From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Tue Aug 19 2003 - 13:08:16 BST
Hi Johnny, Matt
Johnny:
Is there a difference between "intersubjective agreement" and the
mythos?
Paul:
Well, my definition of the mythos derived from Lila is:
"The "universe of distinguishable things" stored in "complex patterns of
knowledge that are transmitted from generation to generation" by each
society." And "the collection of socially learned or approved
intellectual patterns of value"
"Intersubjective agreement" is defined by Matt (please correct me if I'm
wrong) as:
"the consensus of a community rather than a relation to a nonhuman
reality" and "the desire for solidarity with that community"
I think that, in both cases, the human and cultural conception of the
universe is stated. I think the difference is in where the "conceptions"
come from in the first place. The MOQ says Quality, the pragmatists seem
to say "history", but I'd prefer Matt or another pragmatist to answer
that, I think I've put enough words in their mouths lately :-)
Johnny:
Intersubjective agreement can be a priori, right?
Paul:
Well, in my experience the emphasis has been on learning verbally or
pictorially things which we haven't actually experienced yet, and
television kind of pre-empts most of our experiences. So, yes, I would
say the mythos is learned "a priori" to a large degree.
Johnny:
It doesn't have to be
sought while seeking truth, rather, it is forced upon us before we even
realize that we have considered it.
Paul:
To a large extent, and by the time we are able to ask what "the mythos"
is, we are in it. This is where mysticism and meditation and so on come
in, or culture shock.
"To feel that one is not so united, that one can accept or discard this
mythos as one pleases, is not to understand what the mythos is." [ZMM
p.351]
Of course, remember that Bo has declared ZMM invalid:
"...but I'm afraid you are repeating the pre-moqish observations that
Phaedrus of ZMM (who looked at it from SOM at that time) made
about "mythos" and all that. Useful to arrive at the MOQ, but
afterwards messing it up thoroughly."
Johnny:
Also, the 'which came first' thing is subtle too: the idea of the rock
and
the rock appear simultaneously.
Paul:
Both from Quality, but "the rock" never "appears", just patterns of
value, from which we deduce a "rock". And a good deduction it is too, if
one is flying at your head!
Johnny:
The rock won't appear unless the idea is there, but the idea won't
happen without a reason, a need for a rock being there.
Paul:
The empirically experienced value comes first, then conceptual
distinctions, such as "rock". When we assume that empirically
experienced value is reality, then we can postulate that the rock is an
inorganic pattern of values.
Johnny:
You can't just have an idea for a rock without a good reason, rocks
don't materialize in the middle of the table just because you might
imagine a rock there,
Paul:
Yes, in my experience, I've certainly never succeeded in producing a
rock from scratch!
Johnny:
there has to be a rock there in the mythos, an intersubjective agreement
that a rock should be there, before anyone can have an ontologically
material idea that a rock is there. The intersubjective agreement is
based entirely on SQ, a common mythos.
Paul:
I think the mythos and the result of intersubjective agreement is a
collection of intellectual patterns of differentiations deduced from
conceptually undifferentiated experience. It seems to me that the
differentiations you make as an infant are either supported by the
social relationships you are in (family, television, school etc.) or
they are dispelled by the same relationships; or you may decide that
they are low quality and discard them yourself; or you may think they
are so great and work so well that you invent new ways of communicating
them so that they either become part of the mythos or you end up getting
"treated"!
So I would say it is created by and affirmed by ongoing Dynamic Quality,
but stored, learned, and discussed as static patterns of social and
intellectual value. It's a relationship between the two, it has to be,
static patterns can't change by themselves and the mythos changes - if
you take history seriously.
Paul
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Aug 19 2003 - 13:10:11 BST