From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Mon Feb 23 2004 - 08:25:04 GMT
David M and MD
Sorry for the delay, but I have to work on things, a limitation most
of you aren't hampered by.
On 19 Feb. you spaketh thus:
> I feel that the fog that lies between us will never lift,
> but I press on.
Was it Joe who said that mystic means "initiated", there is some
initiation required for all who come from SOM and think it's a
smooth transition to the MOQ.
> Now I did not say, I believe, that in the MOQ
> the subject simply becomes part of SQ. Rather, this is what I am
> saying: Quality is a whole. It exists prior to SOM as much as it
> exists prior to MOQ's SQ/DQ divide -with a unifying Q in each term of
> course. This is my ontological starting point.
A super-DQ that divides into DQ/SQ is dubious. It compares to a
GOD who is prior to the usual God. No I think it more reasonable
to regard the MOQ a VALUE reality that constitutes the static
system.
> Now SOM divides
> EVERYTHING into either subject or object. MOQ divides EVERYTHING (the
> same everything) differently into SQ/DQ. Now where is subject and
> object in SQ and DQ?
This is semantics. The subject/object metaphysics is a S/O
reality, the MOQ a DQ/SQ one. No "everything" waiting to be so
divided. It compares to "being dead" which is an impossibility;
yet, a "state" that language forces upon us us creating much
anxiety - horror maybe.
> I say that SOM almost ignores DQ in its scheme
> but if anywhere it shows something of itself in the subject.
SOM not only ignores DQ it ignores VALUE as anything but part
of its subjective realm.
> You can
> see this in German idealism, where it talks about the world being
> constituted by the subject.
Yes, that's the idealist (subjective) half of SOM, the materialist
(objective) camp protest this and says ...you know.
> Now in MOQ the SQ/DQ divide is less down
> the middle than SOM and sort of over to one side. There is DQ with
> nothing static about it, and then the great realm of SQ (containing
> all the levels).
He he, well it may be seen that way, on the other hand ...:-)
> Reason, the Greeks etc, have been obsessed with SQ
> and therefore ignored DQ (forgetting of Being as Heidegger calls it,
> or better translated by Becoming in fact) because DQ is beyond
> analysis.
Firstly: The intellectual level is correctly interpreted as 'reason',
but reason is incorrectly interpreted as thinking or logic (the ability
to reason), and as such it is used in ALL philosophical systems -
those that belong to the social level as well - to prove the
existence of anything: God, heaven and hell, ghosts, nirvana,
samsara ... you name it. But in the MOQ it becomes the true
(dictionary) kind: The value of "objectivity over subjectivity".
Now, the Greeks obsessed with SQ...etc. ALL static levels are
"obsessed with its particular value and the SOM that grew from
the Greek experience is not merely "objectivism" but
"subjectivism" as well; IT IS THE MIND/MATTER UNIVERSE
where - as soon as the subjective part is established - the
objective thwarts the logic ...and vice versa. I may do Heidegger
injustice maybe his "being" corresponds to DQ, but without a
"static becoming" realm he has not created the same great
system.
> SQ/DQ divides the world about as much as a tangent divides a
> circle. So if you place objects in the MOQ divide they are entirely
> static (once established and simply repeating , i.e.exempting the
> emergence of organic/inorganic itself).
The method of placing objects in the inorganic and biological
levels does not work, why I say that Intellect is the VALUE of the
S/O divide. Thereby they are static, but in addition SUBJECTS
are static too, something that is entirely in the MOQ "spirit" after
Pirsig had seen in ZMM that intellect created the S/O divide
> Subjectivity is more complex,
> for me there is an element of DQ in our notion of subjectivity, a tiny
> element in a way, so this tiny bit of the subject belongs to DQ, the
> rest of subjectivity belongs to SQ.
Please David, this is no good, the SOL interpretation makes short
thrift of the whole bl...dy SOM juggernaut. That's its beauty and
why I will fight any re-introduction of SOM till the end.
> Pirsig then goes on to discuss
> levels. Levels are formed by SQ patterns. Inorganic object patterns,
> organic object patterns
Why SQ patterns? It is STATIC patterns. Full stop!
> and then it gets tricky, social patterns have
> a subjective element, without human subjectvity there would be nothing
> social, so these are 'sort-of' social-subject patterns (because the
> notion of subject has always had a large static element to it), then
> we have intellectual-subject patterns.
This is the very uglyness: Pirsig introduces a Quality
Metaphysic's that begins with the inorganic world ...etc, to start
about "everything is human inventions" is to re-insert the SOM
where the idealist has the upper hand: It is child's play to prove
that everything is in our mind.
After the SOM is rejected - convincingly in ZMM - it is poison to
go back to the mind/matter premises, why I said that I despaired
over some utterings in Lila's Child. Pirsig has created a new world
and in this the subjective/objective is made a static level and thus
without any metaphysical bearing. One may reject the MOQ ..by
all means, say that it is nonsense from end to end, but if one
accepts it, it must be accepted totally. The halfway method is
doomed.
> These are the static levels of
> Pirsig. It has an objective and subjective divide in it because
> subjectivity and objectivity are notions full of static patterns, but
> there remains something about subjectivity in SOM that has a hint of
> DQ about it, i.e. take the linking of the notion of freedom to
> subjectivity.
I can't start from scratch again. From what I have said you know
that this I regard as obscuring the beauty of the MOQ.
> The breakthrough that MOQ gives us is to be able to
> conceptualise in DQ the DQ aspect of experience that has been
> increasingly covered up by the SOM approach as it has become rigid.
> The other breakthrough is to be able to see all the static patterns
> that exist within our usual/common conception of subjectivity and
> giving them the same ontological status as so-called objective
> patterns. So you could also say that social and intellectual patterns
> can now be seen as objective, because they are patterns and can be
> analysed and have assertions made about them just like the lower level
> patterns. But also they remain more open to dynamic change than the
> lower levels, i.e. society and ideas are always changing, but so do
> the lower levels, new species, and new molecules are created.
Ditto.
> The matter/mind subject/object distinction and metaphysics are
> overthrown
Yes, for heaven's sake, so stop all this about some subjectivity
clinging to the MOQ patterns ... objectivity too by the way?
> because we can see using the MOQ that there are patterns on
> all the levels, they create the levels. And beyond the static levels
> is DQ in all its wonder. (Bo you seem to talk about the MOQ (meaning I
> assume the DQ/SQ divide with SQ levels) as if it is DQ, as if it is
> beyond the static levels where analysis/thinking/intellect can do what
> they do best. For me the beyond, the transcendent, the capacity to
> create something out of nothing is what we have the mystical
> conception of DQ for. Also IMO you seem to confuse the different
> meanings of subjectivity and objectivity that come to play in Pirsig's
> work as Paul described very well.). So Bo, any clearer, can you see
> where we disagree or agree, because I cannot put my finger on it.
You certainly have learned something from the dreaded German
Idealists :-)
IMO
Bo
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