't matter what
> > 'society' says - it's about QUALITY.
> Scott:
> You want to be careful about confusing two different meanings of
> 'subject' and 'object'. One meaning, which I have been calling S/O[1],
> is the distinction between inside and outside, or mind and non-mind,
> is what you are referring to here in the common use of 'subjective'
> and 'objective'.
> The other meaning (S/O[2]) is what Bo is using in
> talking about the value of intellect being the S/O divide, where O is
> anything (mental or material, or social, etc.) that is being thought
> about.
Hmmm. Right now I couldn't get my biological computer to see
those two S/O's or the importance of this distinction, but they may
be valid. I'll keep thinking
> Just a cautionary note. Unfortunately, Pirsig didn't
> distinguish between the two either. The MOQ, as presented in Lila,
> gives arguments for overcoming the S/O[1] division, but has no
> arguments for overcoming the S/O[2] division, except through appealing
> to faith in mystical revelation.
Likewise.
Bo
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