From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Fri Aug 08 2003 - 16:24:24 BST
Hi Platt and Squonk
This is a good thread! If I may throw in some supporting Pirsig quotes?
Platt:
We agree on a lot, Squonk. But here I must question your "artistic
creations of intellect"
Platt:
So, artistic creation doesn't come from intellect but from that sense
within each of us that responds to the creative force of DQ. It's known
to the us as a sudden flash of insight, the light bulb going off, the
surprising connection we make between two or three heretofore unrelated
patterns.
Paul:
To add weight to Squonk's aesthetic interpretation of intellect, but to
clarify the DQ-SQ relationship at work that Platt alludes to, check out
this passage from ZMM:
"Poincaré then hypothesized that this selection is made by what he
called the "subliminal self," an entity that corresponds exactly with
what Phĉdrus called preintellectual awareness. The subliminal self,
Poincaré said, looks at a large number of solutions to a problem, but
only the interesting ones break into the domain of consciousness.
Mathematical solutions are selected by the subliminal self on the basis
of "mathematical beauty," of the harmony of numbers and forms, of
geometric elegance. "This is a true esthetic feeling which all
mathematicians know," Poincaré said, "but of which the profane are so
ignorant as often to be tempted to smile." But it is this harmony, this
beauty, that is at the center of it all.
Poincaré made it clear that he was not speaking of romantic beauty, the
beauty of appearances which strikes the senses. He meant classic beauty,
which comes from the harmonious order of the parts, and which a pure
intelligence can grasp, which gives structure to romantic beauty and
without which life would be only vague and fleeting, a dream from which
one could not distinguish one's dreams because there would be no basis
for making the distinction. It is the quest of this special classic
beauty, the sense of harmony of the cosmos, which makes us choose the
facts most fitting to contribute to this harmony. It is not the facts but
the relation of things that results in the universal harmony that is the
sole objective reality.
What guarantees the objectivity of the world in which we live is that
this world is common to us with other thinking beings. Through the
communications that we have with other men we receive from them
ready-made harmonious reasonings. We know that these reasonings do not
come from us and at the same time we recognize in them, because of their
harmony, the work of reasonable beings like ourselves. And as these
reasonings appear to fit the world of our sensations, we think we may
infer that these reasonable beings have seen the same thing as we; thus
it is that we know we haven't been dreaming. It is this harmony, this
quality if you will, that is the sole basis for the only reality we can
ever know"
Platt:
Seems to me we're able to draw upon a lot more than a limited
repertoire of patterns to express ourselves, especially if you think of
individual words as individual patterns.
Paul:
I think "repertoire" is closely linked with the "analogues" described in
the following passage; therefore we seem to have a cultural and
individual repertoire with which to respond to Quality. Is this how you
see it Squonk?
squonk: Very much so. I like the term repertoire for its artistic flavour.
All patterns, inorganic, organic, social and intellectual share a living
relationship with DQ - and the best coherent relationships have high aesthetic
appeal.
"Men invent responses to Quality, and among these responses is an
understanding of what they themselves are. You know something and then
the Quality stimulus hits and then you try to define the Quality
stimulus, but to define it all you've got to work with is what you know.
So your definition is made up of what you know. It's an analogue to what
you already know. It has to be. It can't be anything else. And the
mythos grows this way. By analogies to what is known before. The mythos
is a building of analogues upon analogues upon analogues." ZMM Ch28
Cheers
Paul
Hello Paul and Platt,
This hits the nail on the head in all respects in my view. It is the
aesthetic that drives our intellectual patterns - the Quality of their harmony.
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