From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Sat Apr 17 2004 - 21:08:20 BST
Hi Mark,
> Mark 17-4-04: The Metaphysics of Quality is an Intellectual pattern of Value.
> Christianity is not an intellectual pattern of value - Christianity is a
> combination of Social and Intellectual patterns. In so far as Christianity is, in
> part, composed of Intellectual patterns, the MoQ is superior.
That argument doesn't appear to follow. The less comprehensive is superior to
the more comprehensive? Why?
Mark 17-4-04 b: Intellectual patterns have moral authority in the MoQ, didn't
you know?
Sam quotes Mark:
> Aristotelian Metaphysics is an intellectual pattern of Values. The
> Integration of Intellectual patterns into a religion such as Christianity and Islam is
> that way in which Christianity and Islam evolve; they must evolve by
> accommodating new Intellectual patterns or die.
> But it is the Intellectual patterns which are leading this evolutionary
> process.
> Your attempt to Integrate the MoQ is the latest in a long line of religious
> attempts to stay alive; to stay alive by evolving into something new.
> It seems to me that you are failing - slowly, and by degrees, religions are
> changing to the point where they become so different from what they were as to
> become irrelevant, atrophied and static.
Putting aside the derogatory tone,
Mark 17-4-04 b: I did not wish to be derogatory Sam. This is the way the MoQ
says it is. It is the MoQ you find derogatory, not my stating it Sam. I am
sorry you find the MoQ derogatory, but please don't shoot the messenger?
Sam cont:
there's nothing here I disagree with - it flows from what I have
said about the social level being the realm of language and mythology.
Mark 17-4-04 b: Language is not restricted to the social level. Language, as
a manipulation of symbols, is an Intellectual activity. The question is
whether the manipulation of symbols is in the service of social patterns, in which
case social patterns are dominating intellectual patterns, or whether language
is in the service of intellectual patterns, in which case, intellectual
patterns are dominating social patterns.
Mythology (social patterns), while propagated via the intellectual medium of
language, is not Intellectual enquiry propagated via the intellectual medium
of language is it Sam? And Intellectual enquiry is opposed to mythology because
intellectual patterns of value have moral authority over social patterns of
value.
So, Myths, Christian, Islam or otherwise, are inferior to Intellectual
enquiry, which is what i stated above. But you somehow feel this is not
comprehensive?
Sam:
Where I think you need to
examine your presuppositions concerns the possibility of an intellectual
pattern of value being independent of mythology and language - it can't be done.
Mark 17-4-04 b: You are confusing a medium with the information transmitted
via that medium. Language may transmit social and Intellectual patterns, but
the patterns are not the language. Just as the written word is not the novel - a
novel can transmit Intellectual patterns as in ZMM and Lila.
Mythology is just another transmission. But what character of transmission?
Is it Intellectual enquiry? I feel sure the Virgin birth, to use one example,
is not the result of Intellectual enquiry?
Sam:
So: what is your mythology?
Mark 17-4-04 b: Me. I am a myth. There is no 'me' apart from a static
narrative. There is however value, and that may be experienced first hand in my
relationships with others, as we are in a relationship now. I hope you find some
Intellectual value in the relationship Sam?
Sam quotes Mark:
> Mark 17-4-04: The Metaphysics of Quality is an Intellectual pattern of Value.
> That it is valued high enough for it to be regarded as meat for assimilation
> into the body of Christianity is really a value of it as a threat to
> Christianity itself. Christianity has become one of many front lines of battle between
> social and Intellectual values, as each level tries to simultaneously respond
> to DQ.
> The MoQ is superior to religion as it explains more in terms of empirical
> experience.
That presupposes explanation as the highest good. I think there's more to
life.
Mark 17-4-04: Intellectually explanations are high Quality. The best
explanations are coherent; they harmonise and hang together in an aesthetic sense. In
fact, this is precisely what Robert Pirsig says, but i shall have to dig out
the quote. I know Paul Turner used it some time ago in a different thread and
it stuck in my mind.
So, what do we have? A coherent sense of beauty as the bench mark of
explanations. Most people involved in intellectual activities recognise this feature,
and the MoQ explains it in terms of value.
Isaac Asimov once said that learning is better than knowing. Learning is
great fun don't you think?
Sam quotes Mark:
> Mark 17-4-04: The Metaphysics of Quality is an Intellectual pattern of Value.
> Human Life has Intellectual, Social, Biological and Inorganic components. The
> MoQ explains how these for components interact. Christianity has become one
> of many front lines of battle between social and Intellectual values, as each
> level tries to simultaneously respond to DQ.
> To say Metaphysics only applies to one area of life is like saying Gravity
> only applies to one area of life. Life is lived in a Gravitational field
> (Inorganic pattern of value) on Earth - it is ignored but a crucial part of living.
> Metaphysics is a crucial part of living for many people who value Intellectual
> patterns. Intellectual life for these people strives for the best and most
> valued intellectual patterns, and that pattern is, for me, the Metaphysics of
> Quality.
> The MoQ is superior to religion as it explains more in terms of empirical
> experience.
The more that time goes on, the more I think that the MoQ - especially as it
seems to function in this forum - is a social level pattern of value. Indeed, anything that is
expressed in language is a social pattern of value (for language is social level).
Mark 17-4-04 b: No it isn't. See above.
The question is what dimension of quality is
dominating that social pattern. (In the same way that running is a biological
activity, but running in the 100m in the Olympics is at least in part a social activity).
Mark 17-4-04 b: This is beginning to wonder right out of MoQ territory Sam.
Sam:
In other words, I don't see a hard and fast distinction between a religious
mythos and a metaphysics, especially Pirsig's. They each resolve down to stories - which
Pirsig foregrounds by his own work.
Sam
Mark 17-4-04 b: Your own particular way of confusing the levels in the MoQ is
responsible for this. I do not wish to be insulting, but i have said before
that i feel you are driven to your modifications by the unacceptable nature of
the MoQ with regard to your own sensibilities?
Mark
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