From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jan 04 2004 - 20:42:45 GMT
Platt and all MOQers:
Platt wrote:
Number works beautifully at the lower levels. The question is why? And why
not at the upper levels? ...Physical forces are expressible in numbers, but
no one claims numbers create the forces. The unsolved problem is the reason
for relationship between the numbers and the forces.
dmb says:
Numbers work better at the inorganic level simply because it is the least
dynamic and therefore displays "a very consistent pattern of preferences".
The answer to the reverse question would be about the same. Why are values
at the third and fourth levels so difficult to quantify? Because they are
more dynamic and therefore exhibit a much less "consistent pattern of
preferences".
In LILA Pirsig wrote:
"The Metaphysics of Quality says that science's empirical rejection of
biological and social values is not only rationally correct, it is also
morally correct because the intellectual patterns of science are of a
higher evolutionary order than the old biological and social patterns.
But the Metaphysics of Quality also says that Dynamic Quality - the
value-force that chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious
one, or a brilliant experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one-is
another matter altogether. Dynamic Quality is a higher moral order than
static scientific truth, and it is as immoral for philosophers of
science to try to suppress Dynamic Quality as it is for church
authorities to suppress scientific method. Dynamic value is an integral
part of science. It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself."
In ZAMM Pirsig wrote:
"I think that it will be found that a formal acknowledgment of the role of
Quality in the scientific process doesn't destroy the empirical vision at
all. It expands it, strengthens it and brings it far closer to actual
scientific practice."
dmb says:
Add the role of DQ and a sense of value to logical consistency, agreement
with experience, economy of explanation, all the other rules of symbolic
manipulation and a bunch of things I haven't thought of, and we begin to see
how the MOQ might like to measure values at the intellectual level.
Platt wrote:
...my question about how to measure values at upper levels. As for art
appreciation, a trip to an auction house will show numerical values
represented by money as a measure of art appreciation. Or, check with an art
appraiser. Question: Are such monetary values strictly social level, or do
they indicate values at a higher level? Must higher level values always
revert to "I know what I like"? In other words, are intellectual and
artistic values "subjective"? If so, what happens to the denial of
subjectivity in the MOQ?
dmb says:
The MOQ doesn't deny subjectivity, it merely embedds it in a larger system.
Its not a problem to think of intellectual values as "subjective" in this
larger system because the MOQ says all static patterns of every level are
subjective, where both scientists and particles have preferences. In this
way, subjectivity is transformed from a narrow ego-consciousness as a
by-product of biological functions (SOM) into the central fact of all
existence (MOQ).
In LILA Pirsig wrote:
"Particles "prefer" to do what they do. An individual particle is not
absolutely committed to one predictable behavior. What appears to be an
absolute cause is just a very consistent pattern of preferences. Therefore
when you strike "cause" from the language and substitute "value" you are not
only replacing an empirically meaningless term with a meaningful one; you
are using a term that is more appropriate to actual observation."
In LILA Pirsig wrote:
"The MOQ resolves the relationship between intellect and society, subject
and object, mind and matter, by embedding them all in a larger system of
understanding. Objects are inorganic and biological values; subjects are
social and intellectual values. They are not two mysterious universes that
go floating around in some subject-object dream that allows them no real
contact with one another. They have a matter-of-fact evolutionary
relationship. That evolutionary relationship is also a moral one."
dmb says:
I'd like t think that the value of art can't be measured the same way we
measure the value of commodities such as food and clothing, by the
manufacturer's suggested retail price. Here I think Pirsig is saying that
classical reason is unable grasp such things except in terms of what they'll
fetch at the auction house. This commodification of the world is part and
parcel of the "emotionally hollow and spiritually empty" SOM intellect and
has much to do with that 20th century lonliness, that feeling of having to
drink life throug a straw.
In ZAMM Pirsig wrote:
"Analytic reason, dialectic reason. Reason which at the University is
sometimes considered to be the whole of understanding. You've never had
to understand it really. It's always been completely bankrupt with
regard to abstract art. Nonrepresentative art is one of the root
experiences I'm talking about. Some people still condemn it because it
doesn't make 'sense.' But what's really wrong is not the art but the
'sense,' the classical reason, which can't grasp it."
In ZAMM Pirsig wrote:
"Our current modes of rationality are not moving society forward into a
better world. They are taking it further and further from that better
world. Since the Renaissance these modes have worked. As long as the
need for food, clothing and shelter is dominant they will continue to
work. But now that for huge masses of people these needs no longer
overwhelm everything else, the whole structure of reason, handed down to
us from ancient times, is no longer adequate. It begins to be seen for
what it really is...emotionally hollow, esthetically meaningless and
spiritually empty."
dmb concludes:
People have different perceptions of quality due to each one's unique blend
of culture and biography. For someone like Lila, I imagine the whole world
of ideas was pretty foggy. I'd guess she would be lost in those waters.
Rigel probably has no problem understanding the world in conventional,
rational terms, but unlike the author, he lacks the imagination or will to
grasp its inadequacies or see beyond it. And so it is with those of us who
are not fictional.
Thanks,
dmb
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