From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Jul 11 2003 - 21:49:47 BST
Hi Rick, Jon, Bo, Sam, Matt, All
> PIRSIG (letter to A. McWatt)
> > "In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which gives rise to the creation
> > of intellectual patterns which in turn produce a division between
> > subjects and objects. Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern
> > that says 'there is an external world of things out there which are
> > independent of intellectual patterns'. That is one of the highest quality
> > intellectual patterns there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
> > pattern, external objects appear historically before intellectual
> > patterns... But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
> > before the external world, not after, as is commonly presumed by the
> > materialist."
>
> R
> Quality is the "pre-intellectual" reality. All four levels exist
> "post-intellectually". But note that in this sense, "intellectual" is NOT
> the same as the level of the MoQ called "intellectual" (which, to Pirsig,
> is a further subdivision of the category called 'subjects'). This
> pre/post-intellectual divide sits prior to all of the levels.
Note that Pirsig in writing to McWatt uses intellectual patterns. So when
he writes, "In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which gives rise to
the creation of intellectual patterns. . ." he creates a paradox:
"Quality that creates intellectual patterns is by intellectual patterns
created."
He's caught, as we all are, in that regress of intellectual abstractions I
mentioned. In trying to express the inexpressible using intellectual
patterns, he's hoisted on his own petard. Which is why the essential
message of the MOQ is expressed aesthetically in two novels. Like truth,
beauty and goodness, you either feel it or you don't.
> J
> > > My own preferred solution to this problem is to put intellect back
> > > where it belongs, i.e. AT EVERY LEVEL. Without Intellect, there are
> > > no levels. The inorgnic level includes both "physical matter" and
> > > what we think and feel about it, and the same goes for the
> > > biological levels. Surely, that is the heart of the quality idea as
> > > expounded in ZAMM That very beuatiful idea was destroyed when
> > > Pirsig gave intellect its own level.
>
> P
> > I'm shocked, shocked. Are you saying atoms and cockroaches do not exist
> > without our thinking and feeling about them? That there is no reality
> > independent of human observers? That evolutionary processes occur only in
> > the mind? Surely every bone in your scientific body rebels against such a
> > notion.
>
> R
> Counter-intuitive? To say the least. But, isn't that exactly what Pirsig
> is saying in the quote above? Isn't he saying that the notion of a reality
> independent of human observers (ie. external objects) that appears
> chronologically prior to intellectualization is really only a high quality
> intellectual pattern?
Yes indeed. And so is the MOQ with its claims about experience being
Quality and Quality coming prior to intellect, etc., etc. Nothing but high
quality intellectual patterns.
I was asking Jonathan if he really believes Pirsig's intellectual
patterns. After all, they do seem to go against the basic scientific
presumption of an independent reality (where no intellectual patterns need
apply) that science can study from an "objective" stance without
disturbing what's "out there."
This all boils down to being another example of what I wrote to Matt on
July 9 about the paradoxes we're stuck in, like the basic paradox of being
experiencing individuals who are eternally separate but never apart from
the rest of the world.
Platt
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