From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Tue Jan 13 2004 - 11:12:37 GMT
Hello Bo
Bo quoted PIRSIG:
> > "It employs SOM reasoning the way SOM reasoning employs social
> > structures such as courts and journals and learned societies to
> > make itself known.
Bo said:
" ....the way SOM reasoning employs social strutures"!!!!! See, he
treats SOM as representative of the value that followed social value and
employs its value (in the known way). Nothing about any "intellect" that
the SOM is a pattern of. If intellectual value were
something else than SOM he would have spoken of this as "employing
social structures", but no, he goes straight to SOM.
Paul:
Because the post he is responding to is all about SOM. You're really
clutching at straws here Bo.
Bo said:
This is most telling, where does my reasoning go wrong?
Paul:
Your reasoning goes wrong because you see each level as being *one*
value, SOM is the major intellectual pattern to have emerged in the west
and so this forces you to conclude that *the value* of intellect is SOM.
Thus, when Pirsig is saying that the MOQ uses subject-object reasoning
for its own purpose, your metaphysics has no way to accommodate anything
else in intellect but SOM, therefore you have to postulate your fifth
level.
As an analogy, biological patterns devour other biological patterns for
their own purposes but this does not mean that we need to split the
biological level. There is a hierarchy within each level. Are all
societies equally good? In the intellectual level, the MOQ is, for us,
at a higher level than SOM, as well as many other intellectual patterns.
In Lila's Child, in the same post by Platt that provokes the comments
from Pirsig that you are discussing, Platt writes: "Far from condemning
SOM, the Metaphysics of Quality holds it to be the highest level yet
achieved." To which Pirsig replies: "Within the intellectual level,
mathematics, especially quantum mechanics, seems higher to me."
Bo quoted PIRSIG:
> > SOM reasoning is not subordinate to these social
> > structures,
Bo said:
That SOM isn't subordinate to society goes without saying, but here it
is again: He treats SOM as representing the intellectual level
Paul:
Where? When you hear "SOM" you hear "intellect."
Bo quoted PIRSIG:
> > and the MOQ is not
> > subordinate to the SOM structures it employs.
Bo said:
Then he goes on to say that the MOQ has a similar relationship to SOM
(or intellect) See, that means that it is out of intellect ...in the
known way of employing SOM without being subordinate to it.
Paul:
The relationship is that of a higher pattern to a lower pattern. But if
you start from the false premise that all patterns of a level are of
*the same value* you cannot accept this.
Bo quoted PIRSIG:
> > Therefore to say that the MOQ is based on SOM reasoning is as useful
as
> > saying that the Ten Commandments are based on SOM reasoning.
Bo said:
The Ten Commandments belong at the social level, thus when he says that
they are not based on SOM reasoning he says that they aren't
intellect-based. See, he uses SOM and intellect as if they are
identical.
Paul:
Where? He has repeatedly denied that SOM and intellect are identical in
the same set of annotations that you are now trying to use to contradict
him. Is Pirsig really playing games with us? Is he so messed up that he
can't be consistent from one note to the next?
Bo said:
And about the MOQ being based on SOM reasoning. Up above he actually
says that the MOQ employs SOM's reason the way SOM's reason employs
social structures". It points to the MOQ being "out of SOM" ...in other
words beyond intellect.
Paul:
It points to a higher quality pattern using a lower quality pattern. I'm
not sure that the MOQ is "out of SOM" either. He goes back behind SOM to
the "oldest idea known to man" to perform a root expansion of
rationality. In my interpretation anyway.
Bo said:
If the MOQ is just another intellectual pattern it is of the same nature
as SOM. At the other levels there is continuity from the lowest pattern
to the highest, why such an inconsistency at intellect?
Paul:
The continuity in intellect is that they all are patterns of
independently manipulable symbols. If you are looking for an overriding
value then it is truth. Truth is the not specific to SOM, the MOQ
defines it a species of good by bringing truth and quality back
together.
Both SOM and the MOQ can be "reduced" to patterns of thought which can
be graded on their "truth" and many other high quality intellectual
patterns are not based on SOM.
Paul
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