From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Sat Mar 20 2004 - 04:25:11 GMT
Hi Platt,
I understand you will be busy, and i have to get my head around Sartre's
Being and Nothingness. :-( Gloomy. Tres gloomy!
Hi Mark,
I'm going to be tied up for the weekend so won't have time to respond
completely to your good post. But here's my reaction to your answer to my
first question:
> > Mark 18-03-04: Beauty is a coherent patterned relationship with Dynamic
> > Quality. (9 words).
>
> Great. Now I'm confused as to the meaning of 'coherent pattern' because if
> you mean by 'coherent' something that is 'logical,' beauty is inexplicable
> in logical terms. If you mean be 'coherent' something that is 'ordered,'
> then 'pattern' becomes redundant because patterns by definition are
> ordered. I'm not just being nit-picky for the fun of it; I'm really trying
> to grasp your concept.
>
> Mark: 19-03-04: Sincere thanks for perseverance Platt. I hope it leads
> somewhere? My dictionary defines 'cohere' as: To be logically or
> aesthetically consistent. (Variations of this bring in consistency of
> purpose also, but it's a long quote.) Here we see the terms 'logic' and
> 'aesthetic' appearing in the same definition. I like this, because for me,
> logic IS an aesthetically coherent intellectual pattern of value evolving
> in a relationship with DQ.
I agree that logic is an aesthetically satisfying intellectual pattern of
value. But wouldn't it be more accurate to say it evolved as a result of
DQ's influence on it's creator, Aristotle?
Mark 20-03-04: Aristotle lived in an evolving continuum of patterns:
If truth (an intellectual pattern of value) is a species of the Good, then
truth, where ever found, is of the Good, and beautiful. Aristotle's patterns of
intellectual value evolved over his life time from the static repertoire he
inherited from his contemporaries. This can be shown - Aristotle's logic is an
expansion of previous rhetorical devices for winning arguments. So, the sum
total of Aristotle's evolving Intellectual patterning becomes an element in a
continuum - an aesthetic continuum - which may be said to be increasing in
coherence. Today's logic is just as much a continuation of that evolution as was
Aristotle in his time - it's all part of the same evolving aesthetic continuum.
In MoQ terms, the sum total of all intellectual patterning is being driven by
DQ, and is simultaneously evolving towards DQ, in a complimentary principle
of predetermined harmony (Quality - Tao). I feel the term Coherence is fruitful
for conveying this process, because it is used by Pirsig himself to describe
the effect the MoQ has when applied to the interpretation of experience.
Coherence is the degree to which evolution has pushed the static repertoire.
The more evolution advances, the more severe coherence becomes. Thus, we have
a term which includes two motions: DQ as the motivation of evolution, and DQ
as the goal towards which evolution is heading. Coherence is here and now. When
coherence fades, patterns become more static and less beautiful. When
coherence increases, evolution moves forward and beauty is more intense.
> Poincaré talks of the beauty of maths, and
> maths is nothing if not logical? So, no problems there re: the MoQ. If the
> working definition of beauty becomes, a coherent patterned relationship
> with Dynamic Quality, then Logic may said to be, a beautiful intellectually
> patterned relationship with DQ.
Mathematics is logical, but it's an entirely separate discipline from
logic. There's symbolic logic that sort of looks like math, but it's a far
cry from the sort of mathematics physicists use to describe things like
relativity and string theory. Logic as used in the dictionary definition
of 'coherence' refers I'm sure to Aristotelian logic, not higher
mathematics, and thus is a static intellectual pattern whose
'relationship' with DQ has long since passed. So I would say yes, logic
may be said to be a beautiful intellectual pattern, but it has no
relationship to DQ now having remained basically unchanged for a thousand
years. (Fuzzy logic, a fairly recent intellectual pattern, is also a
static pattern at this point.)
I sure I haven't explained myself too well, so please don't hesitate to
challenge anything I've said. More to come later when I get a chance to
absorb the rest of your post.
Best to you,
Platt
Mark 20-03-04: Thanks Platt.
Mark
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