From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sun Jan 18 2004 - 07:38:26 GMT
Paul and Apostles.
I see that a lot of arguments has arrived in the meantime, but I
don't have your automatic writing ability.
13 Jan. you said
> Because the post he is responding to is all about SOM. You're really
> clutching at straws here Bo.
Of course it's about SOM. The first part about SOM employing
social structures - may pass your muster, any pattern of any level
"employ the former level's values" (an organism made up of
matter) but the second about the MOQ employing SOM
reasoning is an "inter-level" relationship.
> 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.
Right, that's my reasoning and examples of other intellectual
patterns is impossible to find unless Q-intellect's value is defined
as "thinking", but after Pirsig's letter you can't defend that. In the
same letter he speaks of the Orientals having developed (AN)
intellect independently of the Greeks. It can't well be that they
developed an ability to "manipulate symbols" ..but rather that
they started to look for what was "imperishable in the affairs of
men" (objectively true regardless of opinion) I would have given
much to to have him elaborate.
> 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.
I don't like this "your metaphysics" much. This is about one single
static level. But I'm afraid that to many Q-intellect is the "mind" of
the MOQ and degrading it is sinful.
> 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.
Who is doing the splitting? I maintain that inside a levels all
patterns answer to the same value. While this ...not being
subordinate ...indicates a different level.
> There is a hierarchy within each level. Are all
> societies equally good?
As societies come the simplest are the most stable while the
complex ones will collapse more easily, but from the Quality view
the latter are the best because they are necessary to support the
intellectual development. A nomadic tribe could not have brought
forward the intellectual level, the Greek city state was necessary.
> In the intellectual level, the MOQ is, for us,
> at a higher level than SOM, as well as many other intellectual
> patterns.
"Many other (non-SOM) intellectual patterns". Give me ONE
example.
> 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."
Mathematics got its "profile" with the Greeks and SOM as part of
their search for the Immortal Principle (number mysticism).
"Math" before them - geometry for instance - was employed by
the great cultures before the Greeks (before the intellectual era
according to Pirsig). And regarding Quantum Mech, the theory is
S/O through and through, yes, it's very WEIRDNESS is for the
reason that intellect can't handle the dynamism revealed at the
"bottom" of the inorganic realm ,,,and starts talking about the
observing SUBJECT influencing the outcome.
> 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."
I do for the reason that when Pirsig starts to elaborate, the
SO=intellect pops up.
> 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.
To use biology as an example. I believe your misconception is in
comparing a human being to - say - a germ, but the former is of
two more LEVELS. The human as an organism is subject to the
same conditions as the germ. More fragile even and may die
from a germs' attack while not being able to kill the germ!
> 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?
I know that Pirsig has denied it verbally, but LILA and later
comments (even when he is out to disprove it) carries that
impression, and he was much more careful in your letter than in
"Lila's Child".
> 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,
Well, as you may have seen Steve and I have discussed this and
we may have something promising here. (I'll dedicate a coming
post to this "last straw".)
> the MOQ defines it a species of good by bringing truth and quality
> back together.
What is NOT "a species of good" in the MOQ?
> 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.
Then Intellect is simply "thinking"? How this is different from
SOM I have trouble seeing, and as in SOM's idealist view,
everything is mind ......everything is intellectual patterns ...
intellect goes the way down ...all levels being "intellectual" ...are
a few samples of SOM under a thin MOQ glaze.
IMO
Bo
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