From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Nov 27 2005 - 13:53:34 GMT
Paul, Bo, Platt (and Squonk)
Platt - you suggested Wilber's word "Witness". (No problem with
Wilber's general ideas - I've actually been reading him, and like you
find his layered thinking ideas very parallel to Pirsig, just with
more evolving levels.) BUT like Paul (I surmise) I'm still happy with
the words "intellect" and "rationality" - a modern evolving intellect
with better explanations of what previously may have seemed
irrational. The linguistic problem is about agreeing what we mean -
any word we chose is loaded with pre-existing meanings, so the
particulary word chosen is less important.
Bo, I said more about this in Paul's "Two Theses" thread. Your
examples of having one's cake and eating it don't really help me. I
see no problem with an MoQ that includes it's own definition of
MoQ-Intellect within a layer (4th) within itself. (Your examples of
classical and new scientific theories are slightly misleading - the
new supersedes the old in two ways - by inclusion (where aspects of
the old remain valid) and by replacement (where the old is proven
false)
Paul (and Squonk) are making essetially the same points about Bo's
SOL, but I prefer Paul's intellectual development of his arguments to
Mark's :-) Ultimately there is no appeal to authority, and Pirsig's
own words contain contradictions too. Where Paul quotes LILA "Objects
are inorganic and biological values; subjects are social and
intellectual values.", I buy that. It's not precise or comprehensive,
(there are clearly GOF objects in the social & intellectual layers
(albeit intangible ones), but the sense is right, and that's what
matters.
Bo I find it very strange you're hanging onto your pet theory, without
modification of terms of reference, in the light of what looks like
much reasoned argument. It's a pity you resort to pejorative rhetoric
like Paul's "acolytes" and "allowing Paul to think like Mark" to
defend it. I can understand if not condone Mark's attitude to arguing
with you.
Ian
On 11/26/05, Paul Turner <paul@turnerbc.co.uk> wrote:
> Bo,
>
> >> Paul: I thought the SOL said that intellect is
> >> "subjectivity/objectivity itself," not "objectivity itself." But
> >> anyway, according to the SOL, emotions belong at the social level,
> >> right? But wait...
> >
> >How can you misunderstand so grossly? Or maybe it's an
> >inevitable result from our different premises. I see things from
> >the MOQ premises beyond the static hierarchy, while you stay
> >inside it at the the 4th level - and the twain shall never match.
>
> Paul: No, I'm starting from your premises. Here you say that intellect
> sees itself as "objectivity itself" but in the past, to address idealism,
> the Sophists and pragmatism, you have said that these are examples of
> intellect's "subjective over objective" formulation.
>
> >About logic at the social level. When ancient 3rd. level people
> >saw natural phenomena as the work of gods, it was a logical
> >conclusion from their "social" premises. SOL does not fall the
> >least apart, it stands taller than ever.
>
> Paul: The ancients did not speak of premises and deductive inference and
> conclusions and validity of argument. Any old statement about anything is
> "logical" by your definition - where do we draw the line? I'm talking about
> logic as an explicit discipline. There is almost universal agreement that
> logic in this sense emerged at around the 4th century BC in the Mohist
> school of China, the Nyaya school in India, and the Aristotelian method in
> Greece. I may add that they emerged independently of each other, which is
> another spanner in the SOL's works.
>
> >SOL does not fall the
> >least apart, it stands taller than ever.
>
> Paul: You remind me of "comical Ali" during the latest Iraq war. My
> favourite quote is - "We have destroyed 2 tanks, fighter planes, 2
> helicopters and their shovels - We have driven them back."
>
> >> But later you spin the wheel again...
> >
> >> >However, emotions will never
> >> >coincide with the intellectual level - that's different levels
> >
> >> Paul: If emotions are subjective and all variations of
> >> subjective/objective reality exist at the intellectual level then
> >> surely emotions do coincide with the intellectual level. They are
> >> part of the dichotomy from which, according to you, the intellectual
> >> level is comprised.
> >
> >As said, the social level (emotions) is not subjective, tha's from
> >intellect's static view. Then rest of your criticism based on this
> >fallacy is nil and void.
>
> Paul: Let's go into this because it exposes a problem in your formulation
> of the SOL. When you talk about matter not "existing" until the
> intellectual level you are not saying, in the same way as above, that the
> inorganic level was simply wrongly described as objective matter are you?
> You are saying that mind and matter only came to "exist" at the intellectual
> level and that matter has nothing at all to do with the inorganic level.
> You have said this many times. Applying that same reasoning to emotion, it
> would mean that emotion, as it is commonly understood, didn't "exist" prior
> to being part of the subjective half of the intellectual level and that
> SOM's emotion has nothing to do with the social level. I think you're being
> inconsistent here. You can't have it both ways.
>
> Putting it another way, I can just as easily say that the intellectual level
> is mind but has nothing to do with SOM's mind. It is the same phenomena,
> just wrongly understood by a SOM. When this has been suggested in the past
> by e.g. Scott, Matt, and myself, you have blown up, saying that intellect is
> the mind/matter divide itself. I can turn your argument back on you and say
> that intellect is the reason/emotion divide itself, hence emotion is an
> intellectual pattern.
>
> >> Paul: It is your interpretation, full stop. Pirsig's position on
> >> subjects and objects and their place in the MOQ is set out in LILA and
> >> remains the same throughout his "annotations." There is no mysterious
> >> recantation of "the SOL." You'd love it if there was but there isn't.
> >> In LILA, in about the only place where Pirsig explicitly explains how
> >> subjects and objects (S/O[1], that is) fit into the MOQ scheme, he
> >> says quite clearly:
> >
> >OK, who am I to stop you from sounding more and more like
> >Mark.
>
> Paul: May I request an argument against this statement from LILA and the
> outright contradiction it presents to SOL, instead of an attempted
> brush-off?
>
> >> But my question is, So what if it is entirely your own invention? Put
> >> an end to this wild goose chase and stop trying to prove an assertion
> >> that has been fairly and soundly defeated by virtually everybody you
> >> have discussed it with.
> >
> >...with the same Jesuitic fervor. Regarding "...virtually everybody"
> >I'm not so sure, and about "..fairly and soundly defeated" I must
> >have missed that part. Do you really thing I would keep this up -
> >year after year - if anyone had shown me the flaw in it? While
> >you seem unaware of the rug being pulled from under you by
> >Pirsig's rejecting the Proto Quality divided in DQ/SQ. This
> >confirms SOL's Quality Reality beyond intellect - regardless of
> >seeing SOM as one intellectual pattern or as intellect itself.
>
> Paul: Huh? I've never denied that Dynamic Quality is beyond intellect, if
> that is the rug that has been pulled. Though I'm not sure what you are
> talking about.
>
> >> The SOL is your idea; you don't need the
> >> authority from anyone else to pursue it. You just need to be able to
> >> defend it with arguments and evidence which don't rely on support from
> >> the words of an author who explicitly rejects it.
> >
> >So much in ZMM and LILA points to the SOL that I am sure of
> >being on the right track. For instance ZMM's "diagram" that says
> >that intellect=S/O.
>
> Paul: "Objects are inorganic and biological values; subjects are social and
> intellectual values." [LILA, p344]
>
> Regards
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
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