From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 10:59:14 BST
Hi Scott
I have written a separate post concerning your application of the logic
of contradictory identity to the MOQ. I am aware that this is an
integral part of your understanding as a whole but in this post I have
tried to pick up on what I see as an idealist theme in your reworking of
the MOQ.
> Paul:
> See, here is something I'd like to go into:
>
> "But with the demotion of the S/O divide to a static pattern of
> intellectual quality one loses the ability to integrate Pirsig with
> Barfield."
>
> I was trying to discuss how the S/O divide is laid out in the MOQ to
> see if we agree on that for a start. I don't think we do.
Scott:
In the MOQ, it is called a static pattern of intellectual quality, no?
Paul:
In the MOQ, the symbolic differentiation of experience between subject
and object is a static intellectual pattern. The patterns of experience
which the symbols of subject and object stand for are described by the
MOQ as inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual. In other words,
experience is not limited to and is not solely created by intellectual
patterns.
Scott:
That
is what I am proceeding from, and objecting to. It makes it sound as
though somebody a few millenia ago had the *thought* "I am a subject and
I observe objects", and everybody else said "That's a great thought".
Paul:
It shouldn't make it sound like that. The intellectual level, according
to Pirsig's definition, did not just spring into existence with the S/O
divide. It is simply thinking, whenever thinking started in whatever
way, this is the beginning of the intellect. Determining the exact
beginning is, I believe, unnecessary.
Scott:
Reading
Barfield, one understands that people for a long time could not have
this thought becuase they *were not* subjects opposed to a world of
objects. They did not have their own thoughts at all.. But consciousness
evolved into the S/O form, producing the intellectual level.
Paul:
"But consciousness evolved into the S/O form, producing the intellectual
level."
This is the same as Bo, along the lines of....my interpretation of the
MOQ is that the intellectual level begins with the S/O form, I therefore
conclude that....
Scott:
Something that produces the
intellectual level cannot be a static pattern of the intellectual level.
Paul:
Your interpretation causes the problem! Pirsig is clear that, in the
MOQ, any experience referred to as consciousness is to be considered as
intellectual patterns. Neither consciousness nor the S/O divide created
the intellectual level. Pirsig proposes that Dynamic Quality created
intellect/consciousness.
"...the MOQ states that consciousness (i.e. intellectual patterns) is
the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that
stand for patterns of experience..." [Lila's Child Note 32]
This makes no reference whatsoever to whether or not the intellectual
patterns must include a concept of "self" or "thinker". If you think
this is inadequate, ill-conceived, confusing, illogical, and that
another model is better, then fine, we discuss that. However, to avoid
confusion [mine, at the very least], please be clear when you are using
MOQ terminology [such as "intellectual level"] in a way that is contrary
to Pirsig's published definitions.
> Scott:
> Furthermore, since the S/O form is so familiar to us (it *is* us as we
> see ourselves in our fallen state), it is our avenue to
> understanding/not-understanding DQ/SQ. As I said a while back, while
> the MOQ gets rid of a lot of SOM dualist platypi, it does not get rid
> of the many/one dualism.
>
> Paul:
> No, it invokes it. And it says that S/O is a further division of the
> many.
Scott:
And there it goes wrong. The S/O divide is the simultaneous creation of
the one into the many, and the return of the many to the one.
Paul:
I disagree, subjects and objects are just ways of describing "the many".
I think that the enduring subject, the self, is as much an abstraction
from patterns of experience as the supposedly independent objects. I
think your failure to discriminate between "subject" [static] and what
you call "pure subject" [Dynamic] leads to problems which don't
otherwise come up in the MOQ.
Scott:
Thinking, however, is not an object. It
is the S/O divide, and hence a case of the DQ/SQ divide.
Paul:
Well, this is what we are discussing. You say it as if it is a given. In
the MOQ, and in my opinion, the S/O divide is not a case of the DQ/SQ
division. This is idealism, the MOQ is not an idealist metaphysics.
Scott:
The value of the
S/O divide is the divide, as Bo has said. We naturally place the
inorganic and biological on the O side, and that lets us be detached
from them, allowing for science, and so forth. The next step is to
detach ourselves from social and intellectual SQ, to move them over to
the O side as well, to see that my thoughts are not me, but society's or
when truly detached, are
universal (as in mathematics). All that is left, then, is S as DQ. But
see above on Merrell-Wolff.
Paul:
Okay, to put this in Buddhist terms, I think you are unnecessarily
conflating particular or small mind (static intellectual quality) with
universal or big mind (Dynamic Quality). In doing so I think you
postulate an idealist metaphysics. The use of the terms "intellectual
quality" and "Dynamic Quality" is intended to prevent such conflation by
doing away with the word "mind" and the vagueness that comes with its
use. Barfield also conflates the two, which is no coincidence of course
:-)
"..mind or consciousness is not the function of an organ, though it
makes use of organs, the brain among others...it is not a mysterious
something spatially encapsulated within a human or animal skin, but it
is the inner side of the world as a whole, just as the individual mind
is the inside of one human being." [Barfield, Towards]
This is where I think Barfield and Pirsig differ and where you have to
make the choice between the two. Pirsig reduces mind into value.
Barfield [and Coleridge?] seems to reduce mind into...well, bigger,
collective mind?
> Paul:
> As I have tried to explain, I don't think the MOQ does reject subjects
> and objects, I think it embeds them into a larger metaphysical
> structure as static quality. In doing so, the difference between them
> is resolved into an evolutionary relationship. Pirsig just believes
> that there are better ways to talk about and understand static
> experience than subjects and objects, as four evolutionary levels is
> one way; the MOQ doesn't just pretend the experience isn't there. This
> is why I want to try and stay on the problem side of the discussion
> before jumping into solutions.
Scott:
I too am embedding them into a larger metaphysical structure, but as a
case of DQ/SQ, not as static quality. One's descriptions are, to be
sure, static, but one's describing isn't. Thinking is traditionally
assigned to the subject, but is not static. Thinking is S-producing-O,
DQ-producing SQ.
Paul:
In an idealist metaphysics it is, but not in the MOQ. [I think the
difference between idealism and the MOQ is worth discussing though]. It
must be remembered that Dynamic Quality is not "mind" or
"consciousness".
> Paul:
> Okay, where does this leave the MOQ? What does it look like after such
> a transformation? DQ/SQ at the intellectual level is synonymous with
> S/O?
Scott:
The MOQ accounts for moral conflicts beautifully, but I have to admit
that I find Coleridge's philosophy (as described by Barfield) provides a
philosophy of mind and nature (which turn out to be the same, operating
on different
levels) that is more comprehensive that Pirsig's. The main point is
there in
Pirsig: Quality, and the DQ/SQ distinction being the same as Coleridge's
"two forces of one power", but one needs to see that S/O is a case of
those two forces to see that our ordinary minds work the same way that
nature works, and more importantly, that nature works the same way our
minds work.
Paul:
The point of the DQ/SQ distinction is that "mind" [static intellectual
patterns] and "nature" [static inorganic-biological patterns] arise from
something which is neither mind nor nature [Dynamic Quality]. So
although in a Dynamic understanding they are the same
[undifferentiated], in a static sense they are different patterns. As
such, as no static differentiation carries over into Dynamic Quality, I
think that seeing thinking, or "subject" [static intellectual patterns]
as synonymous with Dynamic Quality defeats the purpose of the division.
In a nutshell, it seems to me that trying to bring Coleridge/Barfield
and Pirsig together doesn't work and doesn't help in understanding the
vocabulary of either.
Is that unfair?
Cheers
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 Sep 09 2003 - 11:01:52 BST