From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Wed Aug 13 2003 - 19:29:29 BST
Bo,
> Re. Barfield, is idealism any help if the goal is to understand the
> MOQ? Not IMO, idealism is the toughest obstacle (next to mysticism
> but that's another discussion). Phaedrus of ZMM faced the two horns
> of materialism and idealism and found the first one relatively easy to
> counter, while the second was a tougher case. Still, he avoided that
> one too through the Quality solution, therefore I am a little dismayed
> over these idealist thrusts ...particularly by Pirsig!!
What Barfield, or I, or Pirsig says is always going to sound like idealism
to a SOM-ist, and in a way it is the first step towards weaning one away
from SOM, in that in modern times, the key idea of SOM is that of
mind-independent (objective) reality. So the first objection is to say that,
no, what we call objective reality is mind-dependent, which is what Barfield
says we know in principle (since Kant, at least), but almost always forget
in practice. However, stopping here is also SOM, the idealist version, so
further work does need to be done, and that is to work out how the reverse
is also true, which leads to Coleridge's Law of Polarity: although there is
only one Power (that is, monism), it always manifests in two forces (which
he calls free life and confining form, or DQ and SQ) which *cannot be
separated*. Each force exists only because of the other, even though they
are antagonistic toward each other. So subject is totally dependent on
object and object is totally dependent on subject, and so it is not
idealism.
> We are on the very same track. Quality-cum-intelligence has evolved
> to the stage where we perceive reality as divided in S/O form. I have
> constantly been pointing to the mix-up of the intellectual level and
> "intelligence" (which is some somish term for the dynamic part of
> existence)
I despair of trying to get fixed meanings for these words. That is, in part,
my motivation for substituting the semiotic level for the third and fourth,
and then appealing to different categories to explain conflicts.
>
> > We can -- thanks to thinkers like Pirsig,
> > Barfield, Coleridge and others -- figure out that this S/O form is not
> > basic, but it takes something more than our S/O thinking to move beyond
> > it.
>
> Pirsig aside, how can idealists "move beyond" the S/O form?
Assuming you except the above that Barfield and Coleridge are not idealists,
then...
The way beyond is what they call Imagination. Goethe is perhaps the best
example of one who learned through Imagination rather than through the S/O
form. It appears to be something like "thinking with" rather than "thinking
about".
>
> > What SOM says is that the concepts and ideas derive -- are
> > abstractions -- from what the concepts and ideas are about. What I
> > (following Barfield following Coleridge following...Plato, with
> > modifications) am suggesting is that some rarified version of those
> > concepts and ideas creates the experience in the first place.
>
> Maybe you explain it here (I also see things from your exchange with
> Paul - will return to it) but there was another post from you that made
> me cock my ears, namely where you suggest a three-level MOQ, the
> upper tier "semiotic". As you may remember I once tried hard to
> explain the MOQ static levels through William Peirce's "Semiosis"
> idea. I did not see the need for collapsing anything, but still believe
> the sign idea may be useful for removing the mind-connotation from
> intellect. Is it Peirce you have in mind?
To go deeper into differentiating the static levels I think one does need
Peirce's 3-fold sign (that's Charles Sanders Peirce, not William, BTW), but
for an initial cut, one only needs the open/closed distinction. As I said in
my post about this, and as mentioned above, *if* it works out (in
particular, has nothing essential been lost in discussing moral conflicts),
*then* I see it as an advantage in that it removes the difficulty of
defining intellect, etc.
- Scott
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