From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jul 17 2004 - 12:04:40 BST
Hi Paul
I agree with what you say but would add that
the intellectual level is tied up with the emergence of
individuality in the human and non-animal sense and
also in a sense where the individual emerges from the social
and can challenge it. Clearly intellectual dynamic change begins
with the individual and genius, but it also requires the rest of the
community to understand it, but how do other inidividuals do this?
Roy Bhaskar (philosopher of science) talks about the leap the individual has
to take across
the subject-object divide to move from the explanation being given, say
about relativity theory, to actually understand it. Bhaskar says that each
individual will have to 'discover' relativity theory for themselves.
What the teaching does is to make it easier for the studen,t compared to
the genius, to step up to the gap where they will have to leap across into
understanding.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paul@turnerbc.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 9:30 AM
Subject: RE: MD the metaphysics of self-interest
> Hi Platt
>
> Platt said:
> > Ideally, all the activities you describe (using logic, fitting to
> > empirical data, making economical statements, identifying "elegance")
> are
> > done independently of social level values. A high value at the
> > intellectual level is "objectivity, that is, freedom from society's
> > influence. By contrast, groups, almost by definition, never act
> > independently of others.
>
> Paul:
> The thing with "independently of social values" as a definition is that
> it would include the inorganic and biological levels as well. It is
> *part of* a definition but not enough. It would be like defining the
> biological level as the level that is independent of inorganic values.
> "Objectivity" comes closer but seems to undermine the effort to move
> away from the idea that knowledge can be objective. In the MOQ,
> "objective" is not used in an epistemic sense.
>
> The other thing which troubles me is that intellectual patterns, on the
> whole, are not really individual at all - if they were it just wouldn't
> work. If I develop my own unique and individual mathematical notation,
> or decide that today I think it is better to work from a 400 degree
> circle, how much progress would I make? There are Kuhnian paradigm
> shifts from time to time, but if they are to latch they eventually
> become accepted by the wider scientific community and ultimately become
> part of the cultural "common sense."
>
> Also, intellectual truths and principles are often far from individual -
> intellectual laws are written in the abstract, they generally don't name
> or apply to this person or that person, they are written in general
> terms. As Pirsig says, the intellectual level is "the skilled
> manipulation of abstract symbols that have no corresponding particular
> experience.." [Pirsig, Letter to Paul T, Sept 2003]
>
> Paul previously said:
> > > Why would philosophy, mathematics, theology, geometry etc. be
> defined as
> > > "individual patterns" instead of "intellectual patterns"?
>
> Platt said:
> > Because they were all once created by individuals responding to DQ.
> As
> > Pirsig said, "A tribe can change its values only person by person and
> > someone has to be first." The patterns you cite are also dealt with
> person
> > by person, Pirsig being a fine example in the philosophy category.
>
> Paul:
> Again, I think this definition is no definition at all. From the
> biological level up, there are things done person by person. In the
> Copleston annotations, Pirsig says this of "an individual":
>
> "The individual man is primarily a biological organism."
>
> However, there is something which I think can bring us closer to
> agreement. You talk above of individuals "responding to DQ." This is
> where I would ascribe a notion of *individuality* to. This does not mean
> that Dynamic Quality is *an individual* - what it means is that activity
> that is unique, new, evolutionary, free and not guided by static
> patterns of any kind, is Dynamic Quality. Consider this statement from
> Pirsig, again from the Copleston annotations:
>
> "The MOQ, like the Buddhists and the Determinists (odd bedfellows) says
> this "autonomous individual" is an illusion."
>
> Static patterns cannot be autonomous, and an individual is static
> patterns. An individual is the static patterns left in the wake of an
> ongoing process of experience, but individuality may be said to come
> from the cutting edge of the process itself.
>
> In Lila, Pirsig talks about the immorality of the death penalty:
>
> "Societies and thoughts and principles themselves are no more than sets
> of static patterns. These patterns can't by themselves perceive or
> adjust to Dynamic Quality. Only a living being can do that." [Lila
> Ch.13]
>
> I think a living being is part of the *process* which enables static
> patterns to change - and that is where I think your "individuality"
> lies, not in any one level.
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
>
>
>
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