From: Joe (jhmau@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Wed Jun 30 2004 - 20:45:59 BST
On 25 June 2004 12:48 AM Dan writes to Mark H
Hi Mark
I think you may be conflating biological and social patterns of value. The
MOQ is divided into four levels plus Dynamic Quality. The inorganic and
biological level patterns of value are objective. They can be seen and
studied with scientific instruments. The social and intellectual level
patterns of value are subjective. No instrument can detect the President. As
you note, normally we think of racism as based on superficial and unfounded
reasoning-- social patterns of value -- subjective, in other words. Yet
there are differences between the races at the biological level as well as I
noted in my reply to Gav.
As for intelligence, I don't know where it comes from. I don't think anyone
does. It's been apparent to me for some time that some people are more
intelligent than others but I don't see it as a racial issue. Plus the fact
that there are so many different kinds of intelligence...you open a whole
can of wiggly worms when you start talking intelligence.
Thank you for your comments.
Dan
Hi Dan, Mark H and all,
I have previously visited objective levels of patterns in inorganic, organic
levels, and subjective levels of patterns in social, intellectual levels
from the point of view of mystical activity. I ponder 'objective
'-instrument and 'subjective'-no instrument. I am confused. The existence
of objective and subjective is real.
The objective-instrument seems to be 'accompanied by', and subjective-no
instrument seems to be 'unaccompanied'. In one sense, then, the
subjective-no instrument is perceived only by unaccompanied mystical
activity. The objective-instrument is perceived by accompanied mystical
activity. Errors in perception occur by misapplying mystical activity.
From this point of view the objective-instrument is more prone to error
since more mystical activity is required. The objective is more prone to
error than the subjective. This is not the accepted sense of objective,
subjective.
How can mystical activity be in error? Morality is between the inorganic,
organic, social, intellectual levels. Error is attributing mystical
activity to the wrong level. Mistaken identity! It happens all the time.
And wars are fought! And people are killed! And racism is biological and
social?
In the accepted sense of certainty the objective-instrument is more certain.
The instrument from a different level is mystically perceived simultaneously
with the object. The veracity of the mystical activity in two levels is
involved. The subjective-no instrument is less certain since the denial of
the veracity of only one mystical experience is involved. This is the
commonly accepted sense of objective, subjective.
I am thinking that when Pirsig proposes this division he is using a MOQ
interpretation of Subjective, Objective. IMO the MOQ interpretation is that
the difference between subjective and objective is a difference in mystical
activity. In the objective levels the measurement is proposed and there is
a mystical acceptance of what upholds the measurement. In the subjective
levels a degenerate mystical is accepted since the measurement itself is a
mystical experience. IQ tests and Social Status are mystical measurements?
IMO the origin of intelligence is a mystical experience of preferences or
tendencies. I quote from Mark Maxwell's 'The Edge of Chaos'.
"For complex system theorist Chris Langton, the idea of phase transition
also describes the sweet spot of evolution, where an emerging balance
between the solid and the gaseous obtains new behaviors. Systems out of this
dynamic and fluid balance, on the other hand, "tend to stall in two ways.
They either repeat patterns in a crystalline fashion, or else space out into
white noise." [1] But within the sweet spot, one finds perpetual novelty in
constant transition--a transition Langton calls the "edge of chaos." 1. 9
A synopsis of complexity reads as follows:
"Complexity theory is one of the most controversial areas of current
scientific research. Developing out of chaos theory, complexity suggests
that there are hidden tendencies in nature to select ordered states, even
when statistically they are vastly outnumbered by chaotic possibilities:
that there is a deep natural impulse towards order, counteracting the
degenerative tendencies of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Like chaos,
complexity is a multidisciplinary area of research and those involved
include physicists, economists and biologists. This is a study of
complexity."
The sense of preference I take from Anthony McWatt's thesis 'An MOQ
Textbook' on MOQ.org.
4.6.1. KARL POPPER'S THEORY OF PROPENSITIES
Popper makes a similar assertion about the ontological status of
propensities as Pirsig's does with values. By propensity, Popper (1990,
p.18) means the tendency for things to happen or behave in a way that is
greater than chance; what he terms 'weighted possibilities'.
Propensities, like Newtonian attractive forces, are invisible and, like
them, they can act: they are actual, they are real.
Richard Hazlewood(1997, p.3) points out the connection between Popper and
Pirsig:
"Both writers think that preference is a key term in understanding why the
universe is as it is. Popper, when writing about the evolution of species,
talks of 'preferences of organisms for certain possibilities' thus making
them propensities and Pirsig writes 'what appears to be absolute cause is
just a consistent pattern of preferences,' and he means by this, (is)
preference for certain valued relationships which we can just as easily
recognize as propensities."
For both Pirsig and Popper, subjects and objects are perceived as being part
of an event rather than the whole situation. Popper (1990, p.14) phrases it
thus:
"I have stressed that propensities should not be regarded as properties
inherent in an object, such as a die or penny, but should be regarded as in
a situation (of which, of course, the object is a part). I asserted that the
situational aspect of the propensity theory was important, and decisively
important for a realist interpretation of quantum theory".
Joe Maurer
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
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