From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Fri Sep 19 2003 - 17:53:03 BST
Paul and Platt (who responded similarly),
I'm clearly having trouble making my point clear :-). I've ranted before
about people confusing the grammatical subject and object (def. #4) with the
philosophical subject and object (#5 or #2), so I am not making that
mistake. The "I" is more than a figure of speech. It is a pole in a polarity
(a contradictory identity).
In brief, I find the idea that the X in X/SPoV is more SPoV just does not
work. It is on a par with the materialist answer to SOM: since the subject
is a mystery, assume it is more object. For Pirsig to make the "subject is
more SPoV" to work, he had to come up with this (thanks, Platt, for the
quote):
"By contrast the Metaphysics of Quality, also going back to square one,
says that man is composed of static levels of patterns of evolution
with a capability of response to Dynamic Quality." (Chap. 24)
This sweeps under the rug the mystery of how DQ and SQ can relate, by adding
the "capability of response" to SQ. This is arm-waving, the same sort that
materialists do in response to the question of how one complex set of
material objects can be aware of another set: it "just happens" when things
get sufficiently complex. On the other hand, if an ecology of SQ responds to
DQ, then it is dynamic, not static, or one has to say there is no identity
that "carries over" the pre-responding SQ to the post-responding SQ. Yet
there obviously is an identity (we know ourselves to be such), but it is
self-contradictory.
This is why the logic of contradictory identity is necessary. It has the
positive effect of letting one identify when one is going into error by
emphasizing one pole of a contradictory identity (aka a polarity) over the
other. In SOM, this is what happens when one chooses idealism or
materialism. In the MOQ, this happens in the above quote.
Where Pirsig goes wrong (in my opinion, and in answer to Platt's query over
differing assumptions) is back at the beginning where he discusses the
mystics' objection to metaphysics. The mystics (according to Pirsig)
emphasize "undivided experience" over language and intellect *about*
experience. Well, many mystics do just that, but not all. But while all will
agree that language and intellect is a major problem, the problem lies in
limiting beliefs, not in language or intellect itself. But Pirsig,
influenced by nominalism, treats language and intellect as less real in
comparison with this hypothetical undivided experience. I say hypothetical,
because all experience presupposes distinctions, if nothing else, the
distinction between the experience and the absence of the experience.
Indeed, experience happens *by means of* distinctions.
And so we have (from an earlier post from Paul):
"I suppose "awareness" may be used tentatively but "thinking" is
definitely not synonymous with Quality."
Why not thinking? The ability to think is just as mysterious as the ability
to be aware, or the ability to respond to DQ, or the ability to abstract, or
the ability to use language, or the ability to perceive value, or the
ability to experience. Furthermore, it is only through thinking that one
can dig out and overcome limiting beliefs, and thus grow. It is undecidable
whether such thinking is that of the little self or of the Big Self, but
then the little self *is* the Big Self (Franklin Merrell-Wolff's last
thought before his awakening was: there is nothing to attain. "You are
already That which you seek").
My conclusion (or assumption?), anyway, my message from the MOQ, with this
correction, is not that we should treat metaphysics as something one does,
like getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies, but that it is a road to
salvation. If, that is, it is oriented around identifying and removing
limitations, and not setting them. The MOQ does this well, but not entirely.
As I've said before, the intellectual level has been born, but it is still
in its infancy, and that is why it is a major problem to mystic realization.
The task is not to try to escape thinking, as Pirsig's mystics seem to want
to do, but to focus on it, because it -- *because* of its S/O form -- is
DQ/SQ tension = Quality, for us at our current stage of evolution. Note the
word "focus", and its use in def. #2 (from LC #111). When thinking about
thinking, thinking is both subject and object, yet it is not meaningless for
it to be so. Because we are able to think about thinking, to at once create
and reunite the S/O divide we have Quality right in our little selves, and
that is why the S/O divide is value in the fourth level. It is a curse as
long as one believes that the divide is an absolute one, but the L of CI
prevents that, as does the MOQ. But the L of CI also prevents denying one
side of the divide or the other, which is the error I see in the MOQ.
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paulj.turner@ntlworld.com>
> [Scott:]
> The problem is that there is no way to talk about the intellect without
> talking about an X/Y divide, traditionally called the S/O divide. But we
> can't use "object" for "Y" and since subject in the #5 sense is also
> verboten, what do we use instead? Well, in the MOQ one can refer to
> static
> patterns of value, so we have at least X/SPoV. Now what goes into "X"?
>
> [Paul:]
> More SPoV. All of the experience you are referring to, that SOM
> identifies as subject experiencing object is subsumed as static patterns
> of value created by Dynamic Quality.
>
> [Scott:]
> In the MOQ, the only thing that is not SPoV is DQ, but that is not what
> is
> traditionally thought of as the "subject".
>
> [Paul:]
> No, because "subject" is also static patterns of value. You have
> converted experience into an object and you're looking for somewhere to
> locate the subject. This is the trouble with subject-object metaphysics.
>
> [Scott:]
> So how do I talk about thinking, perceiving, feeling, understanding,
> willing, etc. in general terms, that is, philosophically?
>
> [Paul:]
> In terms of static-Dynamic experience.
>
> [Scott quoted dmb:]
> > I mean, I still don't know why
> > we would need anything more than intellect to understand the MOQ.
>
> [Scott:]
> "I understand the MOQ [or don't understand]". That's a case of the S/O
> divide, in the #2 or #5 sense. Me on one side, the MOQ on the other.
>
> [Paul:]
> "I" is a figure of speech, it is how our language is constructed,
> subject-verb-object. This doesn't mean that we have to grant language a
> metaphysically accurate status.
>
> The MOQ would probably say that the most "real" part of what is going on
> in "I understand the MOQ" is captured in the "understand" part. The
> subject [I] and object [the MOQ] of the sentence are derived from an
> experience described as "understanding" which is reducible to an
> assertion of value, the value of seeing harmony in an intellectual
> pattern. The "I" and "the MOQ" are then both described as intellectual
> patterns created by the experience, there is no separate "I" or "MOQ"
> that created the experience by "coming together".
>
> [Scott:]
> The MOQ is not an object (def. #1), so this statement is impossible,
> according to the MOQ.
>
> [Paul:]
> The statement is simply stated as it is. If you then go ahead and work
> out a metaphysical explanation of "what just happened" then, as above,
> you have to untangle the sentence which is constructed in a
> subject-verb-object way and work out how value has created the
> experience which the sentence describes. If you wish to do so. It's
> certainly easier to believe the SOM version which is implicit in our
> language and write the MOQ off as a bit screwy.
>
> [Scott:]
> The same applies to all his examples, like mathematics. If I think about
> a
> statement about triangles, and want to prove it, I (subject) treat the
> concepts triangle, line, etc. as objects (sense #2).
>
> [Paul:]
> That is a perfect subject-object metaphysics statement, taking the
> English language as metaphysics in itself. Think of it another way, a
> math problem is solving itself by creating ideas in a pattern of values
> called "Scott" that thinks it is solving the problem! Sounds crazy, I
> know, but it's amazing how many musicians and artists describe how a
> masterpiece "created itself".
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
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