From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 18:53:24 BST
Hi Rick
On 1 Aug. you spoke this:
> Sorry to be naive again, but I have no idea what this comment about
> religious faith and holy scripture is supposed to mean. Why would an
> outsider to a religious faith think that a holy scripture is 'one and
> the same' as 'inner reality' (and what is this 'inner reality' you
> refer to)? I don't consider myself religious at all (certainly not in
> any conventional sense), yet, I don't think that any religious
> scripture is 'one and the same' as any 'inner reality'. I must be
> completely misunderstanding you here, please re-explain :-)???
Let's drop this point, it wasn't very good - my fault.
> Inorganic matter is the starting point of reality? And to think you
> had the moxie to accuse me of practicing SOM :-). You want to get
> into some real MoQ technicalities Bo? I'm game. Let's do it ;-).
> Technically speaking, the first MoQ premise (ie. the first moral code)
> is 'the law of nature' by which inorganic patterns triumph over chaos
> (LILA ch13 p183), which means that the starting point of the MoQ is
> not the 'inorganic universe', or even the STATIC sequence at all, but
> is rather 'chaos'. "Chaos" (I suspect) is just more of Pirsig's
> jargon for pure, untamed, undivided, unpatterned Quality. That is,
> once, as you say, 'the MoQ premise' is accepted (and 'premises' are,
> of course, ideas), the starting point of reality is pure undivided
> experience (pure Quality) from which 4 static categories of experience
> can then be drawn. It further holds that it is very good to believe
> that the levels appeared in chronological order, starting with the
> inorganic and culminating in the intellectual.
That the static evolution unfolds in a Quality setting I took as granted,
but in THAT setting the inorganic level is the first one. If you like to call
DQ "chaos", OK. The remark that premises are ideas may be OK too,
but does that mean intellectual patterns? When pre-intellectual
humans started from the premises that existence was governed by
gods and goddesses was that "intellectual patterns"? No, as little as
the premise that the MOQ premise is an intellectual pattern ...out of
intellect but not at home there.
> To put it all together: A 'metaphysics' is an intellectual pattern
> that asks, in the broadest sense, "what is there?" To answer this
> question, a metaphysics first has to ask how we know what there is.
> Then it can go about dividing up that knowledge into categories.
How many metaphysics do you know? We only have SOM and MOQ,
if you think that Leibniz, Kant or anyone else has done something
faintly resembling Pirsig you are mistaken. Those were merely S/O
philosophers ...and as such truly "intellectual patterns" To return to
my proverbial stone-ager, don't you think he wondered about things
and made "divisions" from the conclusions he drew? But he had not
reached the stage when he asked how he objectively could know.
THIS IS Q-INTELLECT'S WAY!
> Pirsig believes that all of our legitimate knowledge of what there is
> arises from our senses and thinking about what our senses provide
> (LILA ch8 p113). By thinking about what his senses provided him with,
> Pirsig realized that the metaphysical question of what there is could
> be answered more coherently when one holds the idea that Quality is
> the primary reality and everything else is a sub-species of Quality.
No disagreement here!
> The contents of the universe (which obviously include Pirsig's ideas)
> could then be categorized on the basis of those sub-species of Quality
> (ie. dynamic/static, and the 4 static levels).
From Intellct's S/O premises "Pirsig's ideas" weren't part of the
"contents of the universe", but he transcended it and found that
Quality is the source of the S/O divide itself. Through this Copernican
Revolution the everything changed into that arrangement you say.
> I think that this might be the precise point of dispute which defines
> our larger disagreement. I don't think that DQ 'resides' in the MoQ.
> Rather, I think the term "Dynamic Quality" is an intellectual
> place-holder for things which evade metaphysical categorization.
Agree, this IS the bone of our contention. That DQ is part of the
"description" you must admit, then if it can be described or defined is
another matter. I agree with that "place-holder for things which evade
metaphysical descriptions" There are things that I too believe are
facets of the one great denominator.
> But the MoQ doesn't claim that 'mind' is the primary reality. It
> claims that Quality is the primary reality (maybe it's time for you to
> head back to MoQ kindergarten?).
It's too complicated to repeat. Let's drop that too.
> I see it like this: From within the perspective of a Metaphysics of
> Quality, everything is a subspecies of value, a subject-object
> metaphysics is a good idea, and a Metaphysics of Quality is a better
> one.
Exactly, only that the SO divide is so good that I want it to be the
whole of Q-intellect. The MOQ is supposed to replace the SOM, how
can these two reside as "metaphysics" side by side inside intellect?
Even Pirsig tucks the S/O under the MOQ in the known fashion - not
as one intellectual pattern.
> From within the perspective of a subject-object metaphysics,
> value is code for subjective preference, a subject-object metaphysics
> is the only good idea, and a Metaphysics of Quality makes no sense at
> all.
Correct, but how can SOM exist beside the MOQ? They are two
separate realities.
In my opinion.
Bo
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