From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Nov 22 2003 - 18:29:19 GMT
Hi Scott, Platt
I pretty much agree with Scott. If you want to talk about
pre-intellectual unity and quality that's fine. If you want to talk about
levels and SQ you've got to define this by saying that you are talking
about patterns, or processes or phenomena that repeat. DQ has got to be
available if there is unity, polarity, or movement between levels. DQ
emergent
properties, creativty and event unique-ness, surely has a potential to occur
wherever. The first example of a process is always unique DQ, it has to have
at least a second occurence to be classified as SQ. The fact that DQ
withdraws
and allows SQ to occur is quite amazing.
Platt
What do you think you gain by suggesting that the cutting edge of reality
where DQ occurs cannot be intellectual. This would seem to support
irrationalism.
Yet DQ is clearly capable of impressive achievement and purposeful and
coordinated activity. I see DQ as at the cutting edge of what becomes
reality.
Reality is always a sort of determining of the actual from the greater
fullness of the
potential. What is sort of clear about the way the levels develop and become
more
complex, is that the world and potential of the entities/beings at the
different levels
increases. What I mean is that a plant may have a choice about the way it
grows, animals
may have to choose between differnet behaviors and man has to create his
whole
existence, but for man the choices and complexity if what is possible is
greatly enhanced.
I would argue that reason is to a large extent this capacity of man to both
possess and be aware
of a great range of possibilities and consequences and values that he has to
choose between.
This intellectual capacity and awareness of a great range of possibilities
enables man's cutting
edge of reality to have a unique and individual quality of intellect. What
interests me about nature is
that her achievements are in many ways even more impressive and show a
capacity to choose
between possibilities, based on the value of achievement (extra complexity
and flourishing life),
over and above a level that is individualistic. It is the ultimate arrogance
to think that intelligence begins
and ends with man. Just take a look around at the world and cosmos. Nature
produces intelligence,
the human kind is perhaps just a certain individualistic kind. What is your
approach Platt and what advantages
do you think it has?
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 6:13 AM
Subject: Re: MD matt said scott said
> Platt,
>
> > > Ok. I agree with Matt and Steve, though, that it is better to think of
> > > it as accompanying the information of the physical senses (and mental
> > > processes) rather than being a "sixth" sense, though I don't think
much
> > > rides on this point.
> >
> > Think of it as you will, but a lot does ride on the point because the
> > fundamental premise of the MOQ is that some things are better than
> > others, an axiom you have to accept in the process of trying to deny
> > it. (Any denial carries with the unspoken claim that it is better.)
> > Without a basic, separate sense of value, betterness would not be
> > recognized and evaluations of experience wouldn't occur.
>
> I fail to see the need for separateness. That is, I don't object to the
> phrase "sense of value", but do think it is cumbersome to describe it as a
> sixth sense. There is no biological/physical organ involved in perceiving
> value like there is for sight or hearing. And there are other such
> non-organic senses, like the sense that the tree I see is not me, the
sense
> that my thoughts are produced by me, emotions, and so forth. The word
> "sense" in these cases is used differently than when one refers to the
> standard five senses.
>
> > > It does not help in this process, but what you describe is pretty much
> > > limited to scientific hypotheses. It doesn't work with metaphysical
> > > hypotheses, because they cannot be verified by the physical senses. As
> > > in my favorite example: I disagree with Pirsig that it is DQ that gets
> > > one off the hot stove. I say it is SQ, a biological reflex. How are we
> > > to decide between these two via an appeal to the physical senses?
> >
> > By an appeal to the physical sense of value. Given the MOQ's
> > explanation of evolution vs. the scientific explanation, my sense of
> > value informs me that DQ gets one off a hot stove prior to any notions
> > of biological reflexes or other intellectual patterns you wish to
> > invoke. (To attribute something to biological reflexes is fine if you
> > don't want to inquire as to how or why those reflexes evolved.)
>
> You are saying "Can't you sense it: that DQ there?" and I say no I don't
> sense it in the moment. I sense value, of course, but not that something
new
> and creative is going on. That DQ created the SQ that I call a biological
> reflex I don't deny. But to say that it is DQ that gets me off the stove
> basically says that it is DQ that is responsible in the moment for every
> event that happens, which as I see it makes the concept of SQ meaningless.
> If we don't restrict DQ to the creative, then there is no way to
distinguish
> the creative from the automatic.
>
> >
> > > A more
> > > important matter is the claim that everything is value. I don't
dispute
> > > it, but can conceive of no logical deduction from that that can be
> > > verified by the physical senses.
> >
> > I agree there's not much that can deduced from "everything is value."
> > But if the claim is that everything is a continuum of value from low to
> > high, then our physical sense that some things are better than others
> > verifies the claim.
>
> Why call it physical? That word usually refers to the inorganic.
>
> >
> > > Anyway, the L of CI can be used when the methodology you describe
fails.
> > > It fails when the topic for which one seeks an explanation cannot
> > > escape
> > > contradiction. An example is our awareness of things changing. To be
> > > aware of a thing changing we must remain the same before and after the
> > > change (we are continuous). But in becoming aware of a thing we are
> > > changing. To be continuous we must not be continuous. To be aware of
> > > ourselves changing, we must not be changing.
> >
> > Such paradoxes, like "the present never changes but everything that
> > changes in the present," simply show the limits of intellectual
> > patterns (Godel et al) and the necessity to acknowledge that experience
> > includes DQ, the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source
> > of all things. I would guess that you have no difficulty relating to
> > the reality of experience which cannot be spoken of. As Pirsig says,
> > "The "Absolute' means the same as "Dynamic Quality' and the
> > 'nothingness' of Buddhism." (LC, note 91.)
>
> Actually, I believe he said (in an email to Ant, to be found on the SOLAQI
> site) that the Buddhist "nothingness" was the same as Quality, not DQ.
But,
> whichever, yes, I have no difficulty with it. I do have difficulty with
the
> word "simply". The limits of intellectual patterns should be seen as the
> cutting edge of intellect, where DQ is alive and present in each of us.
That
> is why I despair of Pirsig for calling DQ "pre-intellectual".
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
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