From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Jan 27 2004 - 15:47:14 GMT
Hi Steve:
> Platt said:
> > In another post you wrote ". . . the dolphin could not perceive any value
> > in the pattern of spoken symbols . . ." and attributed its learning
> > ability to the biological (instinct) level and perhaps the social
> > (copying) level. So, in the dolphin's case it would seem its awareness is
> > a function of its level...
>
> Steve says:
> Or you could say that it's level is a function of its awareness which is a
> way of saying that Quality creates static patterns.
Well, I doubt if the dolphin is aware of the level it occupies, but I see
your point.
> > Platt said:
> > It seems to me that awareness (Quality) at all levels is closely
> > associated with the level in which the awareness occurs.
>
> Steve:
> Let me first explain how I understand awareness and quality. Starting with
> my own experience or awareness understood as Quality, I infer other value
> relationships in everything I experience. These value relationships are
> the MOQ's static patterns. Thinking of these patterns of experience as
> manifestations of Quality suggests that everything I experience is itself
> also awareness.
Hmm. Not sure I understand. Patterns like a tiger are also awareness? Do
you mean dynamic awareness/static patterns are simultaneous phenomena? If
so, I agree.
> I distinguish directly experienced value (i.e. Quality) and inferred value
> (i.e. static patterns of quality and dynamic quality) where inference is
> itself a type of direct experience (i.e. participation in intellectual
> value patterns). To actually be Quality is to value or to be aware. Pirsig
> says something to suggest this sort of internal/external view of Quality in
> ZAMM where he relates Quality and care, though I may be 'subtly slipping
> back into subject-object thinking.' Let me know if you think I am.
The way we use language "to be aware" implies "to be aware of" something
which slips us into subject-object thinking very easily. In fact, our
language is SOM infected through and through. I think that's why Pirsig's
ideas are so hard for many to grasp. Many of them are expressed in
language that presumes an S/O understanding, yet he tries to convince us
even as we cling to that understanding that there's a better division (and
resulting description) of experience than S/O. It's tough to shake off
thinking habits of a lifetime. You seem to have altered your thinking to
reflect the MOQ by inferring "value relationships in everything you
experience." Perhaps you can further explain what you mean and what
"tricks" if any you use to shift your outlook.
> To infer patterns of any kind, one must rise to the intellectual level
> since inferences are intellectual constructs.
Agree. I assume "patterns of any kind" would include "levels." That's why
I questioned your statement above that a dolphin's "level is a function of
its awareness. Identification of levels require a rise to the intellectual
level which, so far as we know, is beyond a dolphin's ken.
> I don't think there is a
> need to invoke a higher level to explain how intellectual level entities
> are aware of intellectual patterns. Intellect is defined as the skilled
> manipulations of abstract symbols that stand for patterns of
> experience--any pattern of experience. Intellect's symbols can stand for
> other intellectual patterns as well as they can stand for other types of
> patterns of experience.
Obviously you're not as concerned about infinite regress as I am.
Intellectual symbols standing for other intellectual symbols seems to me
to inevitably result in symbols chasing symbols around in circles.
> I think evaluation of intellectual patterns happens on the intellectual
> level as explained above.
This is our difference. I think evaluation of intellectual patterns
happens, like all evaluations, pre-intellectually just as in the hot stove
example. What stops the infinite regress of thinking about thinking about
thinking ad infinitum is "That's a good thought," expressed only after
intuitive or instinctive evaluation of the "goodness" or "betterness" of
the thought occurs.
> I also think a higher level above the
> intellectual could never be defined because definition is an intellectual
> activity. A lower level (intellect) can't contain a hypothesized higher
> one (mystical).
Agree. We can't define it, we can only point to it while trying not to
mistake the finger we point to it with for the moon. :-)
Regards,
Platt
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