From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 11:43:22 BST
>J
> > Hi Rick,
> > What about 1)?
>
>R
>Sheesh :-) Fine. I skipped #1 because I've never been a big fan of the
>whole computer analogy thing, but the hey...
thanks :)
>J
>1. Doesn't the MoQ say that the 4th level patterns exist on top of 3rd
>level
>patterns the way a novel sits on top of a computer? The intellectual level
>doesn't sit on top of 2nd level patterns (people)....<snip-see below>Please
>address the novel/computer metaphor as it relates to the 3rd and 4th
>levels.
>I think it clarifies the difference between thinking in a biological sense
>and thinking in an intellectual sense.
>
>R
>I don't think the analogy itself has much to add to the "thinking" debate.
>In ch. 12 Pirsig uses the computer as an analogy to the interrelationship
>of
>different levels of static patterns of quality. He is illustrating what he
>wrote at the top of pg 173, "This classification of patterns is not very
>original, but the MoQ allows an assertion about them that is unusual. It
>says they are not continuous. They are discrete. They have very little to
>do with one another. Although each higher level is built on a lower one it
>is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the contrary. The higher
>level can often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating
>it, controlling it where possible for its own purposes." I don't think that
>much more can be drawn about the respective natures of the specific levels
>from the computer analogy than that (ie. the historic purpose of a 'novel'
>wasn't to help word processors survive). So my specific response to your
>inquiry would be that in relation to the 3rd and 4th level, the
>novel/computer analogy says only that intellect is built on society, but is
>not an extension of it. They are each discrete from each other and have
>very
>little to do with one another, other than that their independence may cause
>them to conflict.
So all you get from it is that they conflict? Do you not see how it can
help define what the fourth level means and classify patterns? What does
"built on society" mean, if not patterns that are between societies, or
between social patterns? (I'd rather say "formed of" than "built on" now,
it's almost the same thing, except "built" implies a builder) 4th level
patterns can't be formed of human individual biololgical patterns, or they'd
be third level too. They would have to be patterns that form using social
patterns. A social pattern is the way people usually interact, as opposed
to stuff that their biological pattern does regardless of other people being
around or not. The usual expected relation of one social pattern to
another is an intellectual pattern. I also see the relation between society
and a desired future society as being a relationship between societies
present and future, and therefore thoughts about how society ought to change
are intellectual.
>J
>They don't come out of individuals, they come out of society and are about
>society. They help a society find food, not an individual find food.An
>individual uses biological patterns of intellegence and repeats social
>patterns to find food. Is this wrong?
>
>R
>Remember that in the MoQ the term "Society" (as in Social Patterns... the
>3rd level), isn't defined as contra-individual, it's defined as
>contra-biological. To Pirsig, the 3rd level includes both "collective"
>social patterns and "individual" social patterns. So to Pirsig, it's not
>so
>much that intellectual patterns don't come out of "individuals", it's that
>they don't come out "biological patterns". A "human animal" entirely
>dominated by biological patterns would follow his genetic programming to
>find food; if dominated by social patterns, he'll just copy and repeat the
>behaviors of others in his society which help find food; if dominated by
>social patterns that are dominated by intellectual patterns, he'll use
>symbols that represent his experiences to find better, more efficient ways
>to find food.
I agree with all that. What are the "individual social pattens" you refer
to? I see individual human animals as being the biological pattern, the
pattern ends at our skin's edge. Social patterns are what eveolve when more
than one biological pattern interact. The social patterns cause the
biological patterns to behave according to the social pattern, or they
should anyway. Intellectual patterns cause social patterns to behave
according to the intellectual pattern - they don't have a direct effect on
the human animal, they first filter through the social level.
Those symbols that are manipulated require a social foundation for the
symbols to mean anything. if a person manipulated his own private symbols
that were jibberish to everyone else, it would not be an intellectual level
pattern, because it would not be built on society. But I'm not sure if
every idea that uses social symbols to convey itself through society and
manipulate society is therefore intellectual, again I think it comes down to
if it is *about* society or between societies. I could use symbols to write
a birthday card to my mother, but I think that is a social pattern. Those
same symbols used to type this post, though, become an intellectual pattern
because it is about society.
