From: David Harding (davidharding@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Sun Oct 05 2003 - 12:43:02 BST
Hi,
On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 01:20 am, Scott R wrote:
> Paul,
>
> > [Scott:]
> >
> > > "The MOQ says that Quality comes first, which produces ideas, which
> > > produce what we know as matter.
> >
> > How can Quality produce ideas if it is not Intellect?
> >
> > [Paul:]
> > Quality produces ideas; intellect is the manipulation of those ideas.
>
> Our intellect manipulates those ideas and creates new ones.
In my view "Our intellect manipulates those ideas creating new ones" would be
better as it solves the confusion with the dichotomy.
In the latter
> case is where we are connected to Intellect, as for example in Poincare's
> mathematical insights. (Many of our "creations" are not of this sort -- the
> difference being what Coleridge refers to in his fancy/Imagination
> distinction.). To restrict intellect to the manipulation of existing ideas
> is first unintelligible, since through manipulation one can create new
> ideas, and second reveals Pirsig's nominalist prejudice. The ancinet
> philosophers had no problem conceiving (and in some cases, like Plotinus,
> of experiencing) the Divine Intellect. Though it would fit in so well with
> the rest of the MOQ, Pirsig prefers to impoverish the concept of intellect
> by assigning it solely to SQ.
>
> In any case, your reply doesn't answer my question. That which produces
> ideas has to be more than just Good. In conventional language our words for
> it are "intellect", "reason", and "thinking". Not "value", "quality" or
> "good".
>
> > [Paul:]
> > Firstly, he says value is the preselection of what becomes consciousness
> > before it is possible to be thought about. It is not an "observation of
> > value", it is value that is observation. Observation creates the
> > "observer" and the "observed".
>
> I agree with this. But in the case of ideas, one has Thinking, creating the
> thinker and the thought. Ultimately they are the same (since I hypothesize
> only one Ultimate.) But this is why Pirsig's treatment of "subject" and
> "object" is a disaster. For Observation really and truly creates the
> observer and the observed, and they are qualitatively different. They are
> not both SQ, since SQ is observable, but the observer as observer is not.
I think this problem arises from the first split (dynamic/static) of the MOQ
as talk about "observation of the observer" from an intellectual point of
view is a logical contradiction. Logic does not control this value
observation however and within it there is no contradiction.
> Instead they exist in mutual contradiction. The same goes for thinker and
> thought. All experience has this irreducible tripartite form.
>
> > Secondly, he spent a whole book demonstrating that Quality is
> > "recognised" without intellect. This also applies to recognising Quality
> > that produced intellectual patterns. Remember his teaching experiment
> > "what is quality in thought and statement?" in Bozeman?
>
> He simply assumed it in the beginning. The brujo story produced the idea of
> the initial split into DQ and SQ. So far so good. But in the next paragraph
> is:
>
> "When A. N. Whitehead wrote that "mankind is driven forward by dim
> apprehensions of things too obscure for existing language", he was writing
> about Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge
> of reality, the source of all things, the completely simple and always
> new."
>
> My question is where did the "pre-intellectual" come from?
To me "Comes from" implies that Dynamic quality is part of a cause and effect
system. Dynamic Quality can't be part of a cause and effect system however,
because all cause and effect systems are static patterns. So far, all we can
say is that these static patterns emerged and that they're better than
physical nothingness.
It appears to be
> related to the phrase "too obscure for existing language." But to have a
> dim apprehension of something that escapes existing language means that one
> is thinking dynamically. One has an intimation from Intellect. One has a
> non-verbalized idea and one will either change the language to verbalize it
> or come to the conclusion that it is beyond all language. So why does he
> call this "pre-intellectual"? In my view because of a nominalist prejudice:
> he is convinced that all language and thinking is "flatus voci", all SQ,
> always merely tacked on to a really real non-linguistic, non-thinking,
> pre-existing universe of things and events. This makes the MOQ nothing more
> than materialism plus God.
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
>
>
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