From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Fri Oct 10 2003 - 17:58:48 BST
Hi Bo
[Bo:]
But the point of OUR debate is that the S/O divide isn't valid, the
DQ/SQ is.
[Paul:]
Right, but we are talking about divisions made at different positions in
a hierarchy and it is important not to confuse the place of the S/O
division within the MOQ and the place it has in a SOM system. In the
MOQ, the S/O divide is a valid division of static quality [although an
unnecessary one, once subjects and objects are seen as levels of value
there are better terms to use].
As you know, in the MOQ reality is first divided between Dynamic Quality
and static quality. The relegation of the S/O division from the top
position to a secondary position allows the inclusion of undefined value
[which is not contained in either subject or object] into a rational
framework without which the static elements of reality cannot be
ultimately reconciled.
Once subject and object, mind and matter, are all described as static
patterns of value they are different only as a result of a Dynamic
process of evolution, and as such share equal ontological status.
Before you wield your usual argument, this doesn't come from "the
annotating Pirsig" either. It is contained in Chapter 12 of Lila.
"These patterns have nothing in common except the historic evolutionary
process that created all of them. But that process is a process of value
evolution. Therefore the name "static pattern of values" applies to
all." [Lila p.176]
As "matter" is a symbol standing for an intellectually deduced pattern
of inorganic experience, and as all intellectual patterns are also
social, and all social patterns are also biological, and all biological
patterns are inorganic...
"...what the Metaphysics of Quality concludes is that all schools are
right on the mind-matter question. Mind is contained in static inorganic
patterns. Matter is contained in static intellectual patterns. Both mind
and matter are completely separate evolutionary levels of static
patterns of value, and as such are capable of containing the other
without contradiction" [Lila p.178]
[Bo:]
Thus there [is] no separate idea realm that gives rise to
things.
[Paul:]
Quality gives rise to experience, and to the ideas with which experience
is conceptualised as "things".
[Bo:]
Ideas are part and parcel of the S/O aggregate
[Paul:]
Ideas [along with society, life and matter] are part and parcel of
static quality.
[Bo:]
...which is
best seen as MOQ's intellect, because there is even an inconsistency
in the S/O as "...having no connection" and that of being stages. The
inorganic universe existed for billions of years with no "subjectivity".
[Paul:]
So it is currently believed, but that is a belief which didn't exist
before [subjective] science invented it. So whilst the MOQ agrees with
your statement, it is important to realise that the validity doesn't
come from some kind of correspondence to what really happened, the MOQ
says that this hypothesis has been selected from all others because it
is currently better than all others at explaining what it explains, or
at the very least, has the most social approval [within some cultures]
of all competing explanations. It is the "betterness" which justifies
the "truth" of a belief.
> [Bo:]
> The postulate of Quality coming first I fully accept, but within this
> context the first static "product" is inorganic value ...
> [Paul:]
> Within the MOQ intellectual framework, that is correct. The highest
> quality intellectual pattern says that inorganic nature comes first.
Well, at least you dropped the idea bit, but you see that we are back
to the logic bend. Within the MOQ INTELLECTUAL framework the
intellectual level is the last stage, and there one finds the MOQ (DQ
and all). There is something terribly wrong here.
[Paul:]
The thing that is "terribly wrong" is the belief that we are somehow
able to detach the knower from the known, the observer from the
observed, the describer from the described, the metaphysics from the
metaphysics. This culturally ingrained belief is what creates your
"logical bend", the bend is hidden behind the assumptions that created
logic itself.
[Bo:]
This is why I want to see the intellect as the S/O divide ...and the
MOQ as something beyond ....then (with all screws in place) you can
say: "Within the MOQ framework." The MOQ can never be
understood from intellect's premises without creating
inconsistencies.
[Paul:]
Metaphysics tries to describe the nature of everything that exists. A
metaphysics itself is obviously not everything that exists, therefore it
necessarily describes more than what it is. Furthermore, if a
metaphysics is describing everything that exists, it necessarily has to
describe itself within its description.
Your constant bemusement is that the MOQ describes itself as an
intellectual pattern of values. Of course it is, within its own
vocabulary, it isn't inorganic, biological or social, and surely you are
not equating the MOQ with Dynamic Quality?
One "solution" is to remove the MOQ itself from both the static patterns
and from Dynamic Quality, which means it is removed from the whole
metaphysics into a position as a "God's eye" observer of reality,
describing everything in existence from afar while being beyond this
existence itself, just like the place a materialist metaphysics has in
the reality it describes. It denies itself an existence!
Your "solution" is to delay the inevitable by saying that the MOQ is a
"rebel pattern", a "budding fifth level offset to the other levels" etc.
but rebel patterns and budding levels, offset [whatever that means] or
not, are still within a metaphysics which is still part of its own
description, and as such fall victim to exactly the same "logical bend"
that you accuse the MOQ of creating.
[Bo:]
A little reflection on things. I have at times alluded to the post-X
struggle for what were to become X-tianity. This is of course
preposterous, yet with all possible reservations this IS a struggle for
the "soul" of the MOQ, and maybe you and I represent the extreme
positions most clearly. In an earlier post in this thread you spoke a
little of how these words:
> "The MOQ says that Quality comes first, which produces ideas, which
> produce what we know as matter. The scientific community that has
> produced Complementarity almost invariably presumes that matter comes
> first and produces ideas. However, as if to further the confusion, the
> MOQ says that the idea that matter comes first is a high quality
idea!"
> [Lila's Child p.202]
..... did something for your understanding (I spotted a "deliverance"
tone (nothing wrong with that :) and the vehement way that you
oppose my criticism of this particular part indicates a certain worry
that the RIGHT way will perish. The reason I say this that you - at
least
- seem to understand what direction I want the MOQ to move. My
worry is the directly opposite: this quote will destroy the MOQ as I
intuitively perceived it. I feel that the annotating Pirsig somehow -
for
inscrutable reason - has let down Phaedrus of ZMM who made a
clean break with SOM by rejecting BOTH horns. The reason? As
there are references to Quantum Theory I suspected a fraternization
with science (Physics) in an effort to make the MOQ house clean to
those circles. After LC my position looked bleak, but after the last
letter (I can't thank you enough for that) things have improved, and I
appreciate your will/ability to see its implications - you even hinted
to a
revaluation of certain points (Phew, messages flash by, I note things
of interest, but soon it's "snowed under") So, as long as Pirsig isn't
"crucified" he may come even further in the next letter.
[Paul:]
At the moment, I don't wish to change the ideas presented in Robert
Pirsig's MOQ and I don't wish to persuade him to change his ideas
either. Right now, I am trying to understand them.
In terms of "fighting for the soul of the MOQ", I don't think I
represent anything other than my own understanding.
With regards to advancing the MOQ, what I'd like to get into more is
finding empirical support for the claims made by the MOQ. Mark's recent
essay is, to me, a step in the right direction.
I have also started to introduce some of the MOQ vocabulary into
everyday understanding, particularly in my work. My work is heavily
involved in the business world which is all about coping with change and
gaining advantage, two things about which I think the MOQ has something
original to say.
Cheers
Paul
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