>
> > > Now,
> > >instead of saying that there are 'intellectual patterns at different
> > >levels'
> > >we can say there are 'interpretive patterns at different levels'.
>Instead
> > >of saying that Quality is the 'pre-intellectual' cutting edge of
>reality,
> > >we
> > >can say it is the 'pre-interpretive cutting edge'. Instead of speaking
>of
> > >"pre-intellectual awareness" we can speak of "pre-interpretive
>awareness".
> > >What do you think?
>
>J
> > It does make sense, yes, in terms of what is gong on pre and post
>whatever.
> > But what did the interpreting? I think the way the whole
>undifferentiated
> > quality is carved up and interpreted is dictated by quality itself it
> > contains moral patterns that cause consciousnesses to interpret or carve
>it
> > up the only way they can.
>
>R
>I agree with you that, "the way the whole undifferentiated quality is
>carved
>up and interpreted is dictated by quality itself", but it gets tougher when
>we try and get more specific about it (evidently). But since I'm still up,
>I thought I might take a quick crack at it:
>
>PIRSIG (from SODV)
>In the Metaphysics of Quality the world is composed of three things: mind,
>matter, and Quality. Because something is not located in the object does
>not
>mean that it has to be located in your mind. Quality cannot be
>independently
>derived from either mind or matter. But it can be derived from the
>relationship of mind and matter with each other. Quality occurs at the
>point
>at which subject and object meet. Quality is not a thing. It is an event.
>It
>is the event at which the subject becomes aware of the object. And because
>without objects there can be no subject, quality is the event at which
>awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible. Quality is not
>just
>the result of a collision between subject and object. The very existence of
>subject and object themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The
>Quality
>event is the cause of the subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly
>presumed to be the cause of the Quality!
>
>R
>Quality is the one. The undivided. And if Quality is the source (cause)
>of
>subjects and objects, then just as he says, it's not a *collision* between
>subject and object (it couldn't be), rather it's a *divergence* into
>subject
>and object.
I like that.
And it's an event. Quality is the event at which subjects and
>objects diverge from the whole to an extent sufficient to cause the subject
>to 'become aware' of objects. But Pirsig also tells us that subject/object
>is just one way that the whole might be carved up. So more generally, we
>might say that Quality is the event at which the whole diverges into
>patterns of awareness. We (the aware, the interpreters, the subjects) are
>created in that event simultaneously with the rest of the world (the
>empirical, the interpreted, the objects). Neither comes first; nor is one
>contained within, or created by, the other (tat tvam asi). Each
>"individual
>awareness" is just a different divergence, a different face of the whole.
Yes, but each sees a different part of the whole.
>And so why does it do it? Why does the whole diverge and create these rich
>and complex patterns of awareness? My only guess is... for the sheer fun
>of
>it.
Because it should, the same reason all the way down. The original reason,
because it was expected to, it probably would. It is expectation itself,
and the being what is expected.
I don't think Quality is undifferentiated before the quality event, I agree
that the patterns of subject and object don't exist in real solidity until
then, but I think the specific way that quality is differentiated in
successive quality events is too continuous for there to be no memory
between events. That's why I think morality is a much better word to use
than quality, because people think of morality as containing enduring
morals, but quality just seems like a shining sun of pure light. The
patterns of morality exist as patterns before the event makes them real.
>take care
>rick
>
>The very problem of mind and body suggests division; I do not know of
>anything so disastrously affected by the habit of division as this
>particular theme. In its discussion are reflected the splitting off from
>each other of religion, morals and science; the divorce of philosophy from
>science and of both from the arts of conduct. The evils which we suffer in
>education, in religion, in the materialism of business and the aloofness of
>"intellectuals" from life, in the whole separation of knowledge and
>practice -- all testify to the necessity of seeing mind-body as an integral
>whole. - J. Dewey
>
>
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