From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 17:10:22 BST
Hi Bo, Platt, all.
Thanks for responding.
>> Bo:
>>> Of course: A metaphysics (theory of everything) crystallize all of
>>> existence in its mold, but if the Quality Idea is seen as an
>>> all-intellectual pattern we are faced with the paradox of a part
>>> containing the whole.
>
>> Steve:
>> A theory of everything can never be expected to literally contain
>> everything but only to be description of everything. A theory of
>> everything should then be a theory that can describe theories. I
>> don't see a paradox. The MOQ says that the MOQ is an intellectual
>> pattern of value.
>
Bo said:
> Pirsig states that we can't live without some presuppositions about reality -a
> metaphysics, but this is some grander kind than the Aristotle sort and
> something we don't regard as as a "description" .... we don't "regard" it at
> all, it's reality itself. SOM was such a basic presupposition and thus
> contained everything. I'm not very computer-versed but there is an
> innermost "shell" that not even "nerds" don't think about ...it is as it is.
> That was SOM's place
>
> The reason it could dominate our innermost (how great its geographical
> sphere of influence is/was can be discussed) so was that no-one knew any
> SOM. I remember that the early critics of Pirsig went to extremes to deny
> any SOM, naturally because the moment a theory of everything (TOE) is
> confronted with a greater TOE, its spell is broken.
>
> About the difficulties I see with the MOQ being an intellectual pattern of one
> of its own STATIC levels - and why I want intellect to be the S/O divide
> (SOM stripped of its M) is connected with this.
>
Steve:
Bo, let me see if I understand what you are saying. I think you claim that
all of our intellectual patterns are formed within a broad SOM cognitive
structure and thanks to Pirsig we now have a new structure of the MOQ within
which to form an alternative set of intellectual patterns. SOM was a
"container" and here we have a new container in the MOQ so you don't want to
say that these containers contain themselves. Is that right? I think I can
agree so far if I think of the containers as categories of patterns of value
within the intellectual level.
I also think it makes sense to think of the MOQ container as containing SOM
but I disagree that SOM is equivalent to the intellectual level if that's
what you are suggesting. I see both containers existing within the
intellectual level.
>> Steve:
>> Exactly. But its value lies in that it is a metaphor that points to
>> what is not static.
>
> Hmm. ...The MOQ a metaphor that points to what is not static ...?!
Steve:
Sorry, I was referring to your comment made with Socratic irony that even DQ
would have to be considered a metaphor. I wasn't saying that the MOQ but
rather DQ is a metaphor for what is not static.
"Of course it's an analogy. Everything is an analogy. " ZAMM
Bo:
>Steve, I
> have given this a long consideration. I believe I get your point and you are
> almost there, a little nudge and ...Take a deep breath and follow this line of
> reasoning: If we consider the Quality Idea (I like to call it) a "rebel
> intellectual
> pattern" - something that looks upon intellect as the bigoted place where the
> METAPHOR/REALITY DIVIDE is considered the innermost reality. The Q-
> Idea has seen a greater reality and knows that this is not REALLY so, but
> that it is a great STATIC value within its own system. There is no way it can
> stay at home permanently and make intellect a "better place", there is an
> eternal conflict that will require that the Q-idea would have to give up its
> own
> cause and repent. This is the SOL-interpretation.
>
> "The Q-idea giving up its cause" is allowing the "metaphor/reality" dualism
> into MOQ's ground structure (other than as ONE static layer). It's not only
> metaphor/reality, the whole SOM subject/object virus spreads itself inside it.
> Remember that the MOQ is founded on the very base, that - FROM SOM'S
> PREMISES - one inevitably ends up with the conclusion that everything is
> symbol, metaphor, or MIND!.
Steve:
Are you suggesting MOQ thinking as a higher discrete static level than the
intellectual level?
>With tongue slightly in cheek the MOQ can
> can be said to be a metaphysics of metaphors, of symbols of thinking of
> language ...etc.
Not sure what you mean
>There have been many suggestions for other "innermost
> realities" up through the years, but QUALITY is best!!
I agree.
>
>> Bo:
>>> Btw. Pirsig
>>> says that a "set of ideas" is socially approved. Even ideas are
>>> treated at the social level.
>
>> Steve:
>> Can you explain what you mean by "treated at the social level"? Do
>> you mean that inter-subjective agreement is important to the stability
>> of intellectual patterns of value? I would agree. How could we
>> recognize a pattern if it is not repeated and shared?
>
> What I meant was just that ideas or thinking or language once were part of
> social reality. You say that "inter-subjective agreement" (between people
> no?) is important to the stability of INTELLECTUAL patterns of value". If
> language - per se - is intellectual, then the intellectual LEVEL is as old as
> language - as the human brain even, but Pirsig of LILA says that the
> transition took place AFTER Homer's time.
Steve:
I think the transition he's talking about in ancient Greece is when the
first people began to become dominated by intellectual patterns of value and
the transition exemplified in Wilson after WWI was about the bulk of
American society becoming dominated by intellectual patterns. In neither
case do I think he is talking about when we might board a time machine to go
back and observe the first intellectual pattern evolving. That happened
much earlier than Homer.
> The annotating Pirsig says:
>
>>> 'For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the
>>> intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the
>>> collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the
>>> brain, that stand for patterns of experience.'
>
> I think he says "..the idea of '...collection and manipulation of symbols as
> different from the physical counterpart in the brain' became the intellectual
> level of experience".
I don't follow your point.
>
>> That doesn't make ideas social patterns of value, however. Social
>> values are recognized as thoughtless mimetic behaviors that are
>> required for the evolution of society but are no longer to be equated
>> with society itself since modern societies are comprised of
>> individuals who participate in intellectual patterns of value as well
>> as inorganic, biological, and social ones.
>
> Yes, modern societies/countries are heavily controlled by intellect, I agree
> completely, but what about societies before intellect's emergence? They
> consisted of people who lived in cities, spoke - even wrote - traded ...etc
> Thoughtless, mimic behaviour? They weren't exactly bee-hives?
Steve:
I do think of societies as existing before the intellectual level. It would
be interesting and probably astounding to think about exactly what such
societies were capable of using only biological instinct and socially copied
behavior just as it is astounding to see the complex emergent behavior in
bees though they presumably have no social patterns.
Unbelievable as it may seem to think of people building physical structures,
having social structures, perhaps farming, and using tools and forming
families without intellectual patterns and only through copied behavior, it
is also amazing to think that the value that results in a bee hive or a six
foot tall termite mound built by tiny insects over many generations is
somehow latched in DNA, though I think it is.
Platt said:
> I agree with DMB. Since we disagree a lot, I suspect he'll wonder where he
> has gone wrong. :-) Levels in the abstract as some sort of Platonic forms
> just don't jibe with Pirsig's whole outlook.
Steve:
I've been trying to think why you would suggest that I was dealing with
Platonic forms when I suggested the more precise language of patterns of
value. Perhaps the disagreement lies in the definition of "pattern."
Are you thinking of a pattern as a mold or a model of an original? I'm not.
I think of patterns in the mathematical way as perceptual structures.
Perceiving a pattern is inferring a causal rule in the case of SOM science
and is inferring a value in the case of the MOQ. (Pirsig suggests
redefining science as the study of stable patterns of value.) Either way the
inference is made as recognition of repetition of similar experience. We
infer the values that possess a person by the choices we observe a person
making. Such inference may only be possible by recognizing patterns in the
choices that a person or group of people make. Does that way of thinking
about patterns help you see the case for talking about patterns of values?
Thanks,
Steve
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